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Collection  de 
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Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notaa/Notas  tachniquas  at  bibliographiquas 


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Couverture  de  couleur 


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Covers  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Couverture  restauria  et/ou  peliiculte 


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Le  titre  de  couverture  manque 

I      I    Coloured  maps/ 


Cartes  giographiquas  en  couleur 

Coloured  init  (i.e.  other  than  blue  or  black)/ 
Encre  de  couleur  (i.e.  autre  que  bleue  ou  noire) 


I      I    Coloured  plates  and/or  illustrations/ 


Planches  et/ou  illustrations  en  couleur 

Bound  with  other  material/ 
Ralii  avac  d'autres  documents 

Tight  binding  may  cause  shadows  or  distortion 
along  interior  margin/ 

La  re  liure  serr6e  peut  causer  de  I'ombre  ou  de  la 
distortion  le  long  de  la  marge  intirieure 

Blank  leaves  added  during  restoration  may 
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have  been  omitted  from  filming/ 
II  se  peut  que  certaines  pages  blanches  ajoutias 
lors  d'une  restauration  apparaissent  dans  le  texte. 
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Additional  comments:/ 
Commentaires  supplimantairas; 


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L'Institut  a  microfilm*  le  meilleur  exemplaire 
qu'il  lui  a  tti  poasibia  de  se  procurer.  Les  details 
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nne  image  reproduite.  ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une 
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I      I   Coloured  pages/ 


Pagea  da  couleur 

Pages  damaged/ 
Pages  endommagias 

Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Pages  restaurias  et/ou  pelliculAes 

Pages  discoloured,  stained  or  foxed/ 
Pages  dicolortes,  tachaties  ou  piquAas 

Pages  detached/ 
Pages  dAtachies 


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r~l   Showthrough/ 


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Quality  inAgale  de  I'impression 

Includes  supplementary  material/ 
Comprend  du  material  suppl^mantaire 

Only  edition  available/ 
Seule  Mition  disponible 


D 


Pages  wholly  or  partially  obscured  hy  errata 
slips,  tissues,  etc..  have  been  refilmed  to 
ensure  the  best  possible  image/ 
Les  pages  totalement  ou  partiallement 
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etc.,  ont  Ati  filmies  A  nouveau  de  fa^on  A 
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The  copy  filmed  h«r«  ha*  b««n  raproducMl  thanks 
to  th*  ganarosity  of: 

Douglas  Library 
Quean's  University 


L'axemplaira  film*  fut  reproduit  grAce  A  la 
gAnArositt  da: 

Douglas  Library 
Queen's  University 


The  images  appearing  here  are  the  best  quality 
possible  considering  the  condition  and  legibility 
of  the  original  copy  and  In  keeping  with  the 
filming  contract  specifications. 


Original  copies  In  printed  paper  covers  are  filmed 
beginning  with  the  front  cover  and  ending  on 
the  last  page  with  a  printed  or  llluetrated  Impres- 
sion, or  the  back  cover  when  appropriate.  All 
other  orlginel  copies  are  filmed  beginning  on  the 
first  pege  with  e  printed  or  illustrated  impres- 
sion, and  ending  on  the  last  page  vvith  a  printed 
or  illustrated  impression. 


Les  images  suivantes  ont  AtA  reproduites  avec  le 
plus  grand  soln,  compta  tenu  de  la  condition  et 
de  la  nattet*  de  rexemplaire  fiimi,  et  en 
conformity  avec  les  conditions  du  contrat  de 
filmage. 

Les  exemplaires  originaux  dont  la  couverture  en 
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pramlAre  pege  qui  comporte  une  amprainte 
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la  dernlAre  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 


The  lest  recorded  frame  on  eech  microfiche 
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TINUED "),  or  the  symbol  y  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  applies. 


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ces:  le  symbols  «►  signifie  "A  SUIVRE".  le 
symbols  V  signifie  "FIN". 


Meps,  plates,  charts,  etc.,  may  be  filmed  at 
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beginning  In  the  upper  left  hend  corner,  left  to 
right  end  top  to  bottom,  aa  many  frames  aa 
required.  The  following  diagrama  Illustrate  the 
method: 


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1 

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AG 


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a 


INDUSTRIAL  HISTORY 


CP  THB 


UNITED   STATES, 


iFrom  tfjr  lEarliest  Settlements  to  t\)t  present  SEtme: 


M 


BEING 

A  COMPLETE  SURVEY  OF  AMERICAN  INDUSTRIES, 

EMBRACING 

AGRICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE;   INCLUDING  THE  CULTIVATION 
OF  COTTON,  TOBACCO,  WHEAT;   THE  RAISING  OF  HORSES,  NEAT- 
CATTLE,    ETC.;    ALL    THE    IMPORTANT    MANUFACTURES, 
SHIl'FING    AND    FISHERIES,    RAILROADS,    MINES    AND 
MINING,    AND    OIL;    ALSO    A    HISTORY    OF    THE 
COAL-MINERS  AND  THE   MOLLV   MAGUIRES; 
HANKS,    INSURANCE,   AND   COMMERCE; 
TRADE-UNIONS,    STRIKES,    AND 
EIGHT-HOUR    MOVEMENT; 


TOGETHER   WITH   A   DESCRIPTION  OF 


CANADIAN    INDUSTRIES. 


Sn  Btbtn  iSooItis. 


COPIOUSLY  ILLUSTRATED   WITH  ABOUT  THREE  HUNDRED  ENGRAVINGS  BY 
THE  MOST  EMINENT  ARTISfS. 


BY 


ALBERT  S.  BOLLES, 

LECTURER    IN    POLITICAL    ECONOMY    IN    BOSTON    UNIVERSITY,   AND  AUTHOR 
OF    "the  CONl-LICT   BETWEEN   LABOR  AND  CAPITAL,"  AND 
"chapters  IN    POLITICAL  ECONOMY." 


NORWICH,  CONN. : 
THE   IIENIIY   BILL    I'UMLISHING   COMPANY. 

1881. 


r' 


HC  103    B  15 


Copyright,  1878,  by 
The  Henry  Bill  Puulishing  Company. 


\   \ 


Franklin  Press: 

Bltcirotyped  and  Printed  by 

Rand,  Aviry,  &>  Co., 

Boston. 


/ 


I- ', 


**> 


PREFACE. 


...'^.•> 
^>^' ' 


THE  present  work  was  projected  by  the  author  several  years  ago,  and  is 
now  given  to  the  public  in  the  belief  that  it  will  prove  really  useful, 
inasmuch  as  nothing  worthy  of  the  name  has  appeared,  while  the  field  itself  is 
quite  as  deserving  of  study  as  any  other  portion  or  phase  of  American  history. 

A  great  variety  of  materials  have  been  collected  and  used  in  the  present 
undertaking :  many  facts,  also,  have  been  gathered  from  conversation  with 
persons  who  were  more  or  less  ^miliar  with  some  special  l)ranch  of  American 
industry.  The  author  has  sought  to  make  proper  acknowledgment  for  all 
facts  and  incidents  herein  related,  though  doubtless  he  has  failed  to  do 
justice  to  every  work  and  author  from  whom  special  information  has  been 
drawn.  On  page  56  he  omitted  to  state  that  the  statistics  relating  to  ship- 
ments of  cotton  were  taken  from  Mr.  Dana's  valuable  work  entitled  "  Cotton 
from  Seed  to  Loom  ; "  while  it  ought  to  be  mentioned,  that,  in  the  introductory 
chapter,  free  use  has  been  made  of  the  short  but  excellent  sketches  of.  Ben  : 
Perlcy  I'oorc  and  Charles  L.  Flint  of  the  History  of  Agriculture  contained  in 
the  United-States  Agricultural  Reports,  as  well  as  the  paper  of  the  latter  on 
American  Horses  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  same  publication.  Likewise, 
in  describing  the  Pittsburgh  riots  of  1877,  liberal  use  was  made  of  the  mes- 
sage of  Ciov.  Hartranft,  which  contained  a  very  concise  and  tnithful  account 
of  that  shocking  aflair. 

Nor  would  I  (a\\  to  express  my  very  great  indebtedness  to  Henry  Hall  of 
"The  New-York  Tribune,"  and  James  Hall  of  Norwich,  Conn.,  without  whose 
assistance  the  preparation  of  this  work  for  the  press  would  have  been  much 
longer  delayed. 

To  Mr.  C.  A.  Cutter,  Librarian  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  my  sincerest 


809S15 


iv 


PREFACE. 


thanks  are  due,  and  are  hereby  tendered,  for  the  exceedingly  liberal  use  of  the 
books  of  that  institution ;  and  also  to  the  Librarian  of  the  Boston  Public 
Library  for  special  privileges  of  a  similar  character.  I  would  further  add  my 
obligations  to  the  Librarian  of  the  Astor  Library  for  the  privilege  of  consulting 
to  my  best  advantage  the  treasures  of  that  collection.  The  aids  thus  obtained 
from  these  three  noble  institutions  were  invaluable :  indeed,  without  them,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  the  author  to  have  executed  the  present  work. 

Norwich,  Conn.,  Oct.  If,  1878.  *• 


PRKFACK   TO  THE  THIRD   EDITION. 


THAT  two  editions  of  this  work  sliould  be  exhausted  within  a  few  months 
strongly  verifies  the  author's  belief,  when  writing  it,  tiiat  such  a  work  was 
needed.  Since  the  first  edition  was  issued,  changes  and  improvements  in  the 
text  and  illustrations  iiave  been  made,  which,  it  is  believed,  will  render  the 
work  still  more  valuable  to  the  reader. 

THli   AUTHOR. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


BOOK  I. 

AGRICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE. 

CIIAI'TER  I. 
General  History 1-31 

lotroduclory.  —  Indian  Agriculuire.  —  Colonial  Agriculture  in  the  Southern  Colonies.  —  Colo- 
nial Agriculture  in  the  New-England  Colonics.  —  French  Colonial  Agriculture.  —  Effects 
of  American  Revolution.  —  Causes  of  Progress  in  Agriculture.  —  Homestead  Laws.  — 
Agricultural  Societies.  —  Granger  Movement.  —  Agricultural  Education  and  Literature. 
—  Establishment  of  State  Boards  of  Agriculture. 

CHAPTER  H. 
Agricultural  Implements 32-45 

CHAPTER   ni. 
Cotton 46-61 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Wheat 62-72 

CHAPTER  V. 
Corn 73-79 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Sugar  and  Molasses '  I0-89 

CHAPTER  VII.  ^ 

Tobacco 90-9S 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Grass  and  Hay 99-101 

T 


I  I 


vi  '  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Minor  Crops •••    102-iij 

CHAPTER  X. 
Neat-Cattle 1 14-126 

CHAPTER  XI. 

lit'l-TKR   AND  ClIEESB I27-I36 

CHAPTER   XII. 
The  Horse ijr-M'"^ 

The  Troliing-Horse,  —  The  I'auiig-Horie. 

CHAPTER    XHI. 
Sheep 149-156 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Swine «S7-'63 

CHAPTER   XV. 

HORriCUUURK,    iNURSERIES,   AND    pRUIT-KAISINd 164-18I 


BOOK    II. 

MANUFACTURES. 


1 


CH.M'TEK    I. 
Manufacture  ok  Iron  and  Stfei 185-216 

E.irly  History.  —  Forty  Years  of  Rcprcssinn  .mil  StniRRlc.  —  The  EiTcct  of  T.iriPTs. — The 
Era  of  Anthracite  Kiicl  and  the  Hot  llhisl.  —  The  (Jrowth  nf  Rolling-Mills.  —  Influence 
of  Paris  Exposition  on  Americ.-in  Iron-Maniifaclure.  —  The  Manufacture  of  Steel. 

vs 

CHAPTER   1 1. 
Ikon  and  Steel  Manufactures :i7-3iS 

Nails.  —  Cutlery.  —  Clocks  and  Watches.  —  Iron  Pipes  and  Tnhes.  —  I^.omotivcs.  —  Sewing- 
Machines.  —  Firc-.Arms.  —  Iron-working  Machiner>'.  —  Axes  ami  S.iws  —  .Stoves.  —  Safes. 
—  Iron  Bridges,  —  Printing- Presses.  —  Wire.  —  Water-Wheels.  —  Locks.  —  Pumps. 


s 


CHAPTER   HI.                          ** 
Manufactures  of  Gold,  Silver,  and  Other  Metals 316-368 

Coinage.  —  Jewelry.  —  Gold  and  Silver  I-eaf.  —  Silver  'I'alilc-Ware.  —  Copper  and  Brass  TTten- 
sils.— Bronze  Ware  and  Statuary.  — Hells.  —  Lead-Manufactures.  —  Stereotyping. — 
Tin  -Ware.  —  Toys.  —  Applications  of  Zinc. 


1 

CONTRNTS.  Vii 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Manufacture  ok  Wool 369-40* 

(Jcncral  History  of  ilie  Woolkn-Manufaclure. —  Spinning  and  Weaving.  — Hati. —Carpets. — 
Shoddy.  —  Clothing.  —  Hosiery. 

CHAPTER  V. 
TnK  Manukaciurk  (jk  CorroN 403-426 

CHAPTER  VI. 
SlLK-MANOfACTURE 427*443 

CHAPTER   VH. 

Shok  ANn  I.F.ATiiKR  MANUt^ACTURis 444-456 

CIIAPTKR   VI H. 
Pater  ano  PArER-HANOiNcjs 4S7-4'i8 

CHAPTER   I\. 
Gunpowder  and  Fireworks       .       .        .       •       <  ....    469-478 

CHAPTER   X. 
India-Ruiimkr  Manufactures 479-4^7 

CHAPTER  XI. 
CiiEMicAi.  Manufactures 488-496 

CHAPTER   XH. 

Wood  and  DriiER  Manufactures 497-559 

Lumlwr.  — Wood -Working  Machinery.  —  Furniture.  —  Starch.  —  Wine,  Spiriu,  and  Beer. — 
Cordage  and  li.igging. —Soap. —  Flour.  —  Miisic.il  Instruments. —  Matches. —Gl.-is»- 
Warc  and  Tottery. —  Glue. —VencerinB.  —  Carri.igcs  and  Cars.  ; 

CHAPTER   XIH. 
Conclusion 560-565 

-*  BOOK    III. 

SHIPPING  AND  RAILROADS. 

CHAPTER    I. 
Wooden  Ships       ...     * 569-582 

CHAPTER   II. 
Steamboats 583-59.5 


'h 


!h 


Viii  CO  A' TENTS. 

CHAPTER   III. 
Iron  Steamships 596-tio2 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Canau O03-60H 

CHAPTER   V. 
The  Fisheries ()09-6i8 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Railroads 619-664 

BOOK    IV. 

MINES  AND  MINING,  AND  OIL.  ' 

CHAPTER    I. 

MiNiNO 667-672 

General  Hutoiy, 

CHAPTER   II.  9 

Gold       . 673-685        > 

CHAPTER  III. 
Silver 686-692  . 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Lead 693-696 

CHAPTER  V. 
Copp'-R 697-703 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Coal 704-734 

Coal-Minen.  ^  The  Molly  Magulret.  —  Later  Hit tory.  —  Biluminous-coa!  Mining. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Iron 73S-747 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Minor  Metals 74^-753 


CONTENTS.  ix 

CHAPTER   IX. 
QUARRVINO 754-759 

^             CHAPTER   X. 
Salt 760-767 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Petroleum 768-780 

BOOK    V. 

BANKING,  INSURANCE,  AND   COMMERCE. 

CHAPTER    I. 
Banking 783-812 

Early  Colonial  Period.  —  Firit  Bank  of  the  United  States.  —  Second  Bank  of  the  United  Stale*. 
—  Stale  Banks.  —  MassachiiKtts.  —  New  York. —  Uliio.  — Indiana.  —  Illinois.  — Ken- 
.ucky.  —  Tenneuee,  —  Miuiisippi. 

CHAPTER   II. 
^    Insurance 813-849 

Marine.  —  KIrc.  —  Life.  — Accident. 

CHAPTER   HI. 
Commerce 8SO-87& 

Ante-Revolutionary  Period.  —  Post-Revolutionary  Period. 

BOOK   VI. 

TRADE-UNIONS  AND   EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT. 

CHAPTER   I. 
Trade-Unions 88i-«88 

CHAPTER   II. 
Eight-Hour  Movement 889-890 

CHAPTER  HI. 
Later  History  of  Trade-Unions 891-903. 


II 


r, 


X  CONTENTS. 

BOOK    VII. 

THE  INDUSTRIES  OF  CANADA. 
The  Industries  of  Canada        ....  907-936 

The  I"isheri«s.  —  The  lumber-Trade.  —  Mining.  —  Farming.  —  Manufacturing. 


itl 


;  t  \ 


BOOK  I. 


AGRICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE. 


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1, 

INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY   OF   THE 
UNITED    STATES. 


CHAPTER  I. 


GENERAL  HISTORY. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

FOR  ages  historians  have  been  busy  in  writing  about  political  and  military 
events,  leaving  quite  out  of  sight  the  social  and  industrial  life  of  nations, 
as  unworthy  of  notice.     To  recent  historians  a  truer  historic  instinct  has  been 
given  ;  and,  by  uniting  with  it  a  broader  and  more  profound  cul-   D,„g^g„j 
ture,  they  are  setting  before  the  world  juster,  more  varied,  and  methodaof 
more  complete  pictures  of  the  civilization  of  the  past.     Other  his-  ^["'"'  *"**" 
torians  there  are  who  exhibit  only  a  single  side  or  phase  of  material 
life,  but,  unlike  their  predecessors,  are  concerned  not  less  with  political  or 
military  events  than  with  social  and  industrial  characteristics. 

It  is  true  that  a  history  of  agriculture  is  free  from  those  startling  sensations 
which  spring  from  the  vivid  description  of  battles  and  othei  operations  of  war, 
the  intrigues  of  diplomacy,  the  uncertain  and  checkered  course  of  importance 
legislation,  the  wild  freaks  of  rulers,  or  the  tragedies  and  comedies  of  history  at 
of  social  life.  But  agriculture  possesses  an  interest  for  us  as  deep  '*'  "^^ 
and  abiding  as  any  other  phase  of  history.  It  is  a  healthy  study  ;  for  we  are 
taken  out  of  doors,  are  brought  into  intimate  relationship  with  Nature,  and 
learn  of  her  boundless  generosity  and  rewards  for  well-doing.  Moreover,  it  is 
a  history  of  some  of  man's  greatest  triumphs,  won,  not  by  striking  down  his 
brother,  but  by  conquest  over  Nature  through  accident  or  experiment. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  has  proved  so  attractive  to 
the  world's  greatest  men.     When  the  Roman  patrician,  Cincinnatus,  left  his 
farm  to  assume  the  dictatorship  of  Rome,  he  betook  himself  to  _. 
his  gentle  occupation  as  soon  as  he  had   delivered   his   country  men  have 
from  the  enemy.     And  likewise  Washington,  when  retiring  from  ''""  ■''*" 
the    cares    of   state,   fled   to   Mount  Vernon,  where,  amid   his 
rich  and  numerous  acres,  he  daily  drank  heavy  draughts  of  pure  enjoyment, 
for  which  he  had  often  longed  during  an  anxious  civil   career  and  the  still 


^-.---fi-j^^^<^@i«feMMlMI 


2  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

more  troubled  days  of  the  Revolution.  Even  of  Webster  it  may  be  questioned, 
whether,  with  all  his  fitness  and  fondness  for  the  national  Senate,  he  did  not 
derive  greater  happiness  from  his  farm  in  Marshfield  ;  for  what  fact  can  more 
touchingly  attest  his  attachment  to  it  than  his  dying  request  for  his  cattle  to 
be  driven  one  by  one  past  the  window  of  the  room  where  he  lay,  that  he  might 
look  once  more  upon  them  before  his  eyes  were  forever  closed  ? 

Remembering  how  vast  is  the  space  filled  by  agriculture  in  the  industries  of 
our  country,  no  further  justification  is  required  for  writing  its  history.  For  a 
Justification  '°"S  pcriod,  agricultural  products  have  led  the  list  of  exjiorts  to 
(or  writing  a  Other  countries,  and  will  lead  them  for  years  and  centuries  to  come, 
history  of        jf  ^  l^jstory  of  the   efforts  to   destrov  life    be  worth  preserving, 

agriculture.  ^  .  i  o> 

surely  a  history  of  those  means  in  which  so  many  are  engaged  to  sus- 
tain life  is  not  less  worthy  of  preservation.  The  famous  minister  of  Henry  IV. 
of  France,  Sully,  called  agriculture,  including  both  tillage  and  pasturage,  "  the 
two  breasts  of  the  state."  Strikingly  true  as  the  figure  is,  will  not  a  review  of 
the  subject,  by  showing  \s  hat  has  been  already  accomplished,  excite  the  farmer 
to  new  experiments  and  inquiry  ?  •       . 


m 


INDIAN    ACiRICU I.TURK. 

The  North- American  Indian  was  not  an  agriculturist :  he  regarded  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  soil  as  degrading.  Vet,  as  it  was  necessary  for  some  one  to 
Indians  Cultivate   it  in  order  to  obtain  a  living,  the  task  fell  to   tiie   okl 

raised  corn,  women  and  children.  Though  the  Indian  was  slack,  careless,  an<l 
lazy,  he  exercised  more  forethought  and  care  about  his  corn-crop  than  any 
thing  else.  When  Capt.  John  Smith  visited  Virginia  in  1609,  in  writing  of  the 
Indians  he  says,  "  The  greatest  labor  they  take  is  in  planting  their  corn  ;  for 
the  country  is  naturally  overgrown  with  wood.  To  prepare  the  ground,  they 
bruise  the  bark  of  trees  near  the  roots  ;  then  do  they  scorch  the  roots  with  fire, 
that  they  grow  no  more."  Very  likely  from  them  our  ancestors  learned  the 
process  of  belting  or  girdling  trees  by  cutting  through  the  sap-wood ;  thus 
causing  the  fall  of  the  spray  and  the  decay  of  the  smaller  branches,  and  admit- 
ting the  sun  and  air  in  sufficient  quantities  for  corn  to  grow  and  bear  fruit. 

The  mode  of  planting  and  cultivating  corn  was  rude  enough,  and  betokens 
as  clearly  as  any  other  trace  of  their  civilization  how  simple  and  low  it  was. 
Mode  of  Every  spring-time,  the  dead  wood  on  the   ground,  and  jierhaps 

planting.  other  branches  and  brush,  were  collected  and  burned  to  obtain 
ashes  to  enrich  the  soil ;  after  which  the  surface  of  the  ground  was  scratched 
with  the  flat  shoulder-blade  of  the  moose,  or  with  crooked  i)ieces  of  wood. 
Then  bills  were  made  with  the  rudest  sort  of  wooden  hoes  or  clam-shells, 
about  four  feet  apart,  in  each  of  which  was  placed  an  alewife  caught  from  the 
adjoining  stream,  or  a  horseshoe  crab  picked  up  from  the  seashore.  Upon 
this  stimulant  were  dropped  half  a  dozen  grains  of  corn,  which  were  covered ; 


■; 


I 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


INDIAN  HOES. 


and  a  hut  was  then  built  in  the  middle  of  the  field,  wherein  lived  the  police  to 
protect  their  work  from  the  ravages  of  birds.  One  can  very  easily  imagine, 
in  those  times,  when  the  forests  were  alive  with  birds,  what 
would  be  the  fate  of  a  cornfield  if  left  to  itself.  While  the 
smaller  birds  and  animals  were  prevented  from  eating  up 
the  tender  blade  only  by  constant  watchfulness,  the  stronger 
stalk  and  full-grown  corn  were  preserved  by  the  exercise  of 
the  same  ceaseless  vigilance. 

As  the  corn  grew  the  earth  was  scraped  around  it,  until 
the  hills  were  two  feet  high,  —  a  custom  still  followed  in 
many  parts  of  the  country.     Before  the  corn  was  fully  ripe, 
it  was  plucked  ;  and  the  seed  for  the  next  year  was  selected  from  those  stalks 
containing  the  largest  number  of  ears,  and  hung  up  in  the  wigwam.     The 
remainder  was  dried  in  the  husk,  over  smouldering  fires,  or  in  the  Harvesting 
sun  ;  after  which  i)rocess  it  was  husked,  shelled,  packed  in  birch-   »nd  storing 
bark  boxes,  and  buried  in  holes  in  the  earth,  which  were  lined 
with  bark  to  protect  the  grain  more  perfectly  from  frost  and  moisture.    A  writer 
says  these  excavated  hams  were  carefiiUy  concealed  by  the  women  from  their 
lazy  husbands  and  sons,  lest  they  should  discover  and  eat  up  their  contents ; 
yet,  with  all  the  care  they  could  take,  the  hogs  of  the  colonists  often  unhinged 
their  barn-doors,  and  helped  themselves  to  the  golden  treasure.     History  says 
that  one  of  these  Indian  bams  was  discovered  by  the  Pilgrims  at  Truro,  at  a 
time  when  tiieir  store  of  provisions  was  so  reduced  as  to  contain  but  five 
kernels  of  corn  to  each  individual. 

Com  thus  dried,  cracked  in  a  stone-mortar  and  boiled,  was  called  "  o-mo- 
nee  ;  "  and  "  sup-paun,"  when  pounded  into  meal  and  sifted  through  a  basket 
for  ash-cakes.  When  on  the  war-path,  the  Indian  warrior  lived  How  in- 
upon  parched  corn  called  "no-kake."  When  Roger  Williams  dians  cooked 
journeyed  through  the  forests  on  the  way  to  his  future  home,  near  '*""" 
Narragansett  Bay,  accompanied  by  the  Indians  whom  he  loved,  and  who 
never  proved  treacherous  to  him,  he  says  that  each  man  carried  a  little  basket 
of  this  kind  of  food, — enough  to  last  for  several  days.  'l"he  Indians  also  pre- 
pared corn  in  another  way,  which  has  become  well  known,  and  will  probably 
he  long  contiiuied.  We  allude  to  the  niode  of  mixing  corn  with  beans,  and 
l)reparing  a  dish  known  among  them  as  "  mu-si-quatash,"  which  in  these  days 
has  been  abbreviated  to  succotash.  The  original  dish,  however,  according  to 
(iordkin,  was  not  composed  simply  of  corn  and  beans  :  several  other  ingredients 
were  included,  "  fish  and  flesh  of  all  sorts,  either  new-taken  or  dried,  venison, 
bcar's-flesh,  beaver,  moose,  otter,  or  raccoon,  cut  into  small  pieces,  Jerusalem 
artichokes,  ground-nuts,  acorns,  pumpkins,  and  scpiashes." 

While  corn  was  the  chief  product  raised  by  the  Indian,  he  cultivated  or 
collectetl  several  other  fruits  and  vegetalMes.  Among  their  corn  were  planted 
peas  and  beans,  the  vines  climbing  up  the  corn-stalks ;  thus  economizing  the 


4 

I 


I 


I   1 


l\\ 


<;  ir 


f3 


4  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

use  of  pea-brush  and  bean-poles.  Surely  this  was  an  exhibition  of  economy 
in  labor  and  material  worthy  of  a  savage.  During  the  month  of  May  they 
Other  fruit*  also  planted  "  pumpkins  "  among  their  corn,  "  and  a  fruit  like  unto 
raised.  ^  musk-melon,  but  less  and  worse,  which  they  called  '  macocks.'  " 

The  bold  and  unblushing  sunflower  was  also  cultivated  ;  but  instead  of  putting 
its  seeds  to  the  ignoble  use  of  hen-fodder,  as  the  moderns  do.  they  were  made 
into  bread.  In  some  parts  of  the  country  wild  rice  was  gathered  and  kept 
^or  winter  use;  and  Barlowe,  who  visited  North  Carolina  in  1584,  aflirms  that 
le  saw  there  "both  wheat  and  oats."  Tobacco  was  everywhere  cultivated, 
tluge  grape-vines  intwined  many  a  forest-tree,  and  the  woods  abounded  with 
other  wild  fruits  and  berries.  Gourds  were  raised,  of  all  sizes,  from  the  huge 
•*  cal-a-bash-es,"  holding  two  or  three  gallons  apiece,  to  the  "  tiny  receptacles 
of  pigments  used  in  painting  for  war."  Cherries  and  plums  also  abounded, 
large  quantities  of  which  were  dried  for  winter  use.  Concerning  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  apple,  something  will  be  said  in  another  place. 

Although  the  Indians  knew  nothing  about  sugar-cane,  they  were  not  without 
sugar ;  for  they  extracted  it  from  the  maple,  just  as  we  do  now.  Mixed  with 
Dainty  freshly-pounded  "  sup-paun,"  and  seasoned  with   dried  whortle- 

disiies  and  berries,  a  dainty  dish  was  baked  for  high  festivals ;  and,  for  an 
beverage*.  accompanying  beverage,  the  dried  meats  of  oil-nuts  were  pounded, 
and  boiled  in  the  juice  of  sassafras.  For  lights  on  such  occasions,  candles 
were  made  from  the  green  wax  of  the  bayberry,  with  rush  wicks,  which  burned 
brightly,  and  yielded  a  pleasant  odor. 

Their  provisions  were  stored  in  boxes  made  of  birch-bark  ;  and  their  cutting 
instruments  and  sharp  weapons  were  pointed  with  flint-stone,  shells,  or  bones, 
initrument*  '^  ^^^^  earthen  vessels  were  used  ;  but  the  superiority  of  our  civili- 
and  domeatic  zation,  in  its  material  characteristics,  over  the  aboriginal,  presents 
animal*.  ^^  more  Striking  contrast  than  in  the  variety  and  improvement  of 
means  for  cultivating  the  soil.  It  may  also  be  added,  that  the  Indian  possessed 
no  domestic  animals  except  a  few  small  dogs,  and  no  poultry. 

Such  is  a  brief  picture  of  the  agricultural  life  of  the  Indian.  I^ng  ago  the 
cheerless  wigwam  was  supplanted  by  the  pleasant  home,  the  crabbed  orchard 
Fate  of  In-  W  large  and  more  luscious  fruit,  and  the  ill-tilled,  scanty  corn- 
dianacricut-  patch  by  more  careful  tillage  and  abundant  crops.  Although 
*""'  cattle-shows  and   agricultural   anniversaries  were    unknown,    the 

Indians  celebrated  their  "  green-corn  dance  "  and  the  feast  of  the  "  harvest- 
moon."     But, 

"  Alas  for  them  I  their  day  is  o'er;  ' 

Their  fires  are  out  from  hill  to  shore ; 
No  more  for  them  the  red  deer  bounds ; 
The  plough  is  in  their  hunting-grounds  ; 
The  pale  man's  axe  rings  through  their  woods, 
The  pale  man's  sail  skims  o'er  their  floods ; 
Their  pleasant  springs  are  dry." 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


COLONIAL   AGRICULTURE   IN   THE   SOUTHERN    COLONIES. 

The  system  of  agriculture  which  swept  away  the  aboriginal  system,  though 
vastly  superior  to  it,  was,  nevertheless,  very  imperfect  compared  with  the 
system  of  modern  days.  Two  very  different  systems  flourished  in  who  settled 
the  colonics,  each  of  which  requires  a  separate  description.  To  Virginia, 
the  Southern  cobnies  first  came  an  aristocratic  people,  with  their  servants  and 
slaves.  They  were  followed  by  Scotch  merchants  and  mechanics,  who  were 
succeeded  by  French  Huguenots  of  high  spirit  and  attainments ;  while  at  a 
later  period  flocked  large  numbers  of  Scotch  Jacobins,  on  account  of  the 
unsuccessful  rebellions  of  the  pretenders  to  the  Scottish  throne.  A  true 
glimpse  of  the  immigration  by  which  Virginia,  the  mother  of  the  South  Atlantic 
Stati;s,  was  colonized,  may  be  obtained  from  the  response  of  the  governor, 
Sir  William  Berkeley,  to  one  of  the  interrogatories  propounded  to  him  by  the 
liritish  lords-commissioners  of  foreign  affairs.  In  response  to  the  inijuiry, 
"  What  number  of  English,  Scotch,  and  Irish  have,  for  these  seven  years  last 
past,  come  yearly  to  plant  and  inhabit  with  your  government?  "  and  also,  "  What 
blacks  or  slaves  have  been  brought  within  the  same?"  he  replied,  " Yearly 
there  come  in  of  servants  about  fifteen  hundred.  Most  are  F^nglish,  few 
Scotch,  and  fewer  Irish,  and  not  above  two  or  three  ships  of  negroes  in  seven 
years."  Nothing  is  said  of  the  free  immigrants,  though  included  in  the 
interrogatory  ;  and  their  number  was,  doubtless,  too  inconsiderable  for  notice. 
In  the  same  examination  Sir  William  says,  "  But  I  thank  God  there  are  no 
free  schools  or  printing  ;  for  learning  has  brought  disobedience  and  heresy  and 
sects  into  the  world,  and  printing  has  divulged  them  and  libels  against  the 
best  government.     God  keep  us  from  both  !  " 

The  feudal  system  also,  which  was  weakening  in  England,  was  adopted, 
though  in  an  earlier  form,  as  the  following  extract  from  one  of  the  royal 
grants  will  show.  It  gave  ^he  patentee  the  right  "to  divide  the  Feudal  sya- 
said  tract  or  territory  of  land  into  counties,  hundreds,  parishes,  tem  adopted, 
titliings,  townships,  hamlets,  and  boroughs,  and  to  erect  and  build  cities, 
towns,  parishes,  churches,  colleges,  chapels,  free  schools,  almshouses,  and  houses 
of  correction,  and  to  endow  the  same  at  their  free  will  and  pleasure ;  and  did 
ajipoint  them  full  and  perpetual  patrons  of  all  such  churches  so  to  be  built  and 
endowed ;  with  power,  also,  to  divide  any  part  or  parcel  of  said  tract  or 
territory,  or  portion  of  land,  into  manors,  and  to  call  the  same  after  their  own 
or  any  of  their  names,  or  by  other  name  or  names  whatsoever ;  and  within  the 
same  to  hold  a  court  in  the  nature  of  a  court-baron,  and  to  hold  pleas  of  all . 
actions,  trespasses,  covenants,  accounts,  contracts,  detinues,  debts,  and  demands 
whatsoever,  when  the  debt  or  thing  demanded  exceed  not  the  value  of  forty 
shillings  sterling  money  of  England ;  and  to  receive  and  take  all  amerce- 
ments, fruits,  commodities,  advantages,  perquisites,  and  emoluments  whatso- 
ever, to  such  respective  court-barons  belonging  or  in  any  wise  appertaining ; 


n^muamemati-it  fa.imtffmnmatfMBBtBfM 


iin 


If 


I  ii 


6  INDUSTRIAL    II /SI  OK  Y 

and,  further,  to  hold  within  the  same  manor,  a  court-lect  and  view  of  frank* 
pledge  of  all  the  tenants,  residents,  and  inhabitants  of  the  hundred  within  such 
respective  manors." 


NBW   RIVER  PLOIIGH-TEAM,  VIRGINIA. 

The  farms  in  Virginia  and  Maryland  were  extensive,  fronting  on  the  Ches- 
apeake ]5ay  or  its  tributaries,  and  running  a  long  way  into  the  interior.  Not 
Farms  and  far  from  the  shore  of  river  or  bay  was  located  the  planter's  mansion, 
mansions.  jq  which  came  ships  from  England,  bringing  merchandise  in 
exchange  for  tobacco ;  or  other  craft  laden  with  the  products  of  New- 
England  fisheries,  or  of  West-India  plantations,  to  barter  for  tobacco,  wheat, 
or  corn.  The  intervening  space  between  the  mansion-house  and  water-side 
was  usually  laid  out  as  a  garden,  in  the  prim,  stiff  style  of  those  days,  with 
terraces,  arbors,  and  wide  walks  bordered  with  box.  Most  of  the  houses  were 
built  of  English  brick,  the  iron-work,  and  also  much  of  the  interior,  being 
imported.  Entering  the  hall,  we  are  told  by  a  Virginia  antiquarian,  walls 
were  seen  covered  with  deer's  antlers,  fishing-rods,  and  guns ;  portraits  of 
cavaliers  and  dames  and  children ;  even  carefully-painted  pictures  of  race- 
horses, on  whose  speed  and  bottom  many  thousands  of  pounds  had  been 
staked,  and  lost  and  won,  in  their  day  and  generation.  On  one  side  of  the 
hall  a  broad  staircase,  with  oaken  balustrade,  led  to  the  numerous  apartments 
above  ;  and  on  the  opposite  side  a  door  gave  entrance  into  the  great  dining- 
hall.  The  dining-room  was  decorated  with  great  elegance;  the  carved  oak 
wainscot  extending  above  the  mantlepiece  in  an  unbroken  expanse  of  fruits 
and  flowers,  hideous  laughing  faces,  and  armorial  devices,  to  the  cornice.  The 
furniture  was  in  the  Louis  Quatorze  style,  with  carved  backs  to  the  low-seated 
chairs.  There  were  Chelsea  figures,  and  a  sideboard  full  of  plate,  and  a 
Japan  cabinet,  and  a  Kidderminster  carpet ;  while  in  the  great  fire-place  a  few 
twigs  crackled  on  huge  and  highly-polished  brass  andirons.  On  the  walls 
hung  pictures  of  gay  gallants,  brave  warriors,  and  fair  dames  whose  eyes  out- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


shone  their  diamonds ;  and  more  than  one  ancestor  looked  grimly  down  clad 
in  cuirass  and  armlets,  and  holding  in  his  mailed  hand  the  sword  which  had 
done  bloody  service  in  its  time.  The  lady  portraits,  as  an  invariable  rule, 
were  decorated  with  sunset  clouds  .of  yellow  lace ;  the  bright  locks  were 
powdered ;  and  many  little  black  patches  set  off  the  dazzling  fairness  of  the 
rounded  chins. 

Near  the    mansion  were   tenements   for  the  manager  and  the  overseers, 
and  the  slave  cabins.     The  first  philanthropist  to  improve  the  condition  of 
his  slaves,  according    to    trustwt    by  authority,   was    Col.    John   i„_,„yg. 
Taylor   of   the   Rappahannock   Valley,  who  was    equally  distin-   ment  of  con- 
guishcd   in   the   last   century  as  a  farmer,  author,  and  statesman.  JJ^'°^" "' 
"  He  built  commodious  brick  dwellings  for  them,  and  accustomed 
them  to  plank  floors,  glass  windows,  and  decent,  civilized  habits  of  living. 
He,  besides,  furnished  them  more  regularly  and   abundantly  with  food  and 
clothing  than  was  then  usual.     His  negroes  multiplied  rapidly,  became  more 
honest  and  industrious  ;  and  his  crops  increased." 

The  pioneers  of  Virginia  are  described  as  contrasting  strongly  with  the 
planters  and  their  adherents.  In  most  cases  they  were  younger  sons,  unlucky 
gamesters,  turbulent  spirits,  rejected  lovers,  or  disbanded  soldiers.  The  pioneers 
who  turned  their  backs  upon  civilization  to  live  an  untrammelled  °'  Virginia. 
life  in  some  fertile  mountain-gap  or  rich  river-bottom.  Game  was  plentiful ; 
and  they  were  hunters  rather  than  farmers,  sending  their  peltries  to  market, 
and  only  cultivating  enough  land  to  supply  their  wants.  This  unrestrained  life 
became  a  passion ;  and,  as  the  tide  of  civilization  advanced  westward,  the 
pioneers  would  leave  their  "  .settlements  "  with  their  "  improvements,"  to  seek 
some  spot  in  the  wilderness  where  as  yet  no  white  man's  foot  had  trodden. 

Tobacco  early  became  the  staple  product  of  Virginia,  although  laws  numer- 
ous and  stringent  were  enacted  to  prevent  its  cultivation.  Efforts  were  put 
Ibrth  to  encourage  other  branches  of  industry ;  yet  little  attention  Cultivation 
was  paid  to  tlicm  except  for  purposes  of  home  consumption.  °'  tobacco, 
rianters  still  continued  the  culture  of  the  exhausting  tobacco-plant,  with  con- 
tinuous cropping,  shallow  jjloughing,  and  no  fertilizing,  until  the  soil  grew  weak, 
and  unfit  for  cultivation.  Small  ploughs  and  heavy  hoes  were  used  in  cultivat- 
ing it ;  and  when  the  crop  was  gathered,  cured,  and  packed  into  hogsheads, 
it  was  rolled  away  to  the  nearest  wharf  for  insjicction  and  transportation. 
In  those  early  days  good  roads  were  unknown,  and  wagons  were  few :  so  a 
pole  and  whipple-trees  were  attached  to  each  hogshead  by  an  iron  bolt  driven 
into  the  centre  of  one  head,  thus  converting  the  cask  into  a  huge  roller.  For 
many  years  the  places  for  deposit  and  inspection  of  tobacco  were  called 
"  rolling-houses." 

Though  cotton  was  raised  at  an  early  date,  it  was  not  grown  in  sufficient 
quantities  for  export :  intleed,  the  cultivation  of  tobacco  absorbed  the  chief 
attention   of  the   planter,   especially    in  Virginia,   until   the   opening  of  the 


ii ' 


8 


JNDUSTHIAl.    HISTORY 


eighteenth  century.  Farther  south,  in  South  Carolina,  rice  was  cultivated. 
It  is  related,  that,  in  1694,  a  vessel  from  Madagascar  put  into  C'harleslon  in 
Cotton.  rie«,  d's""<-'ss,  the  captain  of  which,  in  return  for  favors  rendered  by  the 
•nd  other  governor,  gave  him  a  bag  of  rice.  The  governor,  who  had  seen 
pro  ucti.  ^1^^,  j^|.^|^j  growing  in  the  hot  swamps  of  Madagasi;ar,  conceivetl 
the  idea  of  raising  rice  in  his  own  colony  :  acconiingly  it  was  planted,  and  brought 
forth  abundantly.     The  soil  proved  well  adapted  to  the  plant,  and  it  was  not 


■» , 


(1= 

1. 


•^^ 


^■.'v:%.,  ;-.;-%i-^f*^ 


MANNtR   OK   CAKIiVINli   TOIIACCO    I'llRIV    YllAHS   A(.0. 


long  before  tlie  marshes  of  (leorgia  and  South  Carolina  were  covered  with  rice- 
plantations.  Exports  of  rice  to  England  soon  after  began,  and  in  1724 
a  huntlred  thousand  barrels  were  sent  from  the  latter  State.  Experiments  in 
wine-making  were  undertaken  at  an  early  period;  and  in  1758  the  London 
Society  for  the  Encouragement  of  Arts,  Commerce,  and  Manufactures,  pro- 
posed premiums  for  its  production.  The  same  society  offered  premiums  for 
hemp,  opium,  olives,  pot  and  pearl  a.shes,  barilla,  logwood,  scammony,  myrtle- 
wax,  sarsaparilla-root,  and  the  gum  from  the  persimmon-tree.  It  was  supposed 
that  this  gum  might  prove  a  substitute  for  gum-arabic  ;  but  the  cost  of  gather- 
ing and  transporting  it  was  too  great,  and  the  experiment  failed.  After  a 
three-years'  trial,  the  premium  was  withdrawn. 

Besides  the  premiums  offered  by  this  society,  the  British  Parliament  granted 


OF    THE    U/V/TED    STATES.  9 

considerable  sums  of  money  at  various  times  to  stimulate  the  culture  of  silk, 
indigo,  and  other  plants.     Colonial  trade,  however,  was  guarded   p„„,u„, 
none  the  less  strictly ;  for  the  colonists  were  obliged  to  send  all  offered  by 
their  suri)lus  products  to  England,  and  were  forbidden  purchasing  °^1|,'*^,|'"' 
any  foreign  manufactures  save  in  a  British  port. 


iment  granted 


COLONIAL    AGRICULTURE    IN   THE    NEW-ENGLAND    COLONIES. 

Let  us  now  look  toward  the  North,  and  watch  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims, 
and  their  first  efforts  in  cultivating  the  soil.  The  colonists  of  Virginia,  who 
came  somewhat  earlier,  as  we  have  seen,  had  confined  their  atten-  ThePiigrime 
tion  cinefly  to  the  raising  of  tobacco ;  and  as  their  climate  was  "n  ■gricui- 
less  rigorous,  and  their  summers  were  longer,  it  was  easier  for  them  ""  ''*°''  '" 
to  obtain  a  living.  The  Pilgrims  were  an  agricultural  people,  the  clergy  form- 
ing no  exception ;  anil  for  a  long  period  they  were  among  the  foremost  in 
New  England  in  trying  experiments,  and  inciting  their  fiocks  to  patient  and 
intelligent  industry.  One  of  the  reasons  why  they  came  here  from  Holland, 
according  to  Hancroft,  was,  because  they  "  had  been  bred  to  agricultural  pur- 
suits," which  they  could  not  follow  in  the  land  of  their  temporary  adoption. 

That  they  continued  to  follow  their  original  pursuit  as  their  chief  one  for 
many  years  after  tiieir  arrival  is  familiar  history.     Hut  their  task  was  a  severe 
one.     Cleared  fields  were  small  and  few ;  and  their  implements  Difficulty  of 
were  ill  fitted  to  clear  the  dense  woods,  anil  subdue  the  stubborn  cultivating 
soil.    Some  implements,  doubtless,  were  obtained  from  the  mother-   *  '  •"  • 
land  ;  but  the  only  metal  to  be  found  here  that  they  could  work  was  bog-iron 
ore,  which  was  very  brittle,  and  often  spoiled  a  day's  work.     The   w«nt  of 
magnitude  of  their  task,  from  lack  of  appropriate  means,  it  is  per-   P'opef  »»«>•»• 
haps  more  difficult  for  us  in  this  age  to  realize  than  almost  any  other  feature 
of  our  history,  because  farming-implements  have  been  brought  to  such  a  degree 
of  perfection. 

The   system  of  agriculture   best  adapted  to  the  country  could  only  be 
learned  by  experiment.    Of  course  the  settlers  brought  with  them  the  ideas  and 
products  of  their  mother-land  ;  but  how  poor  was  their  outfit  they  succen  in 
soon  learned.     Indian-corn,  pumpkins,  squashes,  beans,  potatoes,   larming 
tobacco,  and  other  vegetables  and  fruits,  which  were  found  grow-   ""n,ine*d  *' 
ing  here,  it  was  easy  to  cultivate  by  inijuiry  from  the  Indians,  and  only  by  ex- 
with  greater  success  than  ever  attended  the  efforts  of  their  teach-  p"''"«"*- 
crs ;  but  in  respect  to  the  fruits  transplanted,  as  well  as  the  horses,  sheep,  and 
other  animals  brought  hither,  it  was  only  found  out  by  numerous  experiments 
and  many  losses  what  our  climate  and  soil  were  best  fitted  to  raise  and  sustain. 
What  did  the  English  immigrant  know  about  the  country  until  he  came  here, 
anil  how  English  cattle  and  fruits  would  thrive  under  such  altered  conditions? 
It  would  be  an  interesting  chapter  to  trace  the  history  of  these  experiments ; 


lO 


rNDVSTKlAl.    HISTORY 


'II 


IH 


:5^ 


MAVPI.OWKR. 


but  our  space  is  too  limited,  even  if  tlie  necessary  information  could  be  gath« 
ered.  Suffice  it  to  say,  after  trial  some  vegetal  )les  and  grasses  were  aban- 
doned, while  the  appropriate  locality 
of  others  was  discovered.  Hemp, 
indigo,  rice,  cotton,  madder,  millet, 
si)elt,  lentils,  liicern,  sainfoin,  and 
many  other  things,  were  tried  in 
New  Kngland,  and  failed,  as  did 
other  crops  in  the  Southern  roK)- 
nies.  Not  only  the  plants  of  Eu- 
rope, but  many  from  Asia  and  the 
Kast  Indies,  were  tried,  including 
cinnamon  and  vp.ious  commercial 
plants.  Some  of  these  crops,  on 
experiment,  failed  entirely ;  others 
flourished  after  a  fashion,  but  proved 
unjirofitable  ;  others  flourished  with 
peculiar  luxuriance,  and  with  characters  unchanged  ;  and  still  others,  under 
the  new  <onditions,  assumed  new  <  haracters  or  excellences.  Before  the  war 
of  the  Revolu  on,  these  trials  had  been  made  from  Maine  to  Texas ;  and  so 
completely  had  this  century  and  a  half  of  experiments  solved  the  great  prob- 
lems of  adajjtation,  ac(  limation,  and  often  naturalization,  that  not  a  single 
important  sjiecies  of  domestic  animal  has  been  profitably  introduced  since, 
nor  but  one  plant  (sorghum)  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  recognized  in  our 
official  statistics.     So  writes  one  whose  accuracy  none  will  (juestion.' 

Ixt  us  reproduce  the  picture  of  a  New- Eng- 
land colony  during  this  period.  It  is  the  one 
flourishing  at  Massachusetts  Hay,  which  was 
founded  not  long  after  the  Plymouth  Colony. 
Picture  of  a  Within  this  peaceful  realm  s(]iiatter- 
New-Eng-  sovereignty  was  unknown  ;  for  no 
land  colony.  i„(iiyi,i„..jj\vas  permitted  to  estal)lish 
himself  without  authority  of  the  government. 
Each  body  swarmed  out  with  a  regular  airotment 
of  individual  farms,  baseil  in  extent  upon  the 
wealth  of  the  settlers ;  a  great  pasture,  a  jieat- 
meadow,  a  salt-marsh,  and  fishing-grounds,  being 
held  in  common.  These  farms  were  so  laid  out, 
that  no  house  was  over  half  a  mile  from  the 
meeting-house  ;  and  it  was  with  astonishing  ra- 
pidity that  agricultural  communities  sprang  up,  like  the  fabled  warriors  of 
Cadmus,  into  full-armed    life.      Like  those  mythological  knights,  they  were 

'  Professor  Brewer  of  Yale  Collesc 


KNOT-REKI.. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


II 


armed  with  weapons,  not  for  their  own  destruction,  but  for  the  defen<  e  of 
their  liberties  and  their  homes.  From  these  small  farming-hamlets  have  grown 
lip  most  of  the  towns  and  cities  of  our  country,  and  from  one  of  them  went 
forth  the  alpiia  of  colonization  in  the  (ireat  West.  In  the  log-cabin  of  that 
agricultural  era  were  first  cultivated  the  true  thougii  austere  religion,  the 
doMiestic  virtues,  the  sturdy  habits  of  frugal  industry,  the  daring  spirit,  and 
the  devoted  love  of  liberty,  that  have  so  advanced  the  prosperity  and  the  glory 
of  this  Western  continent.  Ihe  acDrns  planted  by  our  fathers  have  be( ouie 
stately  trees,  under  whose  umbrageous  foliage  thousands  of  their  descendants, 
and  others  whom  the  grateful  shade  has  invited  from  less-favored  lands,  find 
protection,  shelter,  and  repose. 

'I'he  same  writer  has  given  a  felicitous  sketch  of  the  houses  of  the  early  set- 
tlers, drawn  from  a  carefiil  perusal  of  the  materials  collected  by  the  tireless 
antitiuarian.     Imagine  yourself  as  belonging  to  a  "committee  on   Home. of 
farms,"  and  then  let  us  visit  one  of  these  yeomen.     Riding  along  theeariy 
a  "trail,"  indicated  by  marked  trees,  we  find  his  horse  and  cattle-   ""'"'•• 
shed  standing  near  an  old  Indian  clearing,  encircleil  by  a  high  palisade,  which 
includes   the    spring, 
that   water    may    be 
brought  without  dan- 
ger from  the  "  bloody 
savages."        The 
house,  whi(  li   is  over 
a  small  deep  cellar,  is 
built  of  logs,  notched 
where   they   meet   at 
the    corners,   with    a 
thatched  roof,  and  a 
large  chimney  at  one 
end,   built  of  stones 
cemented   with  clay. 
The    small   wintlows 
are  covered  with  oiled 
pa])er,    with   i)rotect- 
ing  shutters  ;  and  the 
massive  door  is  thick 
enough  to  be  bullet- 
proof.      Pulling    the 

"latch-string,"  we  enter,  and  find  that  the  floor,  and  the  tloor  of  the  loft  which 
forms  the  ceiling,  are  made  of  "  rifted  "  or  split  pine,  roughly  smoothed  with 
the  adze ;  while  the  immense  hearth,  occupying  nearly  an  entire  side  of  the 
house,  is  of  large  flat  stones.  There  are  no  partition-walls ;  but  thick  serge 
curtains  are  so  hung,  that  at  night  they  divide  off  the  flock-beds,  upon  which 


HOUSE   OK   AN   IvAKtV   SETTI  lU. 


Hi 


III    :  -^ 


12 


INDUSTRIAL    niSTOHY 


\\\ 


l\ 


w-  im. 


■p. 


\    it* 


I 


J  n 


BIBLE  AND  SPECS. 


there  are  piles  of  rugs,  coverlets,  and  flannel  sheets.  A  high-backed  chair  or 
two,  a  massive  table,  a  large  chest  with  a  carved  front,  and  some  Indian  birch- 
bark  boxes,  are  ranged  around  the  walls ;  while  on  a  large  "  dressoir  "  we  see 
wooden  bowls  and  trenchers,  eartiien  platters,  horn  drinking-cups,  and  a  pewter 
tankard.  The  corselet,  matchlock,'  and  bandoliers  are  ready  for  defence,  with 
1  halberd,  if  the  senior  occupant  of  the  house  holds  a  commission  in  "  ye 
trainband ; "  and  from  a  "  lean-to  "  shed  comes  the  great  wheel  or  the  clang 
of  the  loom,  as  the  busy  "  helmates  "  hasten  to  finish  their  "stents."  High 
.  _  on  the  mantle-shelf,  with  a  "  cresset- 
lamp  "  on  one  side,  and  the  time- 
marking  hour-glass  on  the  other,  is 
the  well-thumbed  Bible,  which  was  not 
left  for  show.  "  Our  especial  desire 
is,"  say  the  company's  instructions, 
"that  you  take  especial  care,  in  set- 
tling these  families,  that  the  chief  in 
the  family  be  grounded  in  religion, 
whereby  morning  and  evening  family-r 
duties  may  be  duly  performed,  and  a 
watchful  eye  held  over  all  in  each 
family  by  one  or  more  in  each  family 
appointed  thereto,  so  that  disorders  may  be  prevented,  and  ill  weeds  nipt 
before  they  take  too  great  a  head." 

While  a  greater  variety  of  crops  was  cultivated  in  New  England  than  in  the 
Southern  colonies,  yet  nowhere  was  seen  any  thing  like  scientific  farming.  As 
new  lands  could  be  easily  obtained,  old  ones  were  not  thoroughly 
tilled.  When  the  soil  became  exhausted  from  much  bearing,  and 
no  enrichment,  and  grew  too  poor  to  raise  wheat,  corn  was  planted  ;  when  this 
would  no  longer  thrive,  barley  or  rye  was  sown  :  thus  the  quality  of  the  crop 
decreased  with  the  starving  soil,  until  beans  alone  were  raised ;  and,  when  these 
ceased  to  grow,  the  field  was  abandoned. 

A  dearth  of  interest  in  cultivating  the  soil  continued  until  the  close  of  the 
Revolution.  Previous  to  that  time,  no  spirit  of  inquiry  in  this  great  industry 
Little  inter-  ^^^^  abroad  to  give  a  charm  to  daily  toil.  Hard  work  was  the 
est  taken  in  order  of  the  day,  into  which  neither  poetry  nor  science  ever  en- 
agricu  ure.  ^g^^j  ^j^^  farmer  remained  fast  to  his  farm ;  and  it  was  almost 
as  true  of  him  as  it  was  of  the  Sybarites,  who  dwelt  on  the  eastern  side  of  Italy, 
and  who  prided  themselves  on  growing  gray  between  the  bridges  of  their 
Lagoon  City,  —  he  never  went  beyond  his  narrow  boundaries,  and  hardly  knew 
of  a  world  outside  of  himself. 

There  were  gatherings,  it  is  true,  besides  those  for  religious  worship,  where 
neighbors  met  and  conversed  with  each  other.  Upon  election-days  people 
mingled,  and  also  at  "  raisings,"  when  flip  and  cider  flowed  plentifully.    The 


Farming 
■unscientific. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


13 


'i 


\ 


'■i. 


"  husking,"  too,  was  a  social  as  well  as  industrial  gathering,  where  the  same 
favorite  drinks  v/ent  round,  followed  by  a  rich  feast  upon  pump-   o.therings 
kin-pies,   which  formed  one    of  the    most    thoroughly-enjoyed  of  the  early 
dishes  of  the   early  settlers.     Longfellow  has   immortalized   the 
"  husking  "  in  the  song  of  Hiawatha,  and  we  are  sure  our  readers  will  delight 
in  recalling  the  scene.    The  maize-field  having  grown  and  ripened, 

"  Till  it  stood  in  all  the  splendor 
Of  its  garments  green  and  yellow, 
Of  its  tassels  and  its  plumage, 
And  the  maize-ears  full  and  shining 
Gleamed  from  bursting  sheets  of  verdure; 
Then  Nokomis,  the  old  woman," 

spoke  to  Minnehaha,  the  merry  Laughing-Water ; 

"  And  they  called  the  women  round  them. 
Called  the  young  men  and  the  maidens. 
To  the  harvest  of  the  cornfields, 
•  .  '  To  the  husking  of  the  maize-ear. 

i%  *  On  the  border  of  the  forest, 

Underneath  the  fragrant  pine-trees. 
Sat  the  old  men  and  the  warriors, 
Smoking  in  the  pleasant  shadow. 
In  uninterrupted  sile.ice 
Looked  they  at  the  gamesome  labor 
Of  the  young  men  and  the  women ; 
Listened  to  their  noisy  talking, 
To  their  laughter  and  their  singing; 
Heard  them  chattering  like  the  magpies. 
Heard  them  laughing  like  the  bluejays. 
Heard  them  singing  like  the  robins. 
And,  whene'er  some  lucky  maiden 
Found  a  red  ear  in  the  husking, 
Found  a  maize-ear  red  as  blood  is, 
'  Nershka  I '  cried  they  all  together, 
'  Nershka  I  you  shall  have  a  sweetheart, 
You  shall  have  a  handsome  husband  I ' 
'  Ugh  I '  the  old  men  all  responded 
From  their  seats  beneath  the  pine-trees." 


The  obstinacy  with  which  old  ideas  werr.  cherished  quenched  the  spirit  of 
agricultural  improvement.     It  is  not  to  the  credit  of  our  ancestors,  that,  in  many 
a  town,   the  possession   of  superior  intelligence,  except  by  the  causes 
minister  and  doctor,  was  not  honored,  but  ridiculed.     If  a  choicer  which 

,  ,  .  ,  .  ,  checked  og- 

spint  arose,  who  ventured  to  try  expenments,   he  was   neither  ricuiturai 

<  heered  nor  encouraged,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  was  laughed  at  improve- 

for  his   folly.     One  who  has  studied  the  history  of  these  times  """  " 

"./ell  says,  that  if  such  a  one  "  did  not  plant  just  as  many  acres  of  com  as 


14 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


his  fathers  did,  and  tliat,  too,  in  tiie  '  old  of  the  moon ; '  if  he  did  not  sow 
just  as  much  rye  to  the  acre,  use  the  same  number  of  oxen  to  plough,  and 
get  in  his  crops  in  the  same  diy ;  or  if  he  did  not  hoe  as  many  times  as  his 
fatlier  and  his  grandfather  did  ;  if,  in  fine,  ho  ditl  not  wear  the  same  kind  of 
homespun  dress,  and  adopt  the  same  religious  views  and  prejudices,  —  he  was 
shunned  in  company  by  the  old  and  young,  and  looked  upon  as  a  visionary." 


WHlTEFIIM.l)  S    HOlSi;,    LOOKING    WEST. 


WHITKIIELUS   IIOISK,    I.niiKlNc;    SOITII. 


'-        W 


crops 
unknown 


The  rotation  of  crops  was  a  thing  unknown  in  those  times.  No  one  ever 
Rotation  of  tliouglu  of  fertilizing  the  soil.  It  lias  l)cen  said,  tliat,  even  witiiiu 
the  memory  of  men  now  living,  l)arns  were  sometimes  removed  to 
get  them  out  of  the  way  of  heaps  of  manure  by  which  tiiey  were 
surrounded,  rather  than  incur  the  exiiense  and  trouble  of  i)utting  these 
a(  (  umulations  upon  the  fields.  Swine  were  generally  allowed  to  run  at  large, 
M,.,=„-  ;iiid    cattle    were    rarelv  housed    during  night  or  winter.     It    was 

Manage-  .  ^        ^ 

ment  of  tliouglit  necessary  to  leavi;  them  out  of  doors,  and  expose  tiieui  to 

'°"  '■  the  summer's  sun  anil  dew  and  to  the  winter's  storm,  in   order  "  to 

toughen  "  them.  .\  writer  sajs,  ''  It  was  the  common  opinion  in  the  \'irginia 
Colony,  that  housing  and  milking  cows  in  winter  would  kill  them."  Urief  as 
this  sketch  is,  who  cannot  fail  to  see  how  great  and  numerous  have  been  the 
improvements  in  farming  sine  e  the  Pilgrims,  to  use  their  own  words,  "  left  their 
pleasant  and  beautiful  homes  in  l^ngland  to  plant  their  poor  cottages  in  llie 
wilderness"?  J'or  a  century  and  a  half  the  colonists  throughout  the  country 
remained  in  a  stationary  state  in  respect  to  their  leading  ))ursuit.  Their 
implements,  few  and  imperfect,  were  never  imjiroved  ;  the  hoe,  jjloiigh,  spade, 
fork,  and  oc(  asiiMiaiiy  a  harrow,  comprising  pretty  nearly  the  whole  inventory. 
Witii  this  coarse  anil  slimier  outfit  their  heavy  task  was  ((Mitinued  for  many  a 
louLT  and  wearv  year. 


i!'i:\cii   coi.oM.M.   .AfiRlcri.TfKr.. 

.\  word  may  l)e  said  concerning  the  French  colonists,  before  closing  the 
history. of  this  period.  Wiiile  tiie  Knglisii,  Dutch,  and  Swedes  were  taking 
])ossession  of  the  soil  from  the  l'enobs<'ot  to  the  .Altamaha.  the  I'rench  en- 
tered the  Ciulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  ascended  the  river  bearing  that  name, 
crossed  the  lakes,  f.jund  the  head  waters  of  the  Mi.ssissippi,  and  were  borne 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


15 


id  not  sow 
plough,  and 
times  as  his 
ne  kind  of 
s,  —  he  was 
k'isionary." 


N(;  sni'Tii. 

So  one  e\i.T 
even  witiiin 
removed  to 
\\  tliey  were 
itting  these 
in  at  large, 
er.  It  was 
ose  tiiem  to 
1  order  "  to 
the  Virginia 
"  Urief  as 
e  been  tiie 
i,  "  left  their 
ages  in  tiie 
the  country 
suit.  'I'heir 
)ugii,  spade, 
.'  inventory, 
ior  many  a 


closing  the 

were   taking 

I'rench  en- 

that   name, 

were  borne 


\^J^^* 


.,.  ..I  ■■■■i.^.  i.,>i  Trn'irmiffiapri'r-Ty|»'ihi 


i6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


on  its  broad  current  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  discoveries  of  the  French, 
Cultivation  ^^  joumey  of  La  Salle  among  the  Indians  and  down  the  mighty 
of  the  sugar-  Stream,  are  full  of  romantic  interest ;  but  we  can  only  stop  to 
""*■  note  what  was  done  when  the  French  landed  in  Louisiana,  and 

began  the  permanent  conquest  of  the  soil.  A  variety  of  crops  was  planted  ;  but 
none  flourished  like  the  sugar-cane,  which  had  been  transported  into  Spain  from 
India  by  the  Saracens,  again  to  Madeira,  and  thence  to  the  West-India  Islands, 
from  which  the  French  planters  obtained  their  plants.  For  several  years  its 
cultivation  proved  unsuccessful.  Not  until  1764  did  the  experiment  succeed, 
upon  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  under  the  intelligent  and  careful 
culture  of  Chevalier  de  Mazan.  The  following  year,  Destrehan,  the  royal 
treasurer  in  the  colony,  and  other  planters,  erected  works  on  the  opposite 
bank  below  New  Orleans ;  but  the  results  were  disappointing.  Indeed,  the 
planters  lost  so  much  heart,  that,  in  1 769,  they  abandoned  the  business,  and 
turned  their  attention  to  the  cilti  ation  of  indigo,  cotton,  tobacco,  rice,  corn, 
and  other  crops.  A  few  small  gardeners  continued  to  plant  sugar-cane  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  city,  which  they  retailed  in  the  market  for  the  use  of 
children ;  or  expressed  the  juice,  making  sirup,  which  they  sold  in  bottles. 
More  than  twenty-five  years  elapsed  before  further  efforts  were  made  to  culti- 
vate the  sugar- plant. 

The  engraving  here  inserted  represents  the  early  process  of  manufacturing 
sugar,  and  will  not  be  without  interest  to  our  readers.  The  cane  was  stripped 
Early  mode  ^^  '^^  leaves,  and  ground,  or  rather  crushed,  by  a  heavy  stone  made 
of  making  to  rcvolvc  by  manual  force.  The  expressed  juice,  after  boiling  in 
sugar.  ^   caldron,  was  ladled  into  large  stone  jars,  which  were  exposed 

to  the  rays  of  the  sun  until  the  sugar  crystallized.  Later  on  we  shall  learn 
what  success  attended  renewed  efforts  in  the  way  of  cultivating  the  sugar- 
plant. 

EFFECTS   OF    AMERICAN    REVOLUTION. 


The  American  Revolution  wrought  a  profound  change  in  the  agriculture  of 
the  country ;  not,  indeed,  in  the  way  of  stimulating  interest  in  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil,  but  in  giving  greater  freedom  in  the  exchange  of  commodities.  Thrift- 
less as  was  the  mode  of  farming  prior  to  that  event,  during  the  Revolution  it 
was  well-nigh  paralyzed  ;  nor  did  it  speedily  •  '■over.  So  dull  were  the  people 
to  the  vast  capacities  of  the  country  and  to  the  great  fortunes  which  lay 
before  them,  that  the  same  spirit  wliich  animated  4Jie  ante-Revolutionary  farmiT 
Revolution  was  found  to  live  within  the  breast  of  his  immediate  descend- 
ants. But  the  policy  of  England,  which  was  to  make  the  colonics 
as  profitable  as  jwssible  to  the  mother-country  without  thought  of 
•  an  adecjuate  return,  came  to  an  end.  Restrictions  against  manu- 
facturing were  removed.  The  colonists  were  free  to  buy  where 
they  plea;ied  :  no  longer  could  I'.ngland  compel  them  to  buy  of  her.     On  the 


gave  free- 
dom in  pur- 
chase and 
sale  of  com 
modities. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


17 


Other  hand,  they  were  at  liberty  to  sell  their  surplus  in  any  market  in  the 
world.  Thus  their  horizon  was  immensely  broadened.  The  transition  from 
a  colony  to  a  state  was  complete. 


CAUSES  OF  PROGRESS  IN  AGRICULTURE. 

Until  the  present  century  was  fairly  inaugurated,  American  agriculture  can- 
not be  said  to  have  made  any  notable  progress :  it  had  simply  made  a  com- 
mencement.    Since  then  a  number  of  causes  have  combined  to   causes  of 
give  it  marked  development  and  stimulus.     Among  the  first  of  prosperity  in 
these  is  national  peace.     In  time  of  war,  the  agricultural  classes  "^'  culture, 
are  drawn  on  most  heavily  for  soldiery.     The  extent  to  which  foreign  nations, 
especially  those  of   Euroijc,  were   en- 
gaged in  war  prior  to  1815,  was  a  gieat 
liinilcrance   to  their  agricultural   pros- 
perity.  The  United  States  have  enjoyed 
a  remarkable  advantage  in  this  regard. 
A  second  influtuice  which  we  have  felt 
was  the  foreign  demand  for  our  produc- 
tions.    This   is   touched  ui)on  repeat- 
edly  in   the   ensuing   chajjters  of  this 
work.     It  will  suffice  to  note  here  the 
fact   that   densely-populated   countries 
like  those  of  Kurope,  especially  where 
the  people  are  largely  engaged  in  man- 
ufacturing pursuits,  look  to  the  regions 
of  the  earth  which  are  sparsely  settled 
for  agricultural  products,  food,  and  tex- 
tile fabrics.     I'Acn  in  our  colonial  days 
we  had  shown  great  possibilities  of  pro- 
duction, though  but  litUe  reality ;  and 
as    soon    as    our    independence    was 
achieved,  and  we  took  a  place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  we  were  looked 
to  eagerly  as  a  supi)Iier  of  agricultural  protluce  to  the  vvorld.     This  foreign 
demand  has  been  felt  more  i)articularly  by  cotton  and  tobacco  planters,  grain- 
growers,  and  stock-raisers ;    but   an   immense  variety  of  other  produce   has 
gone  to  make  up  our  enormous  export  trade.     Still  another  great  stimulus  has 
been  afforded  to  the  agricultural  interests  of  this  country  by  the  invention  of 
improved  implements  for  use   by  the   husbandman.     This  marked  advance 
in  a[;riculture  is  treateil  by  itself  in  another  chapter  of  this  work. 

I'ive  other  influences  that  have  operateil  to  forward  and  develop  this  in- 
dustry are,  —  the  oc-cupation  of  the  \\'est  under  the  encouragement  of  govern- 
ment legislation  and   land   and  railroad  companies;    co-operative  effort,  the 


SPINNING-WHekL. 


m. 


— -"■■^■'TT'  ^-  - 


18 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


mutual  exchange  of  experience,  and  the  patronage  of  organized  agricultural 
Other  causes  societies  \  the  tbundation  of  a  special  department  of  government 
specified.  f^^  the  collation  and  dissemination  of  information  among  the  agri- 
cultural classes,  and  otherwise  aiding  them  in  their  pursuits ;  the  devclOiMiient 
of  a  class  of  literature  devoted  to  tliese  subjects ;  and  tlie  special  scientific 
education  aflbrded  by  agricultural  colleges. 

IIOMKSTKAI)    I.AW.S. 

The  vast  expanse  of  our  arable  territory,  and  the  steps  we  have  taken  to 
encourage  its  occupation  and  settlement,  have  been  elements  of  prime  impor- 
Extension  of  ^''^"''^"  '"  ^''"-"  development  of  our  agricultural  interests.  Prior  to 
farming  the  Revolution,  the  American  settlements  were  confmed  cliiofly  to 

°"'^'  the  Adantic  coast.     After  the  war,  adventurers  began  to  explore 

ami  locate  in  the  Ohio  Valley.  The  I,ouisiana  purchase  in  1803,  the  large 
annexation  of  territory  from  Mexico  in  1847,  and  the  definition  of  our  British- 
American  boundary,  enlarged  our  domain  wonderfully,  and  added  greatly  to 
the  area  susceptible  to  tillage  east  of  the  Mississippi. 

kl  one  time  the  unsettled  "  public  "  domain  of  tlie  United  States  embraced 
1,446,716,072  acres,  exclusive  of  the  Alaska  purchase.  It  is  out  of  this  that 
tT  ..I  .1  tiie  States  and  Territories  not  inchuled  within  the  present  limit  of 
public  the  original  thirteen  were  erected.     Of  this  vast  area,  large  grants 

domain.  j^_^^.^,  j^^.^.j^  niade  to  soldiers  for  military  service,  to  r.iilroads,  to 

agricultural  colleges  and  odier  purposes,  an;l  reservations  made  for  Inilians 
and  government  use.  A  very  considerable  proportion  is  mountainous  or 
sterile  sand  ;  yet  the  extent  of  territory  suited  to  agricultural  purposes  exceeds 
the  like  territory  of  any  country  in  Europe. 

But  the  United  States  not  only  had  the  land,  but  promoted  its  jiurchase  and 
settlement  by  mmiificent  offers.  In  1841  Congress  passed  a  law  providing  for 
Sale  of  pub-  the  sale  of  tliese  j)ublic  lands  for  the  remarkal)ly  low  price  of  a 
lie  lands.  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  an  acre,  in  lots  of  a  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  or  less  each,  to  tliose  who  would  really  go  to  live  tiiereon,  and  cultivate 
liiom.  This  i)re-emi)ti()n  law  was  followed  up  in  1862  by  another  piece  of  legis- 
lation, known  as  the  '•  Homestead  A<  t,"  which  provided  that  the  settler  might 
have  tlie  land  for  nothing,  under  proper  conditions.  Prior  to  and  during  the 
operation  of  these  laws,  tlie  new  ^\'estern  States  aiul  the  railroad  companies 
therein  put  fortli  special  efforts  to  draw  agriculturists  thither. 

The  consecjucnce  of  these  inducements  was  to  draw  people  in  large  num 
bers  from  the  I'^astern  States,  and  even  from  ICurope.  Doubtless  the  Irish 
famine  l)etween  1845  and  1847,  and  the  poor  success  of  (he  (Ger- 
man revolution  of  1848,  did  mucli  to  accelerate  foreign  emigra- 
tion,—  a  movement  which  the  Know-nothing  movement  in  i)olitics  a  decade 
later  slightly  checked.     But  as  larg(,^  numbers  of  unopposed  Swedes  also  caiiK. 


Emigration. 


■  -I 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


•9 


over,  and  as  the  greater  proportion  of  the  new-comers  went  West  to  live  on 
farms,  it  is  apparent  that  our  pre-emption  and  homestead  laws  we'-e  a  great 
attraction.  The  perfcc:tly  surprising  growth  of  tlie  States  of  the  Ohio  and 
Mississipjii  Valleys  can  hardly  be  attributed  solely  to  the  fertility  of  'he  soil  in 
that  section,  remarkable  as  that  feature  of  it  was. 

'I'hose  who  have  looked  into  the  subject  say  that  agriculture  thrives  nowhere 
with  such  life  and  success  as  where  the  men  who  do  the  work  own  the  soil. 


t.MltiKANT  THAIS. 


Under  the   iMiropcan  feudal  system,  and  liie  tenantry  system  which  has  sue- 

(  eeded  it.  tlie  rustic  populace  are  citlier  liircd  by,  or  lease  their  land  from, 

exacting  owners,  and  never  know  such  a  thing  as  jjroprietorship.  , 

l!ut   here    tiie   agriculturist  is  matle   to  feel   the  dignity  of  Jabor  of  agricui- 

and  a  larger  stimulus  of  self-interest  l)v  the  consciousness  that  he   »"■■»' P'o*- 

perity. 
may  own  the  broad  acres  which  lie  tills.      No  other  country  in 

the  world  has  felt  the  influence  of  this  incentive  as  has  the  United  States. 


ACiKICt'LTrKAT.    SOCIKTIKS. 

The  first  steps  toward  organization  for  encouraging  and  forwarding  tillage 
and  the  arts  related  thereto  in  tliis  country  were  taken  by  the   Philadelphia 
.Society  for  tlie   Promotion  of  .Agriculture  in   171^4.      Similar  ""^s   p^,^  j|g„ 
were  formed  in  New  Vt)rk  in  1791  (incorporated  two  years  later),   of  agricui- 
in    ^.lassachusetts    in    1702,    and    iu    South    Carolina.      .At   this   »"'»' s°"e- 

ties. 

tune  the  conception  of  such  societies  was  almost  entirely  new. 

Their  formation  had  only  just  begun  in  l-nglanil.     Hut  few  men  understood 


fli 


'I 


':»■;■  J 


30 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


how  the  institution  was  to  operate ;  and  the  membership  being  slim,  and  not 
over-practical,  little  good  was  at  first  effected.  There  was  much  talk,  at  first, 
of  taking  these  boards  under  governmental  management,  and  assisting  then) 
with  governmental  appropriations.  Washington  was  interested  greatly  in  the 
subject.  He  was,  while  yet  President  of  the  Untied  States,  an  honorary  mem- 
ber of  the  Philadelphia  organization  to  which  we  have  alluded.  He,  as  well  as 
Adams  and  Jefferson,  was  a  practical  farmer  on  a  large  scale.  He  cauglit  part 
of  his  inspiration  from  correspondence  with  Arthur  Young  and  Sir  John  Sinclair 
of  England,  who  were  active  in  the  spheres  of  agri':ultural  organization  and 
information.  These  gentlemen  suggested  to  him  the  value  of  a  national  agri- 
cultural board  founded  and  fostered  by  the  United-States  Government ;  but 
Washington's  idea  was,  that  the  formation  of  smaller  societies  was  a  pre- 
requisite to  the  greater  one.  These  continued  to  be  organized  throughout 
the  States  slowly,  and  with  slight  results.  The  Kennebec  Agricultural  Society 
was  instituted  at  Augusta,  Me.,  in  1800,  being  the  second  society  incorpo- 
rated inside  of  Massachusetts,  the  separation  between  the  two  States  not  hav- 
ing been  effected  until  a  later  period.  A  voluntary  association  of  Middlesex- 
county  husbandmen  existed  in  Massachusetts  as  early  as  1 794  ;  but  it  was  not 
incorporated  until  1803. 

The  first  agricultural  fair  in  this  country  was  held  at  Washington,  then  a  "  city 
in  the  woods,"  in  1804,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  commissioner  of  patents,  and 
The  flrit  under  the  auspices  of  the  municipal  authorities,  who  voted  to  hold 
agricultural  them  semi-annually.  The  first  one,  held  in  October  of  that  year, 
''  '■  showed  the  advantage,  educationally,  of  exhibiting  choice  produce 

and  stock ;  and  at  the  spring  exhibition  the  next  year  over  one  hundred 
dollars  in  premiums  were  offered,  which  proved  a  stimulus  to  the  farmers' 
efforts.  The  next  provision  for  a  fair  was  that  made  by  the  Columbian  Agri- 
cultural Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Rural  and  Domestic  Economy,  at 
Georgetown,  D.C.  The  organization  was  effected  in  the  fall  of  1809,  and  its 
first  fair  was  held  the  following  May.  Large  premiums  were  offered  on  that 
occasion  for  sheep-raising.  In  1816  the  Massachusetts  society  held  a  fair  at 
Brighton,  at  which  premiums  were  offered  for  a  variety  of  articles ;  and  a 
ploughing-match  was  had  to  show  off  the  training  of  cattle. 

These  fairs  brought  the  farmers  together  for  an  interchange  of  thought  and 
experience,  far  more  valuable  than  the  old  husking-bees  and  sheep-shearings 
Advantage  that  formed  the  earlier  neighborhood  rural  gatherings.  They 
of  (airs.  excited  rivalry  as  well  as  afforded  new  hints.     Furthermore,  they 

advertised  the  stock  of  some  enterprising  breeder  to  his  neighbors ;  and  the 
consequent  sales  enabled  him  to  reap  a  rich  harvest  from  his  venturesome 
_.  ,,„,„,.  investments  of  time,  trouble,  and  money.  The  agricultural  soci- 
tion  of  eties  also  collected  and  printed  such  information  as  they  could 

knowledge      procure,  individual  members  contributing  papers  on  topics  with 
which  they  were  familiar,  and  these  transactions  being  published 
either  for  circulation  or  reference. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


•1 


[  slim,  antl  not 
-h  talk,  at  first, 
assisting  them 
I  greatly  in  the 
honorary  mem- 
He,  as  well  as 
He  caught  part 
lir  John  Sinclaii 
rganization  and 
\  national  agri- 
wernment ;  but 
ies  was  a  pre- 
zed  throughout 
[Cultural  Society 
lociety  incorpo- 
I  States  not  hav-  , 
I  of  Middlesex- 
;  but  it  was  not 

ton,  then  a  "city 
of  patents,  and 
lo  voted  to  hold 
ler  of  that  year, 
choice  produce 
;r  one  hundred 
to  the  farmers' 
Columbian  Agri- 
c  Economy,  at 
af  1809,  and  its 
ofiered  on  that 
ty  held  a  fair  at 
articles;   and  a 

of  thought  and 

sheep-shearings 
therings.  They 
urthermore,  they 
ghbors ;  and  the 

his  venturesome 
igricultural  soci- 
)n  as  they  could 
i  on  topics  with 

being  published 


s 


33 


IND  US  TKIA  I.    Ills  TOR  Y 


•  A 


.'.'  i. 


>r' 


,r 


For  the  first  forty  years  of  the  present  century  the  organization  of  county 
ineraateof  ^"^'  *''^*'-*  societies  was  slow  and  infre(iucnt.  IJut  between  1840 
agricultural  and  1850  State  and  county  soc'eties  were  numerously  formed  all 
aoc  etiei.  ^^^^  ^^^  country ;  and,  since  that  time,  scarcely  an  agricultural 
region  within  our  national  limits  has  been  without  one  or  both. 

In  1 84 1  an  effort  was  made  in  Washington  to  organize  a  national  agricid- 
tural  society  with  the  fund  bctiucathed  .'.  r  the  purpose  by  Hugh  Smithson. 
But  the  establishment  of  the  Smithsonian  Institute  matle  the  endowment 
available  for  the  other  purpose;  and  the  project  was  abandoned  until  i<S52, 
when  a  convention  of  a  hundred  and  fifty-two  delegates,  representing  twelve 
state  agricultural  associations  and  eleven  other  States  and  Territories,  met,  and 
organized  a  national  society,  which  was  a  realization  of  George  Washington's 
long-cherished  idea.  It  was  not  incorporated  until  i860;  but  before  that 
time  it  had  undertaken  a  special  publication  of  its  own,  and  had  lield  service- 
able national  fairs.  The  interruptions  of  the  war,  and  the  assumption  of  some 
of  its  functions  by  the  general  department  of  agriculture  in  1863,  resulted  in 
its  disintegration  and  virtual  abandonment. 

Special  societies,  too,  have  been  organized  in  the  interest  of  special 
branches  of  agriculture.  Horticultural  societies  (of  which  the  first  was 
.  formed  in  1829),  pomological  societies,  Southern  planters'  societies, 
progresiof  dairymen's  societies  (state  and  national),  sheep-raisers' and  wool- 
apeciaito-  growers',  cattle  and  horse  breeding  societies,  poultry  and  bee 
keepers'  associations,  and  the  like,  have  grown  up  within  the  i)ast 
quarter  of  a  century  very  numerously  ;  and  these,  like  the  more  comprehen- 
sive "  agricultural "  societies,  have  done  much,  by  the  interchange  of  observa- 
tions, experiment,  and  exhibition,  to  awaken  and  heighten  individual  interest, 
improve  the  standards  of  stock,  enlighten  the  cultivator  or  breeder  as  to  the 
best  methods  of  operation,  and  to  dignify  the  agricultural  industry  before  the 
world.  (' 

In  1867  the  records  of  the  department  of  agriculture  showed  that  1,367 
organizations  of  this  general  character  were  in  nominal  existence  throughout 
the  country.  Some  few  had  been  discontinued ;  but  most  of  them  were 
revived,  or  supplanted  by  new  ones.  And,  besides  these,  many  other  such 
societies  have  since  been  formed.  , 


GKANGKR    MOVKMKNT. 


p 


\,  % 


In  this  connection  it  may  be  well  to  mention  a  system  of  organization  for 
Granger  the  promotion  of  agricultural  interests  which  is  still  more  recent, 
movement,  a^d  somewhat  different  from  the  societies  we  have  thus  far  men- 
tioned. We  refer  to  the  Patrons  of  Husbandry,  whose  association  and  influ- 
ence constitute  what  is  known  as  " the  Granger  movement"  in  this  country. 

At  the  close  of  the  civil  war  the  agriculturists  of  the  West  found  them- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


n 


selves,  for  one  reason  or  another,  badly  situated.    Their  farms  were  mortgaged, 
they  obtained   poor   remuneration   for  their  produce,  and   their  org«nii«tion 
prospects    were    gloomy   indeed.      Letters    of  complaint   about  oftheflrtt 
these  and   other  kindred  evils  poured  into  the  department  at  °""«*'- 
Washington  in  great  numbers.     P^inally  it  occurred  to  Mr.  William  Saunders  — 
a  Scotchman  of  education  and  culture  connected  with  the  agricultural  bureau, 
and  in  charge  of  the  ganlens  and  conservatories  of  that  establishment  —  that 
many  of  these  evils  could  be  overcome  were  the  farmers  to  organize  after  the 
manner  of  the  Masons  and  Odd  Fellows.     He  did  not  belong  to  either  frater- 
nity himself;  but  in  1867  he  broached  the  idea  to  Mr.  O.  H.  Kelley  (a  clerk 
in  the  post-office  department),  Mr,  J.  R.  '"hompson,  and  William  M.  Ireland, 
all  of  whom  were  Masons ;  to  the  Rev.  A.  B.  Grosh,  who  held  a  high  rank 
among  the  Odd  Fellows  ;  and  to  the  Rev.  John  Trimble,  jun.     On  the  3d  of 
August,  1867,  these  gentlemen  met,  and  devised  a  scheme  for  a  society,  as  yet 
nameless,  which  contemplated  the  objects  Mr.  Saunders  had  in  view.     Soon 
afterward  he  had  occasion  to  visit  Western  New-York   State,  and  there   he 
interested   a   number  of  his   agricultural  friends   in  the   enterprise.     In   the 
autumn   a  second,  third,  and   fourth   degree  was   perfected,  and   the  name 
"  Patrons  of  Husbandry  "  was  adopted.     The  National  Orange  was  organized 
in  December,  with  the  following  officers :    William  Saunders,  master ;  J.  R. 
Thompson,  lecturer ;  Anson  Bartlett,  overseer ;  William  Miner,  steward  ;  A.  S. 
Moss,  assistant  steward ;  the  Rev.  A.  B.  Grosh,  chaplain ;  William  M.  Ireland, 
treasurer ;  O.  H.  Kelley,  secretary ;  and  Edward  P.  Faris,  gate-keeper.     The 
constitution  provided  for  the  admission  of  women ;  and  four  feminine  offices 
were  created,  named  respectively  Ceres,  Pomona,  Flora,  and  Lady  Assistant 
Stewardess.     There  was  also  an  executive  committee  appointed.     Later  in  the 
month  a  subordinate  Grange  was  formed,  with  about  sixty  members.    On  the  ist 
of  January,  1868,  Mr.  Saunders  disseminated  throughout  the  country  circulars 
setting  forth  the  principles  of  the  order,  and  urging  the  organization  of  Granges 
and  the  foundation  of  Grange  libraries. 

Progress  was  at  first  very  slow.  For  three  months  the  local  Grange  in 
Washington  was  the  only  subordinate  one  in  the  whole  country.  On  the  ist 
of  April  Mr.  Kelley  resigned  his  government  clerkship,  and  gave  Growth  of 
his  whole  time  and  energy  to  promoting  the  growth  of  the  order ;  **'*  "'■''"'■• 
for  which  he  was  to  have  a  salary  of  $2,000,  provided  he  could  organize 
enough  Granges  to  secure  it  in  fees.  During  April,  four  were  formed ;  and, 
before  the  year  was  out,  six  more,  these  latter  in  Minnesota.  In  1869  to  the 
original  eleven  were  added  thirty-nine,  and  in  1870  thirty-eight.  Besides 
these,  there  were  the  National  Grange,  already  mentioned,  and  three  State 
Granges.  Mr.  Kelley  came  to  Washington  again  Jan.  i,  1871,  as  the  secretary 
and  executive  officer  of  the  organization.  From  that  time  forward  progress 
ws  rapid.  The  additions  to  the  order  numbered  125  in  1871,  1,160  in  1872, 
8,600  in  1873,  11,000  in  1874,  and  about  the  same  number  in  1875.    At  the 


I  li  $■ 


84 


INDUSTRIAL    JllSTOKY 


ll 


Its  object!. 


close  of  the  last-named  year,  a  few  Granges  having  become  extinct,  there  were 
about  30,000  in  the  country  altogether,  with  a  membcrshij)  of  about  2,500,000. 
Since  then  it  has  grown  but  little,  the  movement  having  about  reached  its 
climax  in  1875. 

The  objects  of  this  order,  which  was  secret  b«t  strictly  non-political,  were 
the  higher  social  and  intellectual  culture  of  the  members,  and  the  dispensing 
with  the  services  and  profits  of  the  middlemen  in  both  buying  and 
selling.  The  former  end  was  attained  by  the  introduction  of 
music  and  literary  exercises  at  the  meeting  of  the  drange  ;  and  thus  thousands 
of  rude  farmers  and  farmers'  wives  were  led  to  develop  and  gratify  tastes,  and 
engage  in  avocations,  pursued  by  i)ersons  in  more  advantageous  conditions  of 
Mode  of  '•'*■*•     '^^'^  latter  end  was   secured  by  several   means.     Agencies 

attaining        were  established  for  the  sale  of  produce  directly  to  shippers  and 
""■  other  legitimate  jnirchasers,  thereby  dispensing  with  the  medium 

of  speculators.  Thus  the  farmers  were  enabled  to  get  better  prices  for  their 
crops.  The  same  sort  of  co-operation  saved  to  the  farmers  the  large  j)rofits 
of  middlemen  in  buying  household  furniture  and  farming-utensils.  Hooks, 
sewing-machines,  all  kinds  of  implements  and  merchandise,  were  procured  at  a 
saving  of  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  per  cent  through  these  agencies.  These 
advantages,  and  co-operation  in  other  directions,  put  the  farmers  in  a  more 
prosperous  condition  than  ever  before,  cleared  off  their  debts,  and  gave  them 
many  comforts  and  novelties  uliich  otherwise  they  could  not  have  enjoyed. 

It  was  one  of  the  first  principles  of  the  order  that  it  should  in  no  way 
meddle  with  politics  ;  and  though  it  has  been  alleged  repeate<lly  that  this  or 
_,.   _  that  candidate  for  local,  state,  or  national  office,  had  been  elected 

The  Grange  '  ' 

disiociated      or  defeated  through  Granger  i- fluence,  i)ositive  and  emphatic  deni- 
from  poll-       jj]g  qC  ji^^.  same  have  been  m,..i«,  by  the  officers  of  the  organiza- 
tion.    The  discussion  of  poliucal  topics  in  meetings  of  the  Grange 
is  also  prohibited. 

A  semi-political  influence  has,  however,  been  exerted  bv  the  order,  though 
to  an  extent,  doubtless,  far  less  than  has  been  generally  believed.  One  of  the 
Demands  ^^''^  against  which  the  Western  agriculturist  declaimed  most  bit- 
made  of  the  terly  was  the  discrimination  of  the  railroad  comininies  against 
raiiroadi.  \qq^  shippers  of  freight,  in  favor  of  through  shi])pers.  It  was  felt 
that  these  exactions  were  grievous,  and  a  remedy  was  sought  in  legislation. 
No  "  Granger  "  tickets  were  put  in  nomination  ;  yet,  doubtless  with  this  object 
in  view,  the  Patrons  of  Husbandry  gained  sufficient  strength  in  the  lilinois  and 
Wisconsin  legislatures  to  secure  the  enactment  of  State  laws  in  1873,  restrict- 
ing the  railroad  tariffs  to  a  basis  more  favorable  to  the  farmers  who  were  way- 
passengers  and  shippers.  The  railroad  companies  resisted  this  legislation  at 
first  as  unconstitutional,  declaring  that  a  State  had  no  right  to  modify  their 
charters  when  once  granted.  The  matter  went  into  the  State  courts,  and,  by 
appeal,  to  the  United-States  courts.     But  in  1876  a  test  case,  appealed  to  the 


1  A 


OF    THE    I'NITRD   STATES,  t| 

Supreme  Cotirt  of  the  nation,  cvokc<l  a  decision  to  the  effect  that  the  "  Potter 
Law"  of  Wisconsin,  the  most  famous  of  all  these  "dranger"  enactments,  was 
constitutional.  Tlic  moral  effect  of  this  decision  was  to  secure  greater  or  less 
concessions  from  the  Western  railroads  to  the  agricultural  interest. 


ACJRICULTUkAL    !■  DUCATION    AND    LITERATURE. 

Roth  in  luigland  and  in  this  country  the  idea  of  governmental  encour- 
agL-mont  was  .it  first  associated  with  popular  organizations  for  promoting  hus- 
bandry.    It  has  been  remarked,  that,  until  a  (piarter  of  the  prest-nt 
< cnlury  had  passed  away,  agriculture  had  become  no  more  of  a  xol^wlrn^. 
science  in  Kurope  than  it  had  been  for  centuries.     lUit  Hacon's  menuien- 
pliil()so[)hy  was  applied  to  agriculture  by  original  .md  enterprising  i""!^^'^"*"* 
I!iili>ih    minds    in   the   eighteenth    century;   and    the  writings   of 
Jothro  I'lill,  Arthur  Voimg,  Lord  Kames,  and  Sir  John  Sinclair,  were  followed 
by  the  establishment  of  a  British  National  Hoard  of  Agriculture  by  William  Pitt 
in  179.}.     In  the  minds  of  many  Americans  of  that  day  and  later  the  idea 
of  congressional  provision  for  this  industry  was  warmly  cherisheil ;  but  it  was 
long  in  attaining  realization. 

In  1837-38  the  coimtry  was  roused,  by  the  necessity  for  importing  several 
million  dollars'  worth  of  breadstuffs,  to  a  consciousness,  that  owing  to  the 
exhaustion  of  the  soil,  and  bad  management  in  other  respects, 
agriiultup-  was  sadly  languishing.     One  of  the  two  means  of  relief  prj",*i*^o7** 
suggested  by  the  leading  minds  of  that  day  was  a  government   money  for 
ajjpropriation,  to  be  expended    by  the   commissioner  of  patents  ■«''="'»"'•' 

'  '      '  ^  '  '  purposes. 

for  the  "  collation  of  agricultural  statistics,  investigations  for  pio- 
moting  agriculture  and  rural  economy,  and  the  i)rocurement  of  seeds  and 
cuttings  for  gratuitous  distribution  among  the  fanners."  At  this  time  the  Hon. 
Henry  L.  Kllsworlh  was  commissioner  of  patents,  and  it  was  at  his  suggestion 
that  Congress  appropriated  a  thousand  dollars  for  this  purpose  in  1839.  A 
like  one  was  made  in  1842;  for  each  of  the  next  two  years  two  thousand 
dollars  were  appropriated;  in  1845  the  amount  was  three  thousand  dollars; 
then  a  year  was  missed.  Resuming  at  the  same  figure  in  1847,  the  govern- 
ment thereafter  regularly  made  provision,  gradually  increasing  the  sum,  until, 
ill  1862,  it  amounted  to  sixty  thousand  dollars.  Twice  and  thrice  that  sum 
has  since  been  expeniled  in  a  single  year.  Previous  to  this  date  the  depart- 
ment had  been  little  more  than  a  clerkship  in  the  patent  office;  and  the 
annual  reports,  beginning  with  one  in  1854,  long  constituted  a  part  of  the 
report  of  the  commissioner  of  patents.  Hy  a  law  of  1862  a  dis-  org«ni«tion 
tinct  bureau  of  agriculture  was  erected,  with  a  commissioner  at  of  bureau  of 
its  head,  a  chief  clerk,  botanist,  entomologist,  statistician,  and  •«''"'*""• 
other  subordinates.  Since  that  time  the  size  and  capacity  and  the  usefulness 
of  the  department  have  steadily  increased. 


m»» 


26 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


.iii;i, 


'!>    ill 


of  informa- 
tion. 


This  government  establishment  has  done  for  more  thoroughly  and  on  a 
much  broader  scale  much  of  the  work  of  a  local  agricultural  society,  and  a 
Work  ac-  great  deal  besides.  By  the  collection  of  facts  and  figures  showing 
compiished  the  extent  to  which  stock-raising  and  crop-growing  of  various  kinds 
y  ureau.  -^^^Q  conducted  in  different  sections  of  the  country,  the  value  of 
the  property,  the  cost  of  the  several  branches  of  the  business,  the  profits,  the 
character  of  maladies,  pests,  bad  weather  and  other  embarrassments,  the  pecu- 
liarities of  soil  and  climate  which  were  favorable  and  unfavorable  to  certain 
crops,  the  effects  of  experiments  with  various  plants  and  breeds  of  animals, 
the  results  of  observation  upon  the  use  of  new  implements  and  new  methods 
of  cultivation,  and  so  on,  it  was  possible  to  draw  deductions  scientifically, 
which  could  not  be  reached  in  any  other  way,  and  which  were  of  immense 
value  to  the  farming-interest. 

Agricultural  publications  and  correspondence  from  abroad  were  procured, 
showing  the  general  condition  and  special  features  of  the  industry  in  other 
c  11  cti  parts  of  the  world,  and  the  useful  parts  of  such  information  made 

and  diffusion  accessible  to  the  American  farmer.  Special  essays  upon  various 
plants,  modes  of  culture,  and  breeds  of  animals,  were  obtained 
from  gentlemen  of  experience  and  knowledge  all  over  the  coun- 
try ;  and  these  were  made  to  bear  more  particularly  upon  the  value  and  use- 
fulness of  the  choicer  kinds  of  stock,  and  varieties  of  crops,  in  order  to  excite 
a  desire  to  select,  raise,  and  breed  only  the  best. 

In  addition  to  the  collection  of  this  information,  the  department  procured 
abroad  and  elsewhere  the  choicest  seeds,  plants,  and  cuttings,  and  experi- 
mented with  them  on  government  grounds  in  order  to  ascertain 
their  habits,  vitality,  and  utility.  The  more  perfect  and  valuable 
specimens  were  extensively  propagated  ;  and  the  seeds,  cuttings, 
and  plants  were  distributed  all  over  the  country  among  fanners 
and  gardeners.  Thus  a  greater  degree  of  excellence  was  secured 
in  produce.  The  adaptation  of  these  to  the  locality  whither  they  were  sent, 
and  the  success  of  their  introduction,  was  ascertained  by  the  department  for 
its  own  and  the  public's  information. 

Improved  varieties  of  our  staples,  such  as  cotton,  wheat,  and  corn,  were 
sought  after.  Great  attention  was  given  to  the  introduction  of  plants  not 
Introduction  indigenous,  but  valuable,  and  likely  to  be  suited  to  our  country. 
of  new  The  silk-worm  and  the  mulberry-tree,  ramie-grass,  jute  or  Chinese 

hemp,  sorghum,  vines  for  wine,  raisins,  olives,  and  tea  and  coffee 


CoUection  of 
■eeds,  &c., 
and  experi- 
ments with 
them. 


plants. 


plants,  are  only  a  few  of  the  innumerable  importations  made  by  the  department, 
cultivated  on  its  own  grounds,  and  disseminated  throughout  the  country. 
The  department  has  never  gone  into  stock-breeding  and  importation,  but 
has  procured  a  vast  amount  of  information  upon  the  subject  in  all  its 
ramifications. 

The  printing  of  all  this  valuable  information,  and  its  broad  dissemination 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


37 


gratuitously  throughout  the  land,  have  educated  the  country  and   advanced 
the  science  of  agriculture  almost  beyond  computation.     Without   usefulness 
doubt  it  has  enriched  the  agricultural  classes  and  the  country  ofagricui- 
generally  a  thousand-fold  more  than  its  cost ;  and  there  is  reason   |J|^"j '*'''"*' 
to  believe,  that,  before  many  years,  the  facilities  and  influence  of 
the  bureau  will  be  increased  by  its  erection  into  a  full-grown  "  department  " 
of  the  administration,  co-equal  with  those  which  conduct  our  revenue,  postal, 
military,  and  naval  service. 


broad  dissemination 


ESTABLISHMENT    OF    STATE    BOARDS   OF   AGRICULTURE. 

In  several  of  tiie  States,  Boards  of  Agriculture  have  been  constituted  under 
government  auspices,  sometimes  based  upon  the  remains  of  a  defunct  State 
agricultural  society,  and  sometimes  organized  independently.  These  State 
boards  are  maintained  by  appropriations,  establish  experiment-stations,  provide 
for  lectures  in  different  parts  of  the  State,  promote  local  farmers'  clubs,  and 
iniblish  their  proceedings.  Their  work,  in  some  cases,  will  compare  very 
favorably  with  that  carried  on  at  Washington. 

Education  in  the  science  of  agriculture,  however,  is  the  great  thing  that 
has  developed  the  industry.    This  has  been  done  partly  by  the  discussions  of 
clubs  and  societies,  by  the  dissemination  of  documents  by  socie-   introduction 
ties  and  the  government,  by  the  literature  produced  by  individual   of  scientific 
enterprise,  and  by  special  schools  for  the  thorough   training  of  ""ethodsmto 
students  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  farming.    In  the  olden  time, 
and  indeed  until  within  a  century,  the  farmer  looked  at  agriculture  as  little 
more  than  gathering  what  Mother  Earth  would  yield  him  spontaneously.     He 
had  not  studied  the  subject  of  vegetation,  weather,  soil,  chemistry,  and  tlie 
other  elements  which  entered  into  and  vitally  affected  his  industry.     He  had 
not  indulged  in  wide  observation,  nor  reduced  his  labor  to  what  could  be 
termed  a  science.     Nearly  a  hundred  years  ago,  scientific  methods  of  wide- 
spread observation,  logical  deduction,  and  experimental  application  of  theory, 
were  begun  by  a  few  enterprising  agriculturists,  or  patrons  of  agriculture, 
in  the  Old  World,  and  subsequently  in  America.     But  no  provision  for  pro- 
curing scientific  information,  and  making  it  practically  useful,  has   equalled 
the  establishment  of  special  agricultural  colleges.     Except  Germany,  this  coun- 
try has  no  equal  in  the  educational  advantages  sh.;  offers  her  people  in  this 
direction ;   although  the  establishment  of  these  institutions  is  comparatively 
recent. 

The  first  three  agricultural  schools  were  started  in  Germany  and  Switzerland 
in  1799.    They  were  located  at  Celle  in  Hanover,  near  Berne,   poundingof 
and  at  Kruman,  Bohemia.     In  181 1  a  private  forestry-school  was  agricultural 
established  in  Saxony,  which  in  18 16  was  transferred  to  the  state,   **  °"'*" 
and  in  1830  became  an  agricultural  college.     The  great  agricultural  college  of 


I 


■I 


♦ 

Li 

28 


/N/) l/S TRIAL    IIISTOK  Y 


Europe  —  that  at  Hohenheim,  near  Stuttgart  —  was  founded  in  1818,  and 
another  such  institution  was  started  in  Pomerania  in  1835.  Ten  years  ago 
Contrast  be-  there  Were  a  hundred  and  forty-four  stations,  institutes,  schools, 
tween  jj,i(j   coUegts   in   Germany.     Great    Britain  has  but  two   of  any 

Europe  and  ,  i-  i      ,    ,     ,.  „  , 

United  consequence,  —  one  at  Cirencester,  estabhshed  before  1840,  and 

States.  one  near  Dublin.     French  legislation  in  1848  led  to  the  organiza- 

tion of  one  college  at  Versailles,  and  several  minor  schools  in  various  parts  of 
France. 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  facts,  and  from  others  which  we  are  about  to 
state,  that  Europe  led  us  but  very  little  in  agricultural  education,  and  soon  fell 
Efforts  of  behind.  We  have  already  referred  to  the  depression  of  agriculture 
Judge  Buei.  in  America  between  1830  and  1840.  Besides  the  suggestion  then 
made  for  a  government  bureau  of  agriculture,  the  establishment  of  technical 
sciiools  in  this  department  of  knowledge  was  strongly  recommended,  Judge 
Buel  of  New  York  being  foremost  in  pressing  the  idea.  No  immediate  action 
was  t?ken,  however. 

In   1844  an  agricultural  department  was  established   in  connection  with 
Oberlin   College,  Ohio.     A  separate   college  was   founded   at   Cleveland   in 
Increase  of      1855,  to  which  the  Oberlin  endowment  was  transferred.     In  1854 
agricultural     Dr.  William  Terrell  made  a  bequest  to  the  University  of  Georgia, 
°°  '■  amounting  to  $ 20,000,  to  establish  a  professorship  of  agriculture. 

.Arrangements  for  a  similar  departmt  'X  in  connection  with  Amherst  College 
were  made  by  Massachusetts  in  1S55.  Subsecpiently  a  veterinary  institute 
was  established  at  Boston.  In  1852  a  charter  was  obtained  for  an  independent 
aLTJcultural  college.  The  endowment  was  to  be  raised  from  town,  county, 
and  ])ersonal  subscriptions.  Little  was  done  toward  organization  until  1855. 
It  was  i860  before  the  school  was  in  operation  ;  and,  the  war  breaking  out  soon 
after,  .t  closed  after  two  terms. 

Michigan  was  the  first  State,  after  Ohio,  to  get  an  independent  agricultural 
college  in  actual  operation.  The  act  of  incorporation  and  appropriation 
passed  Feb.  12,  1855.  A  farm  of  676  acres,  mostly  wooded, 
at  first  was  purchased,  and  buildings  erected  for  college-purposes, 
students'  boarding-house,  and  professors'  residences.  The  institu- 
tion went  into  i)ractical  ojieration  in  1857;  and  its  stock-stables, 
botanical  gardens,  and  course  of  instruction,  soon  made  it  famous. 
The  original  grant  was  of  ;S56,ooo  :  a  subsecjuent  one  of  $40,000  was  made  ; 
and  even  then  there  was  a  debt  of  $13,000,  making  a  total  cost  of  $109,000. 
In  i860  it  passed  under  control  of  the  State  Board.  Tht  'hird  juch  independ- 
ent institution  was  the  Farmers'  High  School  of  Pennsylvania,  opened  in  Centre 
County  of  that  State  in  1859.  Three  years  later  its  name  was  changed  to  the 
Agricultural  College  of  Pennsylvania.  Iowa  made  a  grant  of  $10,000  for 
such  an  institution  in  1858,  and  got  it  going  on  a  small  scale  in  1859.  The 
Ovid  College  appears  to  have  been  the  fifth  of  these  institutions. 


Formation  of 
agricultural 
schools  in 
Michigan 
and  Penn- 
sylvania. 


.MtMIHI"- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


99 


Congres- 
sional grant 
for  State 
agricultural 
colleges. 


In  1862  Congress  passed  an  act  granting  land  to  each  State  in  the  Union,  to 
the  extent  of  30,000  acres  for  each  representative  in  Congress,  the  proceeds 
of  the  sales  of  which  were  to  go  to  agricultural  and  mechanical 
colleges.  Immediately  steps  were  taken  in  several  of  the  Northern 
States  for  the  foundation  of  industrial  schools  of  this  sort.  Massa- 
chusetts devoted  the  proceeds  of  one-tenth  of  her  land-scrip  to 
buying  a  farm  at  Amherst,  which  cost  $40,000 ;  and  $75,000  more 
was  appropriated  for  the  buildings  of  her  Agricultural  College.  In  New  York 
the  land-scrip  was  given  to  Cornell  University,  which  had  an  agricultural 
department.  In  Connecticut  the  Sheffield  Scientific  School  profited  in  the 
same  way.  Kentucky  at  first  established  a  college  in  connection  with  the 
State  University,  but  subsequently  separated  it,  and  bought  a  farm  for  it, 
which  included  "  Ashland,"  the  historic  estate  of  Henry  Clay.  This  school 
was  opened  in  1866 ;  in  which  year  the  colleges  of  Maine,  Vermont,  and  New 
Jersey,  were  nearly  or  quite  completed.  Where  some  institution  had  already 
been  founded,  as  in  Iowa,  Michigan,  and  Ohio,  they  were  made  the  recipients 
of  the  Federal  grants.  In  some  States  the  endowment  was  utilized  at  existing 
universities  by  the  opening  of  special  departments.  The  Southern  States 
followed  suit  soon  after  the  war.  In  1876  all  the  States  but  Nevada  had 
availed  themselves  of  the  government  provision ;  and  there  were  then  41 
industrial  colleges  in  existence  in  this  country,  with  463  professors  and  3,703 
students  in  all  grades.  In  1875  there  were  382  graduates  from  these  colleges  ; 
a  number  steadily  increasing  since.  At  the  present  time  nearly  all  the  land- 
scrip  has  been  sold,  some  of  it  having  been  exceedingly  desirable. 

Our  agricultural  literature  has  been  regarded  by  eminent  authority  as  not 
exclusively  a  cause  of  the  development  of  agricultural  science,  but  as  partly 
an  outgrowth  of  that  advance  in  thought  and  interest ;  for,  with  Agricultural 
slight  exceptions,  we  had  very  little  until  nearly  a  quarter  of  the  "f"'""- 
present  century  hail  passed.  In  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the  Rev.  Jared 
Eliot  of  Connecticut  prepared  and  published  several  papers  on  the  state  of 
husbandry  in  this  country,  which  were  almost  as  valuable  to  his  generation  as 
the  famous  "  Georgics  "  of  Virgil.  But  these  essays  were  a  little  ahead  of  the 
time,  and  had  but  few  readers.  The  Philadelphia,  New- York,  and  Massachu- 
setts societies  also  published  their  transactions,  which  were  valuable.  Those 
of  Massachusetts,  beginning  in  1 796,  were  especially  heloful. 

Mr.  Flint  thinks  that  "  The  .'\in  »rican  Farmer,"  published  in  Baltimore  for 
the  first  time  in  1819,  was  the  first  purely  agricultural  periodical  in  the  United 
States.  It  soon  attained  a  wide  circulation,  and  seems  to  have  Agricultural 
set  the  fiirmers  to  reading  and  thinking  more  scientifically  than  pe"odicais. 
before.  "  The  Agricultural  Intelligencer  "  was  started  in  Boston  the  following 
year;  but  it  lived  only  a  few  months.  In  1822,  however,  a  new  venture 
was  made  with  better  success.  Mr.  T.  G.  Fessenden  founded  "The  New- 
Knjjland  Farmer,"  which  was  continued  until   1846;  when,  upon  its  death, 


I        I  ' 

I 


4,1 ''  ^  i\ 


30 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


another  periodical  of  the  same  name,  weekly  and  monthly,  succeeded  It.  Mr. 
Samuel  Fleet  started  "  The  New- York  Farmer  "  soon  after  the  New-England 
publication  made  its  advent,  subsequently  selling  it  out  to  D.  K.  Miner. 
Mr.  Luther  Tucker,  an  experienced  agricultural  editor,  started  still  another 
paper  in  New- York  State,  near  Rochester,  in  183 1.  It  was  called  "The 
Genesee  Farmer,"  and,  though  it  was  long  in  becoming  firmly  established, 
eventually  became  a  valuable  and  widely-circulated  periodical.  Judge  Buel 
of  Albany  founded  "The  Cultivator  "  in  1833;  and  in  1839,  on  his  death,  it 
was  consolidated  with  "The  Genesee  Farmer."  "The  American  Agricul- 
turist" wds  started  in  1842.  Shortly  prior  to  this,  and  since,  numerous  other 
periodicals,  weekly  and  monthly,  sprang  up ;  and  their  publication,  and 
increase  of  cir  lation,  rapidly  developed.  Among  these  may  be  mentioned 
"The  Maine  Farmer,"  "The  Rural  New-Yorker,"  "The  Country  Gentle- 
man," "The  Ohio  Farmer,"  "The  Michigan  Farmer,"  "The  Valley  Farmer," 
"  The  Wisconsin  Farmer,"  "  The  North-western  Farmer,"  "  The  Southern 
Planter."  There  are  now  between  fifty  and  sixty  weekly  and  monthly  agricul- 
tural periodicals  in  this  country.  Besides  those,  many  other  papers  devote 
a  special  department  to  agriculture,  stock-raising,  dairying,  poultry,  and  fruit. 

Then,  too,  within  the  past  forty  years,  a  considerable  number  of  books  have 
been  written  on  special  topics  in  agricultural  and  horticultural  science  ;  Andrew 
Agricultural  Jackson  Downing  having  been  one  of  tiie  earliest  and  most  prolific 
books.  writers  on  the  subject.     The  reports  of  the  United-States  Govern- 

ment, first  prepared  by  a  clerk  of  the  Patent  Office  in  1839,  and  then,  after 
1862,  by  the  commissioner  of  the  Agricultural  Bureau,  have  also  proved 
exceedingly  valuable  accessions  to  this  class  of  American  literature. 


I  !     ^if        \ 


e; 


.,^ 


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^lipl 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


3' 


succeeded  it.    Mr. 
r  the  New-England 

to  L).  K.  Miner, 
tarted  still  another 
t  was  called  "The 

firmly  established, 
»dical.  Judge  Buel 
39,  on  his  death,  it 
American  Agricul- 
;e,  numerous  other 
ir  publication,  and 
may  be  mentioned 
e  Country  Cientle- 
'he  Valley  Farmer," 

', rhc   Southern 

nd  monthly  agricul- 
other  papers  devote 
poultry,  and  fruit, 
mber  of  books  have 
al  science ;  Andrew 
ist  and  most  prolific 
ited-States  Govern- 
?39,  and  then,  after 

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terature. 


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3* 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


<  ■* 


CHAPTER  II. 

AGRICULTURAL   IMPLEMENTS.  ^, , 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  and  important  features  in  the  history  of 
American  agriculture  relates  to  the  improvement  of  means  for  cultivat- 
ing the  soil.  The  history  is  a  record  of  marked  originality,  perseverance. 
Hi  h  h  c-  ^"^  great  triumphs,  with  enough  of  tragic  disappointment  or 
ter  of  Ameri-  pecuniary  loss  to  spice  the  tale  ;  while  the  vast  development  given 
to  American  resources  and  wealth  by  the  improvement  of  these 
prerequisites  to  toil  has  given  this  nation  its  distinctive  pre-emi- 
nence. Our  highest  rank  among  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  in  a  material  point 
of  view,  is  as  an  agricultural  people  ;  and  though  great  progress  has  been  made 
in  other  industries,  to  which  Americans  can  look  with  justifiable  pride,  im- 
provement in  means  for  subduing  and  cultivating  the  land  .is  still  the  most 
marked  characteristic  of  native  inventive  genius. 

The  most  impoitant  of  agricultural  implements  is  the  plough  :  besides,  it  is 
one  of  the  oldest ;  for  its  origin  is  lost  in  the  dim  twilight  of  antiquity.  The 
Origin  of  the  plough  is  probably  an  improvement  upon  the  hoe,  which  can  lay 
plough.  claim  to  a  still  more  ancient  history.     At  first,  it  was  made  of  the 

tough  crotches  of  trees ;  then  the  forked  piece  was  trimmed  and  bound  to  the 


can  inven- 
tive genius 


ANCIENT  HOB  AND  PLOUGHS. 


handle  to  prevent  the  two  from  splitting  apart.  In  the  accompanying  engraving 
an  ancient  kind  of  hoe  is  given.  The  plough  had  a  similar  and  equally  humble 
origivi.  It  was  not  the  product  of  great  and  enduring  genius.  The  earliest 
ploughs  known  to  us  were  rude  enough  in  their  construction.  Like  hoes,  one 
limb  of  a  tree  formed  the  beam  of  the  plough,  and  the  other  the  share  ;  from 
which  simple  device  improvements  have  been  slowly  made,  until  this  imple- 
ment has  been  brought  nearly  to  perfection. 


M    'iii 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


33 


Wlien  the  colonists  first  began  to  upturn  the  soil,  the  plough  was  a  very  rude 
affair.     It  was  made  wholly  of  wood.    The  beam,  standard,  and  handles,  if  the 
plough  had  two,  were  of  seasoned  stuff;  and  the  mould-board  was  a  Rude„e,, 
block  of  wood,  and  approximating  to  the  curve  required.     A  great  of  early 
deal  of  power  was  needed  to  draw  it.     Yet  even  this,  rude  as  it  p'°"«''"* 
was,  far  excelled  the  plough  used  in  the  days  of  Elisha,  who,  when  summoned 
to  assume  the  functions  of  prophet  and  teacher  for  the  Hebrew  children,  was 
walking  behind  his  plough  drawn  by  twelve  yoke  of  oxen.    The  earliest  ploughs 
were  doubtless  imported,  and  as  early  as  1617  they  might  be  seen  pirstimpor- 
upon  a  Virginia  plantation.    The  complaint  of  the  governor  at  that  tation  of 
time  was,  not  lack  of  instruments,  but  "  skilful  husbandmen,  and  P'°"**'»- 
means  to  set  their  ploughs  on  work,  having  as  good  ground  as  any  man  can 
desire,  and  about  forty  bulls  and  oxen  ;  but  they  wanted  men  to  bring  them  to 
labor,  iron  for  ploughs,  and  harness  for  the  cattle."     But  ten  years  later,  it  is 
recorded  there  were  only  thirty  ploughs  in  the  colony  at  Massachusetts  Bay ; 
and,  for  twelve  years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  the  farmers  there  had 
none  whatever,  and  were  compelled  to  prepare  their  lands  for  seed  with  clumsy 
hoes.     It  has  been  affirmed  that  it  was  the  custom  in  that  part  of  the  country, 
even  to  a  much  later  period,  for  any  one  owmng  a  plough  to  go  about  and  do 
the  ploughing  for  the  inhabitants  over  a  considerable  extent  of  territory.     A 
town  often  paid  a  bounty  to  any  one  who  would  buy  and  kee])  a  i)lough  in 
repair  for  the  purpose  of  going  al)out  to  work  in  this  way.     The  massive  old 
wooden  plough  required  a  strong  and  well-fed  team  to  move  it  through  the 
soil,  a  heavy,  muscular  man  to  press       into  the  ground,  another  to  hold,  and 
another  to  drive. 

During  all  the  centuries  preceding  the  present  one,  but  few  improvements 
were  made  in  this  most  important  of  all  agricultural  implements.     All  the 
earlier  ones  never  turned  a  furrow,  but  only  stirred  up  the  ground  ;   slowness  of 
and  hence  they  were  difficult  to  draw,  beside  doing  their  work  early  im- 
very  imperfectly.     In  the  last  century  the  plough  in  use  among  the  p^^"""""'* 
French  settlers  in  Illinois  was  made  of  wood,  with  a  small  point  of  iron  tied 
upon  the  nose  with  strips  of  raw-hide.     The  beam  rested  upon  an  axle  and 
small  wooden  wheels  ;  while  the  oxen  which  drew  it  were  yoked  by 
their  horns  by  means  oi  a  straight  yoke  attached  by  raw  leather  ^"^^x^^°^ 
si  aps,  with  a  pole  extending  from  the  yoke  back  to  the  axle,   ploughs  used 
Knight  has  described  the  English  plough  in  use  among  the  colo-  '"  ***'' 
nies  along  the  coast  in  1776  as  being  made  of  wood,  except  the 
wrought-iron  share,  and  some  bolts  and  nuts  whereby  the  parts  were  fastened 
together.    The  standard  rose  nearly  vertically,  having  attached  to  it  the  beam 
and  the  sole-piece.     On  the  nose  of  the  beam  hung  the  clevis.    The  mould- 
board  and  share  were  attached  to  a  frame  braced  between  the  beam  and  the 
sole.    The  wooden  mould-board  was  sometimes  plated  with  sheet-iron,  or  by 
strips  made  by  hammering  out  old  horseshoes.     A  clump  of  iron  shaped  like 


34 


INDUSTRIAL    jr IS  TORY 


a  half  spear  formed  the  point.  It  was  known  as  a  "  biiU-ploiigh,"  "  bull- 
tongue,"  or  "  bar-share  "  plough.  'I'wo  pins  in  the  standard  formed  the  handles, 
and  it  recjuired  the  strength  of  a  man  to  manage  it.  The  work  was  slowly 
and  poorly  performed  by  cattle. 

During  the  last  century,  the  Carey  plough,  as  it  was  termed,  was  more  ex- 
tensively employed  than  any  other,  and  may  be  briefly  described,  although  the 
c«rey  form  varied  very  much,  according  to  the  ideas  and  skill  of  the 

plough.  blacksmith  who  made  it.     It  had  a  clumsy  wrought-iron  share,  a 

land-side  and  standard  made  of  wood,  a  wooden  mould-board,  often  plated 
over  in  a  rough  manner  with  pieces  of  old  saw-plates,  tin,  or  sheet-iron. 
The  handles  were  upright,  and  were  held  by  two  pins.  A  powerful  man  was 
required  to  hold  it,  and  double  the  strengtn  of  team  now  commonly  used  was 
required  in  doing  the  same  kind  of  work. 


?f- 


of  the  firit 

catt-iron 

plough. 


I'Lour.H  OK  i8ia. 

The  first  cast-iron  plough  ever  seen  in  this  country  was  imported  from 
Scotland  soon  after  the  Revolution,  and  was  the  invention  of  James 

Importation  '  ■' 

Small  of  Berwickshire.  The  mould-board  was  cast-iron,  with  a 
wrought-iron  share,  the  form  being  somewhat  similar  to  those 
now  in  use. 

The  first  person  in  this  country  who  devoted  his  attention  seriously  to  this 
subject  was  Thomas  Jefferson.  Immersed  as  he  was  in  the  politics  of  the 
Jefferson's  time,  he  never  lost  his  interest  in  the  greatest  of  all  pursuits ;  and 
interest  in  from  1 788  to  1793  he  Studied  and  experimented  diligently  to 
t  esu  ject.  determine  the  proper  form  of  the  mould-board,  treating  it  as  a 
"  lifling-wedge  and  an  upsetting-wedge,"  and  endeavoring  to  ascertain  the 
curve  necessary  to  accomplish  this  purpose  with  the  least  friction.  Probably 
he  was  stimulated  to  exercise  his  genius  in  this  direction  by  receiving  an 
improved  plough  from  the  agricultural  society  of  the  Department  of  the 
Seine  in  France.  His  son-in-law,  O  i.  Randolph,  whom  Jefferson  regarded  as 
the  best  farmer  in  Virginia,  soon  ?  ter  invented  a  side-hill  plough  adapted 
to  the  hilly  regions  of  that  State.  This  plough  was  made  with  two  wings 
welded  to  the  same  bar,  with  their  planes  at  right  angles  to  each  other ;  so 
that,  by  turning  a  bar  adjusted  to  an  axis,  either  wing  could  be  laid  flat  on  the 
ground,  while  the  other,  standing  vertically,  served  as  a  mould-board. 

Stimulated  by  the  example    tf  Jefierson,  others  entered  this  field  of  inven- 


ifcf 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


35 


was  more  ex- 


tioh.  Robert  Smith  of  Pennsylvania,  it  is  said,  took  out  the  first  patent  for 
the  mould-board  alone  of  a  plough ;  and  Newbold  of  Burlington,  g,,,^  iny,„. 
N.J.,  in  1797  patented  a  plough  with  a  mould-board,  share,  and  Honnecured 
land-side  all  cast  together.  Peacock  in  his  patent,  in  1807,  cast  '•J'P'**"*' 
his  plough  in  three  pieces,  the  front  of  the  colter  entering  a  notch  in  the 
breast  of  the  share.  We  now  come  to  the  invention  of  Jethro  Wood  of 
Scipio,  N.Y.,  whose  improvement  was  made  in  1819.  It  was  much  Wood's  in- 
superior  to  any  previous  invention ;  but  he  entertained  a  wiong  mention. 
idea  concerning  its  novelty,  supposing  it  to  be  the  first  iron  plough  ever 
invented.  Its  peculiar  merit  consisted  in  the  mode  of  securing  the  cast-iron 
portions  together  by  lugs  and  locking-pieces,  doing  away  with  screw-bolts,  and 
much  weight,  complexity,  and  expense.  Wood  did  more  than  any  other  person 
to  drive  out  of  use  the  cumbrous  contrivances  common  throughout  the  coun- 
try by  supplanting  them  with  a  lighter,  cheaper,  and  more  effective  implement. 
It  was  the  first  plough  in  which  the  parts  most  exposed  to  wear  could  lie 
renewed  in  the  field  by  the  substitution  of  cast  pieces.  Wood  was  entitled 
to  a  great  deal  of  credit  for  i  genius  and  enterprise  whi^h  he  displayed ; 
but,  like  many  an  unlucky  invt  or  before  and  since  his  time,  he  ispent  all  his 
fortune  in  developing  and  defending  his  invention. 

Since  his  day  improvements  have  been  -continuous,  and  every  year  new 
designs  are  sent  to  the  Patent  Office ;  nor  does  human  skill  show  scarce  a  sign 
of  abatement  in  this  direction. 

The  application  of  steam  to  ploughing  in  the  United  States  makes  another 
phase  of  improvement  in  agricultural  implements  worthy  of  mention.  The 
first  invention  of  the  kind  in  the  United  States  was  patented  by  E.  steam- 
C.  Bellinger  of  South  Carolina  in  1833;  but,  for  some  reason  or  v'""**"*- 
other,  it  never  went  into  general  use.  Twenty-one  years  later,  John  Fowler 
of  England  improved  upon  Bellinger's  invention  so  far  as  to  manufacture  and 
employ  several  of  his  machines.  About  the  same  time  that  Fowler's  invention 
appeared,  several  other  American  improvements  were  made  upon  a  very 
(lilTerent  principle.  Engines  were  designed  to  travel  over  the  field,  drawing 
l)loughs  behind  them.  I'romising  as  these  various  inventions  are,  many  im- 
provements are  required  to  make  them  perfect ;  and  a  splendid  field  still  lies 
before  the  genius  of  the  inventor. 

Great  ns  has  been  the  economy  effected  by  using  the  improved  plough,  the 
farmer,  for  a  long  time,  did  not  take  so  kindly  and  quickly  to  successive  im- 
l)rovements  in  this  most  important  of  all  agricultural  implements  j.^^^  ^ 
as  he  does   now.     Slowly  learned   as  were  the  i>rinciples  upon  were  slow  to 
wliich  the  true  construction  of  the  jjlough  depended,  —  the  turning  ■''°p*  '■"' 
over  and  pulverizing  of  the  soil  with  the  least  friction,  —  farmers 
were  slower  still  in  adopting  any  improvement.     Not  unfrequently  they  asserted 
that  cast-iron  poisoned  the  ground,  and  spoiled  crops ;  and  so  they  adhered 
to  tiieir  old  clumsy  wooden  affairs.     Slowly  has  this  prejudice  worn  away,  and 


lii 


'isf 


36 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Mrith  its  disappearance  every  real  improvement  has  been  more  and  more 
eagerly  tested.  The  inventor  has  been  stimulated  to  prosecute  his 
efforts  more  critically  :  he  has  found  that  different  kinds  of  ploughs 
will  work  to  the  best  advantage  on  various  soils ;  that,  while  one 
is  best  adapted  for  a  dam|)  soil,  another  is  for  dry  ;  and  that, 
wliilc  one  works  well    on    level    ground,  another  turns    over  the 

soil   more  perfectly  on  the  hill-side.     Ik-sides,  there  has  been  an  enormous 


Eagerness  of 
modern 
farmers  to 
test  inven- 
tions. 


"^         i 


STEAM-rLOUCH. 


improvement  in  the  manufacture  of  the  plough  itself.  Formerly,  ploughs  were 
made  by  every  country  blacksmith  ;  and  liis  wt)rk,  however  skilful,  must  have 
been  rude  enough  compared  with  that  performed  by  the  great  concerns  which 
are  expressly  fitted  up  to  manufacture  these  instruments. 

The  saving  which  follows  the  employment  of  this  one  invention  is  enormous. 
We  know  of  no  method  of  estimating  it  with  exactness ;  but  he  who  stops  a 
moment  to  consider  how  many  days  he  would  be  in  digging  up  ten  acres 
with  a  hoe   or  with  one   of  the   earliest  ploughs  invented  as   a   substitute, 


i"H\ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


37 


and   realizes  Iiow  quickly  and  how  much   more  perfectly  the  work  is  done 
now,  will   be    able    to    form   an    estimate   for  himsel(;    Without  Economy  of 
tliis  invention,  thousands  of  acres  would  be  untilled,  or,  if  cul-  modern 

....  •  /•     ^  plough*. 

tivated  at  all,  only  m  a  very  miperfect  manner. 

There  are  several  outgrowths  of  the  plough,  among  which  are  the  horso-hoe, 
invented  by  James  Alden  of  New- York  State,  and  others,  and  the  so-called 
cultivator,  i)rovided  with  a  series  of  diminutive  plough-points  to  Hone-hoe 
stir  the   soil  about  the  roots  of  corn,  cotton,  and   other  crops,  andcuitiva- 
These  implements,. while  of  minor  importance,  have  been  of  vast 
value ;  for  with  one  of  them,  one  horse,  and  a  man,  more  work  can  be  done 
than  thirty  men  caii  do  provided  with  hand-hoes. 


HOKSB-HuK. 


The  harrow. 


The  harrow,  the  next  implement  to  be  used  in  tillage  after  ploughing,  is  but 
a  little  different  tool  from  what  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  ancients. 
Indeed,  few  implements  have  changed  so  immaterially  in  construc- 
tion, and  principle  of  operation,  as  this. 

Very  little  data  is  attainable  showing  the  progress  Of  seed-drills  for  plant- 
ing. Jared  Eliot,  writing  in  1754,  allude-  to  Mr.  Tull's  wheat-drill  as  a 
wonderful  invention ;  but,  owing  to  its  cumbersome  and  compli-  planting- 
catcd  construction,  he  urges  Mr.  Clapp,  President  of  Yale  College,  machines. 
to  api)ly  his  "  mathematical  learning  and  mechanical  genius  "  lO  the  invention 
i)f  a  simpler  machine.  Drills  for  spreading  manure  were  soon  after  devised. 
Tile  most  marked  improvement  in  seed-drills  adapted  to  all  kinds  of  crops 
has  been  made  within  the  present  century. 

As  regards  practical  value,  probably  no  agricultural  implement  can  compare 
with  the  mower  and  reaper.     After  the  farmer  has  planted  and  raised  a  crop, 
he  must  harvest  it :  and  it  happens  that  most  of  his  hay  ripens  at  Mower  and 
one  time  j  and  so  with  his  wheat,  rye,  barley,  oats,  and  buckwheat.  '•*?«'. 


St 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


If  the  hay  be  rut  too  soon  or  too  late,  it  is  of  poor  quality :  and,  if  grain  is 
allowed  to  get  over-ripe,  it  rattles  out  of  the  husk,  and  is  lost ;  or  it  sprouts  in 
the  head,  and  spoils.  'I'housanils  anil  thousands  of  acres  of  wheat  in  the 
fertile  West  were  wasted  in  a  single  season  before  the  reaper  was  perfected, 
owing  to  the  inability  of  the  owner  to  secure  help  enough  to  harvest  it  in  the 
proper  time. 

While  it  is  true  that  American  mowers  and  reapers  are  acknowledged  to  be 
the  best  in  the  world,  and  have  always  triumphed  over  all  rivals  in  competitive 
jjjjj  trials  in  luigland,  l"'rance,  Germany,  Russia,  and  South  America, 

American  they  are  not  of  American  origin.  'I'iie  mo'  .cr  was  invented  in  Ku- 
inventtoni.  ^^^^  .  j^^j^  Yankee  genius  simplified  and  improved  it  greatly.  Nof 
is  the  invention  so  very  recent.  The  great  improvement  of  the  original  dates 
back  scarcely  more  than  a  generation  ;  but  the  first  reaping-machine  of  history 
is  that  mentioned  by  Pliny  the  elder  as  in  use  among  the  (lauls  over  eightcMi 
centuries  ago,  or  about  the  year  23  of  the  Christian  era.  At  that  time,  and 
until  within  fifty  years  of  the  present  day,  most  of  the  reaping  of  grain  was 
done  by  the  sickle.  Hut  Pliny  mentions  particularly  a  large-sized  van  on 
Descri  tion  wheels,  with  teeth  projecting  from  the  forward  edge,  and  driven 
of  Pliny's  through  the  oat  and  barley  fields,  with  an  ox  yoked  in  the  rear, 
reaping-         between  thills,  in  such  a  way  as  to  i)ush  tlie  machine  ahead  of 

machine. 

him.  Sometimes  the  sickles  thus  employed  cut  off  the  heads  of 
grain  at  the  top  of  the  stalk,  and  sometimes  half  way  dow..  the  stalk ;  but 
in  either  case  the  grain  fell  over  into  the  van.  Palladius,  an  Kastern  e(  cle- 
siastical  WTiter,  A.D.  391,  describing  these  same  reapers,  or  an  improvement 
thereupon,  says  that  the  driver  could  regulate  the  elevation  or  depression  of 
the  teeth  by  means  of  a  lever.  'I'luis  it  will  be  seen  that  a  semi-barbaric  rat  c 
had  invented  and  used  a  reaping-machine  long  before  Rome's  glory  had 
departed,  and  even  before  Christ  was  crucified. 

In  1785  we  read  of  proposals  being  submitted  in  F.ngland  for  the  construc- 
tion of  a  reaper;  but,  from  the  tlescription,  it  does  not  appear  to  have  differed 
Early  Eng-  substantially  from  that  of  the  ancient  Oallic  husbandmen.  And 
iish  reaping,  yet,  as  iu  the  development  of  a  plant  or  of  a  fine  art,  we  now 
machines.  l)^.gin  jq  SCO  in  rudimentary  shape  some  new  elements  of  the 
perfected  machine.  The  i)ower  was  applied  as  formerly,  from  behind,  by 
either  horse  or  ox ;  and  the  big  box  or  van  was  emptied  into  a  storeroom 
when  full.  But  mention  is  made  of  a  heavy  drive-wheel,  toothed  wheels,  and 
pulleys ;  which  indicates  that  a  series  of  knives  were  made  to  beat  against  the 
teeth  in  a  different  manner  from  those  of  old.  Another  reaper  is  described  iu 
1 799,  which  cut  a  swath  two  feet  wide,  and  threw  it  to  the  ground  on  one  siile. 
This  was  another  advance  on  the  past ;  for  the  machine  could  now  work  with 
less  frequent  interruption.  Agricultural  writers  always  estimate  the  work  of  a 
horse  as  equal  to  five  men,  and  judge  the  value  of  a  machine  accordingly. 
As  this  reaper,  with  a  horse  and  a  boy,  could  do  more  than  six  men  with 


OF    THE    rXITF.D    STATES. 


39 


:  and,  if  grain  is 

;  or  it  sprouts  in 

of  wheat  in  the 

er  was  nerfoctctl, 

iiarvest  it  in  the 

tnowlcdgcd  to  l)t' 
Is  in  competitive 
1  South  America, 
s  invented  in  V.w- 
\  it  greatly.  Nof 
;he  original  dates 
lachine  of  history 
uis  over  eighteen 
Vt  that  time,  and 
)ing  of  grain  was 
irge-sizcd  van  on 
edge,  and  driven 
uked  in  the  n.ar, 
lachine  ahea(i  of 
t  off  the  heads  of 
\-..  tlie  stalk  ;  hut 
m  Kastern  e(  ( le 
an  improvement 
or  depression  of 
cmi-barbaric  rac  c 
ome's  glory  had 

for  the  construc- 

ir  to  have  differed 

sbandmen.     And 

fine  art,  we  now 

elements  of  the 
from  behind,  by 
into  a  storeroom 
othed  wheels,  and 
>  beat  against  the 
er  is  described  in 
3und  on  one  side. 
Id  now  work  with 
ite  the  work  of  a 
hine  accordingly, 
han  six  men  with 


yammiUm 


iriiatt 


40 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


s:i 


^ 


*';:! 


sickles,  it  fulfilled  the  requirements  of  a  labor-saving  machine. 
British  machines  deserve  to  be  noticed.  Mr.  Gladstone  devised  one  in  1806, 
which  delivered  the  grain  in  gavels  to  be  bound  ;  and  Mr.  Pkmckett  constructed 
one  the  following  year,  which  was  drawn,  instead  of  pushed,  by  the  horse.  In 
1822  Mr.  Mann  brought  forward  a  reaper,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Highland 
Society  of  Scotland,  which  would  cut  ten  acres  in  ten  hours.  In  addition  to 
being  drawn,  and  having  a  side-projecting  cutter-bar,  this  machine  made  use 
of  a  sliding  or  reciprocating  knife,  had  a  reel  to  beat  the  grain  against  the 
knives,  and  had  a  platform  on  which  the  grain  fell. 

The  first  record  of  an  American  invention  of  this  sort  is  of  a  mower, 
constructed  by  an  ingenious  mechanic  of  Genoa,  Cayuga  County,  N.Y.,  in 
First  Ameri-  1826  or  1828.  The  characteristic  feature  of  it  was  a  large  wheel, 
can  mower,  y.'hich  revolvcd  horizontally  near  the  ground,  and  which  was  pro- 
vided with  scythe-like  knives  on  its  periphery.  A  heavy  drive-whe  commu- 
nicated the  necessary  power.  It  was  drawn  by  a  single  horse.  The,  machine 
never  amounted  to  much,  and  was  never  perfected ;  but  it  marks  the  first 
awakening  of  decided  interest  in  this  direction  in  America. 

In  1828  Samuel  Lane  of  Maine  invented  a  reaper,  and  is  said  to  have 
combined  therewith  a  "  thresher ;  "  but  we  think  this  is  a  verbal  error,  and  that 
Lane's  "  mower "  is  meant.     A  successful  mower,  which  had  some  little 

reaper.  popularity,  was  invented  by  V*'illiam  Manning  of  New  Jersey  in 

1831  ;  and  in  18^4  the  Ambler  patent  applied  Hussey's  vibratory  knives  to 
the  mower. 

In  1833  the  first  really  successful  and  famous  American  reaper  was 
invented  by  Hussey  of  Maryland.  This  had  reciprocating  knives,  which  oper- 
Huitey's  ated  through  slatted  fingers,  —  an  entirely  new  principle,  —  and 
reaper.  t],-.  cutter- oar  was  hinged  so  as  to  turn  up  at  right  angles  with  the 

ground.  M'Cormick  of  Virginia  patented  a  combined  mower  and  reaper  in 
1834,  which,  with  subsequent  improvements,  took  a  council  medal  at  the 
World's  Fair  in  London  in  185 1. 

The  period  from  1830  to  1850  was  one  during  which  preat  attention  was 
given  to  improving  these  machines  ;  but  even  more  ingeiii'ity  has  been  ap- 
plied to  their  improvement  since  then,  no  less  than  three  thousand  patents 
having  been  taken  out  for  such  harvesters  in  tiiis  country.  Among  tiie  most 
important  attachments  to  the  reaping-machine  is  the  self-rake,  which  lays  the 
grain  off  in  gavels  for  binding ;  which  work  was  formerly  done  by  an  extra  man 
seated  on  the  machine. 

P'rom  about  1855,  experiments  have  been  made  to  devise  and  perfect  a 
machine  which  shall  bind  grain  as  fast  as  it  is  cut.  The  man  who  has  given  the 
Grain-  '^°^'  attention  thereto  is  Allen  Sherwood  of  Auburn,  N.Y.     His 

binding  apparatus  consists  of  a  series  of  fingers,  arranged  horizontally, 

mac  ine.  upon  which  the  grain  is  delivered  by  the  rake  in  bundles ;  which 
fingers,  co-operating  with  a  slender,  curved  arm,  are  made  to  embrace  the 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


41 


;.     iwo  more 


bundle,  and  instantaneously  girdle  it  with  fine  wire,  which  is  cut  from  a  reel, 
and  its  ends  are  twisted  together  for  a  knot.  As  yet,  we  believe  that  the  ma- 
chine has  never  come  into  practical  use. 

The  American  mowers  and  reapers  are  now  awarded  the  palm  of  superi- 
ority the  world  over.     In  1855  a  competitive  trial  of  reapers  was  i.^d  near 
Paris,  France,  in  which  machines  from  F^ngland,  America,  and   superiority 
Algiers,  participated.     The  result  was,  that  the  American  machine  of  American 
cut  an  acre  of  oats  in  twenty-two  minutes ;  the  English,  in  sixty-   '"°*'*"  •"•• 
six  minutes ;  and  the  Algerian,  in  seventy-two ;    and  the  same 
triumph  has  been  repeatedly  achieved  in  other  similar  contests.    Our  machines 
are  exported  to  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world,  in  preference  to  those  of  every 
other  country. 

The  average  capacity  of  the  American  reaper  is  fifteen  acres  per  day ; 
but,  under  favorable  circumstances,  it  will  reap  twenty  or  twenty-  live  :  whereas, 
by  hand,  aj»  acre  and  a  half  to  a  man  is  a  large  average.     But  c,        x      i. 
this  comparison  does  not  fully  represent  the  great  advantage  of  advantages 
this  invention  to  the  fiirmer.     It  must  be  remembered  that  these   "'  American 

reaper. 

increased  harvesving  facilities  enable  him  to  gather  crops  which 

otherwise  would  spoil  and  be  lost  altogether,  so  short  is  the  season  ia  which 

grain  must  be  harvested,  if  at  all. 

The  manufacture  of  reapers  and  mowers  amounts  to  between  eighty  thou- 
sand and  a  hundred  thousand  a  year ;  and,  though  they  are  made   Manufacture 
at  Chicago  and  elsewhere  in  large  numbers,  the  prmcipal  centre  of  mowers 
of  the  industry  in  America  is  Auburn,  N.Y.  and  reapers. 

Several  machines  have  been  invented  within  the  present  century,  which 
have  materially  ficilitated  the  gathering  of  the  hay-crop.  One  of  these  is  the 
tedder,  which  upturns  the  new-cut  and  half-cured  grass  as  it  lies  Tedders 
upon  the  ground,  and  promotes  its  more  rapid  curing.  Thus  the  rakes,  and 
risk  of  exposure  to  sudden  summer  storms  is  greatly  lessened.  '*"''*■ 
Another  very  valuable  implement  is  the  horse-rake.  It  is  found  in  many 
forms ;  but  the  two  most  esteemed  are  those  with  curved  steel  tines  attached 
to  a  bar  hinged  to  a  light  axletree,  —  first  brought  out  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
manufactured  by  the  Messrs.  Sprout  at  Muncy,  Lycoming  County,  —  and  those 
which  have  two  sets  of  wooden  teeth,  lie  close  to  the  ground,  an<l  revolve  at 
tlie  will  of  the  driver.  These  latter  were  invented  by  H.  N.  Tracy  of  Essex 
junction,  Vt.  These  rakes  are  used  to  gather  pease,  beans,  and  other  crops, 
and  enable  the  farmer  to  handle  both  them  and  his  hay  with  far  greater 
rapidity  than  of  old  It  is  estimated  that  they  do  ten  times  the  work  of  hand- 
rakes.  The  invention  of  the  horse  fork,  by  means  of  which  whole  haycocks 
can  be  hoisted  into  the  wagon,  or  from  tlie  wagon  to  the  stack  or  mow,  has 
also  been  the  work  of  the  past  generation,  and  largely  conduced  to  the  saving 
of  labor  and  time. 

Agricultural  implements  may  be  divided  into  three  principal  classes,  —  those 


tttrnM 


iB 


mm 


I' 
I! 


42 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


which  prepare  and  till  the  soil,  those  which  gamer  the  crop,  and  those  which 
Pouto-diK-  separate  the  precious  part  of  the  product  from  its  refuse.  In  ad- 
«"•  dition  to  the  mower  and  reaper  and  the  he  se-rake  and  tedder, 

there  are  several  less  important  machines  belonging  to  this  second  class.  The 
most  interesting  is  the  potato-digger.  Several  attempts  to  devise  a  machine 
which  shall  plough  up  these  tubers  from  the  furrow,  separate  them  from  the 
loose  earth,  and  deposit  them  on  the  surface  of  the  ground,  have  been  made, 
but  none  of  them  with  perfect  success.  The  great  difficulty  is  in  separating 
the  potatoes  from  the  dirt,  when  once  exhumed. 


ik 


1.     i-  I 


HAY-TEDDBR. 


V 


Mil 


Prominent  among  the  third  class  of  machines  above  referred  to  is  that 
which  takes  tlic  piace  of  the  flail.  For  thousands  of  years,  even  back  in  the 
Thrething-  days  of  Israel's  glory,  grain  was  separated  from  its  husk  by  throw- 
machine,  ing  jt  upon  large  threshing-floors,  beating  it  with  flails,  or  causing 
it  to  be  trampled  by  horses  or  oxen,  and  then  purging  the  floor  with  a  fan  in 
the  hand. 

The  modern  threshing-machine  is  less  than  a  hundred  years  old,  and,  like 


■%m^ 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES 


43 


years  old,  and,  like 


the  reaper,  is  a  foreign  invention,  which  has  been  greatly  improved  upon  by 
American  ingenuity.     Attempts  were  made  to  devise  such  appara-  a  foreign 
tus  by  Menzies  in  1732,  and  Stirling  in  1758,  in  Scotland;  but  invention, 
both  failed,  because  of  an  unsuccessful  principle.     In  1 786  Andrew  Meikle 
of  East  Lothian,  also  a  Scot,  invented  a  machine  which  proved   effective. 
This  device  introduced  the  sheaf  between  rollers,  and  caused  it  to  be  beaten 
with  arms   on  a  drum.     The   English  improved  upon  this   arrangement  by 
making  this  drum  operate  in  a  concave  "  breasting,"  which  allowed  of  a  more 
vigorous  scutching  and  rubbing.     The  loosened  grain  fell  mostly  through  bars 
in  this  concave,  while  the  straw  was  carried  onward  to  the  shaker.     The  Ameri- 
cans improved  on  this  still  further  by  putting  spikes,  or  teeth,  both  on  the  drum 
and  the  concave,  and  also  by  making  the  whole  machine  lighter  and  swifter 
than  the  cumbrous  English  apparatus.     A  famous  trial  of  rival  threshers  was 
had  in  England  in  1853  on  the  ifarm  of  Mr.  Mechi,  Tiptree  Hall,   ,„p„ye. 
Kelvedon ;  and  the  American  machine  did  nearly  three  times  the  ments  in 
work  the  English  machine  did  in  the  same  time,  and  turned  out  J^^°J^^^"f* 
the  grain  much  cleaner.     A  subsequent  trial  was  made  in  France, 
which  resulted  as  follows :  Pitt's  (American)  machine  threshed  seven  hundred 
and  forty  litres  of  wheat  in  an  hour;  Clayton's  (English),  four  hundred  and 
ten;  Duvoir's  (French),  two  hundred  and  fifty;  Pinet's  (French),  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  ;  and  six  experts  with  flails,  sixty  altogether. 

The  threshing-machine  is  generally  owned  by  itinerant  proprietors,  who  go 
through  the  country  working  for  successive  farmers,  as  in  the  early  colonial 
days  did  the  plough-owners.     At  first  they  were  operated  by  tread-   y^^^^  ^^ 
mill  and  rotary  lever  horse-powers ;  but  now  portable  six  or  ten  operating 
horse  power  engines  are  largely  employed.     The  capacity  of  one  *  """ 
good  steam-power  threshing-  machine  in  a  season  of  three  months  is  from  forty 
thousand  to  a  hundred  thousand  bushels  of  grain.     There  is  a  record  of  a 
horse-power  thresher  cleaning  eighty  thousand  four  hundred  bushels  in  fifty- 
two  days,  of  which  eleven  thousand  three  hundred  were  threshed  in  five  days 
and  a  lialf. 

Small  winnowing-machines,  for  hand  use,  have  been  used  from  early  colo- 
nial days.  Special  machines  for  threshing  clover,  and  gathering  its  winnowing- 
st'cd,  have  also  been  devised  (luring  the  present  century.  machines. 

No  effective  machine  for  cutting  corn  or  husking  it  has  yet  been  de- 
vised, although  repeated  attempts  in  those  directions  have  been  made.  A 
sheller  exists,  however,  which  removes  the  grain  from  the  cob,  and 
which  is  operated  by  hand,  shelling  one  ear  at  a  time;  and  a  J^'tin'g"''" 
more  rapid  separator,  worked  by  horse-power,  has  also  been  huaWng.and 
developed  therefrom,  and  come  into  extensive  use  in  the  Western  •''*'""' 
grain  regions. 

Probably  no  machine  has  so  conduced  to  the  sudden  and  vast  develop- 
ment of  any  agricultural  industry  in  the  whole  world  as  the  cotton-gin.     The 


r ':  r 


'jSliSSigSag 


an 


■  ■-'■  ■■  ti 


iiii 


■'i 

'Ifl 

, 

V  ' 

•ti 

1 

'ili 

44 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Cot<on-gin. 


Roller-gin. 


cotton-boll  contains  coarse,  hairy  seeds,  which  cling  to  the  soft  fibre,  and 
whi^h  need  to  be  removed  therefi-om  before  the  latter  can  be  marketed  or 
manufactured.  A  century  ago  tl.is  labor  was  generally  performed 
by  women  and  children  in  the  house,  at  evening  ;  and  the  process 
was  so  slow  and  laborious,  that  cotton-culture  was  not  particularly  profitable. 
In  India  a  bow  and  string  were  used  to  whip  the  cotton,  and  thus  remove 
the  seeds  :  this  implement  was  first  used  in  this  country  in  Georgia,  the  market- 
able fibre  being  called  "  Georgia  bowed  cotton." 

A  machine  called  a  gin,  designed  to  accomplish  this  object  more  expedi- 
tiously, is  said  to  have  been  invented  in  1742  by  a  French  planter  who  lived  on 
Dubreuii'i  the  present  site  of  New  Orleans,  and  who  was  named  Dubreuil. 
invention.  -p^g  invention  greatly  stimulated  the  culture  of  the  plant.  Its 
mechanism  is  not  described ;  but  it  probably  was  a  less  efficient  appanvtus 
than  the  roller  or  saw  gin. 

Early  in  the  Revolution,  a  roller-gin,  composed  of  burnished  gun-barrels 
fixed  in  wooden  rollers,  was  devised  by  Kinsey  Borden,  —  the  man  who  brought 
the  Sea-Island  cotton  to  this  country.  Whether  the  idea  was  origi- 
nal with  him,  or  imported,  is  not  known.  Mr.  Hissell  of  Georgia 
simplified  the  roller-gin  in  1 788.  Its  product  for  a  day  was  about  five  pounds 
of  cleaned  cotton.  Shortly  after  the  Revolution,  Joseph  Eve,  or  Eaves,  of 
Rliode  Island  (who  is  also  spoken  of  as  tiie  son  of  a  Pennsylvania  loyalist 
who  had  moved  to  the  West  Indies),  introduced  into  Georgia  an  improvement 
on  the  roller-gin.  It  was  fiirnished  with  a  double  set  of  rollers,  and  operated 
by  ox-power  ins^^ad  of  a  hand-crank  or  treadle,  "it  was  not  patented  until 
1803.  Ill  letters  written  at  that  day,  there  is  a  suggestion  of  the  possibility, 
that,  before  Eve's  machine  was  introduced,  a  foot-gin  was  in  extensive  use  near 
Philadelphia,  wiiich  was  superior  to  that  em])loyed  in  Georgia,  Still  another 
roller-gin  is  mentioned  as  having  been  introthiced  from  the  West  Indies,  or 
invented  by  Mr.  Crebs,  who  used  it  on  his  plantation  on  the  Pascagoula  River, 
in  what  was  then  called  West  Florida,  but  is  now  Alabama. 

The  best  of  all  machines  for  this  purpose,  however,  is  that  which  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  the  invention  of  Eli  Whitney  ;  namely,  the  saw-gin.  We 
Whitney'!  refer  to  this  in  connection  with  the  history  of  cotton-culture  in 
invention.  j|,jg  country.  This  machine  employed  an  entirely  new  principle ; 
namely,  teeth  on  a  roller,  for  which  sets  of  t:ircular  saws  were  afterwards 
substituted,  rotating  so  closely  to  a  set  of  parallel  bars  as  to  catch  the  fibrous 
cotton  on  the  other  side,  and  pull  it  through,  leaving  the  seeds.  Its  relative 
superiority  will  be  better  understood  when  we  say  Miat  it  enabled  the  planter, 
with  the  employment  of  a  single  hand,  to  clean  a  thousand  pounds  of  cotton 
a  day  j  whereas  the  roller-gin  would  clean  but  twenty-five,  and  hand-picking 
but  five  or  six.  Bishop  truly  remarks  of  this  invention,  that,  "  in  economical 
value,  it  ranks  with  those  of  Arkwriglit  and  Fulton."  Indeed,  it  did  more  for 
the  southern  section  of  this  country  than  the  improvementa  en  the  plough,  the 
sickle,  and  the  flail,  did  for  the  North. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


45 


Besides  all  these  machines  of  which  we  have  made  mention,  a  host  of 
others  of  less  importance  have  been  invented.  Stone  and  stump  extractors, 
which  are  of  material  use  in  clearing  the  soil  for  cultivation,  have  come  into 
use  within  a  generation.  But,  while  they  were  valuable  in  the  improvement  of 
limited  areas  in  the  East,  the  most  rapid  extension  of  0  'r  agriculture  has  been 
in  the  West,  where  trees  were  scarce,  and  such  apparatus  was  unnecess.iry. 
Hence  they  have  really  promoted  our  agricultural  interests  as  a  whole  buc 
little.  Saws  for  lumber,  ditching-machines,  drain-tiles,  land-rollers,  planting- 
machines,  improved  hoes,  rakes,  shovels,  scythes,  wagons,  churns,  bee-hives, 
pruning-knives,  and  other  ajjparatus  and  implements  for  farm-labor,  have  been 
invented  almost  without  number,  some  of  them  proving  hig'My  popular  and 
convenient. 

The  introduction  of  these  new  means  of  culture  and  harvesting  has  revo- 
lutionized the  several  branches  of  agriculture  completely  within  the  past 
century  of  our  history,  and  has  incalculably  increased  our  capacity  of  pro- 
duction. The  wide  use  into  which  these  have  come  will  be  realized  when  it 
is  known  that  the  agricultural  implements  manufactured  in  the  United  States 
in  1870  amounted  in  value  to  fifty  million  dollars;  though  but  part  of  this,  it 
must  be  remembered,  was  for  the  export  trade.  The  aggregate  value  of  such 
apparatus  owned  throughout  the  country  was  a  hundred  and  fifty-two  million 
dollars  in  1850:  in  1870  it  had  increased  to  three  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
million  dollars,  or  more  than  doubled.  Without  doubt,  it  will  be  twice  this 
figure  by  i88o. 


V,  ..; 


ii 


ai^tU^ihlMan 


4f 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


!■■     IJI'*'' 


■^\ 


'•■U 


CHAPTER   III. 

COTTON. 

NO  one  industry  in  the  United  States  is  of  so  great  value  and  importance 
to  the  nation  and  to  the  world  as  cotton-culture.  Tliough  the  annual 
product  is  not  worth  more  than  half  as  much  as  either  our  corn  or  wheat  croj), 
Importance  ^'^  '^'*^^'  enough  left  Over  to  export,  after  our  own  consumption,  to 
of  cotton-  more  than  equal  the  sum  total  of  our  cereal  exports.  It  is  the  one 
"****■  great  product  which  we  offer  the  other  nations  of  the  globe  in 

exchange  for  what  we  want  from  them.  Except  petroleum,  it  is  the  leading 
product  upon  which  the  outside  world  is  most  dependent  upon  America.  Yet 
our  total  product  annually  is  worth  four  times  our  total  product  of  rock-oil. 
Moreover,  while  we  export  scarcely  two-thirds  of  our  petroleum,  we  send 
abroad  nearly  three-fourths  of  our  cotton.  Within  a  century,  cotton  has 
come  to  succeed  silk,  linen,  and  wool,  as  the  most  useful  and  common  textile 
fabric  for  clothing.  It  is  a  necessity  of  life  in  all  civilized  and  semi-civilized 
quarters  of  the  globe,  and  the  United  States  raises  seven-eighths  of  the 
world's  supply.  And  not  only  do  we  raise  the  most  cotton,  hut  also  the  best 
cotton  produced  by  any  nation  under  heaven.  It  is  as  characteristic  a  product 
of  this  country  as  spices  are  of  the  Indies,  or  tea  of  China,  bit  vastly  more 
precious.  It  has  exerted  a  greater  political  influence  over  this  country  than 
any  other  one  interest.  For  a  centur)'  it  was  intimately  xssociated  with  negro 
slavery,  and  those  who  were  identified  with  both  constituted  one  party  to  the 
greatest  civil  war  known  on  this  continent.  In  that  strife,  the  dependence 
of  drcat  Britain  on  the  cotton  States  of  our  Union  for  the  basis  of  her  greatest 
manufacturing  industry,  and  source  of  wealth,  determined  the  sympathies  of 
the  empire,  whose  friendship  was  of  the  greatest  value  to  the  contending 
factions.  As  the  well-informed  and  thoughtful  American  looks  forward 
into  the  industrial  future  of  his  country,  he  sees  no  agricultural  interest  that 
promises  to  be  an  equally  permanent  and  remunerative  reliance  in  coming 
years.  Great  Britain,  it  is  true,  is  trying  to  become  independent  of  the  United 
States  by  raising  her  cotton  supply  in  India.  Thus  far,  however,  her  efforts  have 
not  been  very  successful.     The  quantity  has  been  largely  increased ;  but  *he 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


47 


quality  has  not  been  much  improved.  So  inferior  is  its  value  for  manufac- 
turing purposes,  that  India  cotton  can  only  be  used  by  mixing  it  with  some 
longer  staple.  Even  the  India  manufacturers,  who  aspire  to  the  production 
of  only  the  coarsest  and  cheapest  fabrics,  are  obliged  to  import  cotton  to  mix 
with  that  of  native  growth.  Nor  is  this  defect  likely  to  be  soon  remedied. 
The  physical  conditions  of  India  are  such  as  to  render  it  quite  impossible  for 
cotton  ever  to  be  grown  there  possessing  the  sime  length,  strength,  and  deli- 
cacy of  fibre,  as  is  found  in  the  American  pro(?.uct.  Thus  Nature  has  crowned 
our  country  with  an  advantage  in  raising  cotton  which  will  probably  ever  baffle 
human  genius  to  overcome. 


;  and  importance 
'hough  the  annual 
)m  or  wheat  crop, 
n  consumption,  to 
)rts.     It  is  the  one 
is  of  the  globe  in 
,  it  is  the  leading 
pon  ,\merica.     Yet 
oduct  of  rock-oil. 
troleum,  we   send 
ntury,  cotton   has 
common  textile 
and  semi-civilized 
n-eighths   of  the 
>»it  also  the  best 
;;teristic  a  product 
a,  b  It  vastly  more 
this  country  than 
jciated  with  negro 
one  party  to  the 
the  dependence 
asis  of  her  greatest 
the  sympathies  of 
:o  the   contending 
Kin    looks    forward 
tural  interest  that 
eliance  in  coming 
dent  of  the  United 
er,  her  efforts  have 
ncreased;  but  *he 


JNDIA   SlMNNING-WHEKl.. 


Although  the  name  "  cotton  "  is  of  .\rabic  origin,  and  the  plant  is  indige- 
nous to  all  warm  climates  of  the  >vorld,  the  fibre  was  first  utilized  in  India, 
whence  came  our  word  "  calico,"  and  then  in  Persia,  which  gave   £,,,y  g„,, 
us  the  first  "  muslin."    Thence  its  culture  and  use  extended  into  ture  of  cot- 
China,  Arabia,  Africa,  and    Kurope.     Herodotus   discovered   the 
Hindoos  cultivating  the  plant,  and  weaving  its  delicate  fleeces  into  cloth,  450 
H.C. ;  and  from  that  people  the  Greeks  and  Romans  imported  it  before  the 
Christian  era,  first  for  awnings,  then  tents,  and  then  for  clothing.     Hindostan 
still   produces   considerable  cotton  ;   but  her  poor  communications  from  the 
interior  to  the  coast,  and  her  inability  to  raise  as  good  a  quality  of  cotton  as 
the  United  States  (the  American  varieties  not  being  successfully  cultivated), 
leave  her  far  in  the  background  as  a  reliance  for  the  world,  although  England 
still  imports  largely  from  her.     Farther  India  and  the  islands  of  the  Indian 
Archipelago  produce  cotton  likewise,  to  some  extent.     China  has  cultivated  it 


\(    ... 


MiUHtaiiiMi 


|l.    i' 


48 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORy 


varloul 
countriei 


since  the  eleventh  century,  but  has  to  import  to  supply  her  own  manufactories. 
Japan  raises  a  coarse,  inferior  grade  of  cotton.  Livingstone  found  it  growing 
_  ,.        ,       in  abundance  in  Central  Africa.      On  the  western  coast  of  thai 

culture  ot 

cotton  by        grand  geographical  division  it  has  been  tviltivated  with  marked 
success,  although  to  no  very  notable  extent.     The  late  Lord  I'alm 
erstoi,  for  many  years  one  of  Kngland's  greatest  statesmen,  and 
long  her  prime-minister,  is  said  to  have  feared  that  the  supply  from  the  United 

States  would  some  time 
give  out ;  and  he  urged 
upon  his  country  the 
policy  of  encouraging 
cotton-culture  on  the 
west  coast  of  .Africa  as 
the  great  resource  of  the 
future.  .\s  yet,  iiis  fears 
and  expectations  ha\e 
been  but  poorlyjustified. 
The  Moors  brought  tiic 
cotton-plant    from  .\ra- 

^^^       .^-— ^^  ''''^  '"'"  Northern  .Afri 

Tair^jPf^l!^^3g*±Z^ T •  jBH^f^ Iv^^  '^^  '^"''  Spain.     In  the 

J  S^^jljS^jSyL'T^SPTH^KjBWM  i^  latter  country,  its  use  by 

r*-  <A  /iLj»   VI!l»    V^^Kfnai^l^Vl  (j^^j   Moslems   for  mak 

ing  turbans  gave  rise 
to  a  Christian  prejudic  r 
against  its  culture.  V.^ 
pecial  cflbrts  were  made 
to  introduce  cotton  intu 
Kgypt  in  1821,  and  thrv 
have  been  attentled  li\ 
quite  successful  results. 
Colimibus  discovered  cotton  growing  on  the  new-found  Island  of  His- 
paniola ;  Magellan  saw  it  in  Brazil ;  anil  Pizarro,  in  Peru.  Cortez  gatheretl  it 
Discovery  of  '"  Southern  Cuba  to  (piilt  into  his  soldiers'  armor,  and,  on  reach- 
ing Mexico,  found  it  under  high  cultivation  and  use ;  the  natives 
weaving  it  into  the  most  delicate  and  beautiful  curtains  and  robes, 
and,  mingled  with  feathers,  converting  it  into  the  most  lovely  and  richly 
colored  ornaments.  Other  explorers  found  it  growing  as  far  north  as  tiu' 
banks  of  the  Mississippi  and  some  of  its  tributaries,  and  some  of  the  Indians 
of  Texas  and  New  Mexico  even  yet  utilize  it  for  blanke;s. 

Naturalists  find  many  varieties  of  cotton  in  existence,  and  their  classifi- 
cation thereof  differs  greatly.  The  division  is  made  by  them  according  to 
botanical  distinctions,  rather  tlian  such  practical  ones  as  the  length  and  quality 


\ 


-*»l 


COTTON-PLANT. 


cotton  in 
New  World 


'    r 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


49 


of  the  fibre.  But  all  kinds  of  cotton  may  be  narrowed  tlown  substantially 
to  three  botanical  classes,  —  the  Gossypium  hcrbaceum,  atboreum,  and 
hirsutum,  or  herbaceous,  tree,  and  shrub  cotton.  The  tree  and  varietiM  of 
shrub  cotton-plants  have  a  life  of  from  six  to  ten  years,  and  the  cotton, 
arborescent  species  sometimes  grow  to  a  height  of  twenty  feet.  In  the  United 
States,  however,  only  the  herbaceous  or  annual  varieties  are  under  cultivation ; 
and  these  may  be  classified  as  follows  :  — 

The  upland  cotton,  with  a  short  staple,  a  yellow  blossom  changing  to  red, 
and  naked  black  seeds  (this  was  the  first  kind  introduced  into  this  country)  j 
the  Tennessee  cotton,  wliich  partially  succeeded  the  above-named,  ci«iiiflc«. 
because  of  its  freedom  from  rot,  and  which  has  seeds  covered   tion  of  cot- 
with  green  down ;  the  Mexican,  which  has  to  a  great  extent  sue-  *°"* 
ccedcil  both  of  the  two  previous-named  varieties   (especially  in   Mississippi) 
because  of  its  greater  vigor  and  productiveness,  and  which  has  seeds  covered 
with  a  ilingy,  whitisii-brown  down  ;  and  the  Sea-Islantl  cotton,  which  has  black 
seeds  and  a  long  stajjle,  and  is  the  finest  cotton  in  the  world. 

Tiio  historian   I'urciias  says   that  cotton,  probably  the  short-stapled,  was 
planted  in  this  country  by  early  settlers  in   1621.     Historical  papers  in  South 
C  arolina  indicate  that  it  was  under  cultivation  in  that  colony  in   cuitivatioB 
1666.     Maryland  is  known  to  have  grown  it  as  a  garden-plant   of  cotton  bj 
in  1 739  ;  and  some  forty  years  later  it  was  to  be  found  in  Cape-   '^°'°"  *'"' 
May  County,  New  Jersey.      At  the  breaking-out  of  the   Revolutionary  war, 
(Jen.  Delagall  had  no  less  than  thirty  acres  of  green-seed  cotton  under  culti- 
vation.    Up  to  about  this  time  the  manufacture  of  cotton  ivas  attended  with 
great  disadvantages.     The  ilemand  was 
siigiit,  and   scarcely  any  one   but  fan- 
ciers thought  of  raising  it  in  this  coun- 
try.    There  were,   nevertlieless,   some 
exports  prior  to  the  Revolution,  state- 
ments to  the  contrary  notwilhstantling. 
In    I  y.uS    seven    bags   of  cotton-wool 
were    sent   from    Ciiarleston,  S.C.,  to 
Kngland,  valued  at  three  pounds  eleven 
shillings  and  fivepence  each.     Further 
shipments  were  made  in  1754  and  1770. 
Anil  yet  in  1 784,  when  eight  bags  were 

found  aboartl  an  .American  vessel  by  the  British  at  sea,  they  were  seized,  on 
the  plea  that  America  could  not  produce  so  much,  —  two  thousand  pounds. 

To  Alexander  I5issell  is  due  the  credit  of  bringing  here  the   Sea-Island 
( otton.     He  cultivated  it  first  on  St.  Simon's  Island,  at  the  mouth  introduction 
nf  the  Savannah.     For  a  time  its  culture  was  limited  to  the  islands  of  Sea-iiiand 
iilT  a  i)art  of  South  Carolina's  coast  and  at  the   mouth  of  the  '=°"°°' 
Savannah  River.     Afterwards  it  was  cultivated  in  the  lowlands  of  the  conti- 


COTTON-GIN. 


5« 


TND  'JS  TKfA  L    III .'  TOR  Y 


%M 


\ 


'1 .  ; 


\A 


nent,  Li  mosi  places  icss  th  in  fiPocn  miles  from  the  coast,  but  in  one  place  in 
(leorgia  no  leis  fhan  a  lumilrc<l  and  tweniy-five  miles  inland.  In  Middle  and 
Western  Florida  the  Sea-Island  cotton  has  since  been  very  extensively  grown 
Something  was  done  toward  tht  cultivation  of  Sea- Island  cotton  on  the  Texan 
coast  upwards  of  twenty  years  .igo,  with  tolerable  suc(ess.  h  deteriorates 
rapidly,  howe\er,  when  cultivated  in  the  interior.  Its  excellence  and  the 
limited  size  of  the  crop  give  it  the  ascendency  in  the  market.  In  1H06  it 
brought  thirty  cents  a  pound  when  the  short-stapled  cotton  brought  but 
twenty:  in  iHifi  it  was  v. olh  lorty-seven  cents  to  twenty-seven  for  the  short. 
]5y  careful  selcctifjn  of  seed,  and  unicpie  improvcm-nt  of  the  pU'nt.  Mr.  Kinse\ 
Biuden  of  St.  John's,  Colieton  District,  S.C.,  raised  the  best  Sea-Island  cotton 
about  that  tinir.  and  could  get  twenty-five  cents  more  a  pound  than  other 
raisers.  The  crop  of  iH;2,  amounting  to  eight  million  pounds,  was  the  largest 
(){  this  variety  ever  pnn'.iced  in  this  country  ;  and  a  bale  sent  to  I'ingland  in 
1857,  from  iMlisto,  S.C,  brought  the  highest  price  on  re< ord,  —  one  d')ll;u 
and  thirtj-five  cents  a  |)o;;'i'l.  It  niight  be  remarked  in  this  conniM  tion,  that 
the  Ilihdoor,  spun  the  cotton  (il)re  so  finely  'in  one  occasion,  that  it  took  .1 
hundred  aiid  fificen  miles  of  tlircad  to  make  a  p(-'uid.  Mnglish  spinners  ha\r 
stretched  AuKTii  ,i.n  St.:-Islaud  cotton  out  so  fine,  that  a  pound  of  it  woull 
reach  a  thousand  and  twenty-six  mil  -s. 

In  "The  \'car-l»ook  of  .Agriculture  "  we  find  this  account  of  the  intnxluc  - 
lion  of  the  .Mexican  cotton  to  the  I'nited  States  by  Walter  Hurling  of  Natt  he/. : 
Introduction  "^'^  ' .So6  he  was  sent  by  Oen.  Wilkinson  to  the  (ity  of  Mexico, 
of  Mexican  where  he  dined  with  the  viceroy.  In  the  ( ourse  of  the  conver- 
cotton.  sation  at  the  table  concerning  the  imxlucts   of  the   country,   lie 

requested  j)ennission  to  import  some  of  the  Mexican  cotton-seed.  —  a  re(|Mesi 
tliat  was  not  granted,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  prohibited  by  the  Spanish  (lov- 
cmmcnt.  Hut  the  viceroy,  over  his  wine,  sportively  accorded  his  free  ])ennis 
sion  to  take  home  with  him  as  many  Mexican  dolls  as  he  might  fane  y,  —  .1 
permission  well  understood,  and  which,  in  the  same  vein,  was  accejitcd.  The 
stuffing  of  these  dolls  was  understood  to  have  been  cottonseed." 

By  the  caiefiil  selection  of  seed,  the  use  of  seed  from  another  section  of 
the  country,  and  iike  expedients,  enterprising  growers  have  at  various  tinii^ 
developed  seemingly  new  varieties  in  many  Iwcalities  South,  and  each  of  thesi 
has  had  an  ephemeral  local  fame.  Hut  they  did  not  differ  substantially  from 
any  of  the  foregoing  varieties.  AttemjUs  have  been  made,  too,  to  naturali/u 
other  foreign  species,  such  as  the  Nankin  in  (leorgia,  but  not  to  any  notable 
e>ctent.  The  upland  varieties  most  po])ular  at  the  jjresent  time  are  said  to  l)c 
the  Dickson,  I*'-'eler.  Cheatham,  IJoyd's  Prolific,  Simjjson,  Petit  (lulf,  Johnston, 
Ilurlong,  Shujieck  (or  Schupach),  Ramases,  Matagorda  Silk,  Java  Prolific,  and 
South-American  Champion. 

Five  causes  have  operated  very  decidedly  to  develop  the  culture  of 
cotton  in  this  country.     The  first  of  these  was  the  remarkable  improvements 


^v4w^ 


OJ^'    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


5« 


ut  in  one  place  in 
In  Middle  and 
'xtensively  grown, 
ton  on  tiie  'I'exan 
.     It  deteriorates 
(cllence   and  thi 
rket.     In  1806  it 
tt(.n    brought  bnl 
en  for  the   short, 
pli'nt.  Mr.  Kinse\ 
Sea- Island  cotton 
Kiunil   than   other 
(Is,  was  tlu'  largest 
.MU  to  l-'.nglanil  in 
ord,  —  t)ne  d)llai 
is  ronn<'(  tion,  that 
on.  that  it  took  .1 
lish  spinners  havt' 
pomid  of  it  wonl:l 

It  of  the  iiitrodiK  - 
iirling  of  Natciiez  : 
le  ( ity  of  Mexico, 
rse  of  the  conver- 
f  the   country,  lie 

seed,  —  a  reqiiesl 
y  the  Spanisii  (lov- 
(l  his  free  perinis- 
.'  might  fancy.  —  a 
IS  accei)ted.  'I'lic 
eed." 

mother  section  of 
e  at  various  times 
and  each  of  thes( 
-  sul)stantially  from 
,  too,  to  natnrali/e 
not  to  any  notable 
me  are  said  to  be 
etil  (iulf,  Johnston, 

,  Java  Prolific,  an>l 


made,  a  littl"  over  a  century  ago,  in  the  machinery  for  spinning  .nd  weaving 
<otton,  together  with  the  gradual  discovery  in  England  that  cott  n  alone  ( oiild 
be  used  for  making  cloth.  In  1 738  Wyatt  invented  the  spinning- 
jenny  to  succeed  the  distaff.  Later  the  process  of  carding  cot-  .^.'hlch'ied  to 
ton  was  devised  by  Paid.  Arkwright  and  Hargreaves  imjiroved  (ir>eiopment 
on  the  previous  spinning-machines;  and  then,  in  1779,  Crompton  °|„^on ""  "' 
invented  the  mule,  utilizing  the  ideas  of  his  predecessors.  Cart- 
wright  patented  his  power-loom  in  1787;  but  it  was  not  tmtil  the  present 
( entury  that  it  came  into  use.  These  remarkable  improvements  v.-ry  naturally 
stimulated  the  prodiu  tion  of  cotton,  and  the  application  of  Watt's  steam- 
engine  to  the  manufa(  ture  of  the  fibre  in  1785  .added  still  fiirther  impetus  to 
the  industry.  For  a  time,  in  Kngland,  cotton  was  used  only  to  adulterate 
linen.  Some  time  afterw;'rds  it  was  f(jimd  that  it  might  be  used  altogether  fof 
filling  a  flaxen  warp  ;  and  finally  both  warp  an<l  woof  were  made  of  cotton. 


COTTON-OIN. 


A  still  greater  stimulus  to  cotton-culture  was  given  by  the  invention  of  the 
cotton-gin.  Previous  to  that  event  the  ditticulty  of  .separating  the  seeds  from 
the  fil)re  of  the  cotton-boll  was  so  great  that  the  cost  of  the  piod-  invention  of 
net  formed  a  very  serious  obsta(  le  to  its  use  ;  but  the  cotton-  <:o"on-gin. 
gin  removed  this,  and  immediately  gave  this  material  the  most  marked  ascend- 
ency over  other  textiles  for  cheapness  and  utility. 


s« 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Ml 


;;ii 


The  honor  of  this  invention  unqnestiona!)Iy  belongs  to  Kli  Whitney,  who 
went  from  New  Haven,  Conn.,  to  Siivannah,  (la.,  as  a  tutor  in  the  family  of 
Whitney'!  Mrs.  (len.  dreene,  in  1792.  Here  he  learned  of  the  difticiilty 
invention.  experienced  by  the  short-staple  cultivators  in  separating  the  cotton 
from  the  seed.  Meing  of  an  ingenious  turn  of  njind,  he  ai)|)lied  himself  to 
the  construction  of  a  machine  which  would  perform  the  wjrk.  At  first  he 
covered  a  roller  with  hooked  wire  teeth  like  those  of  the  cards,  and  revolved 
it  close  to  a  frame  of  parallel  wires  on  which  the  ball  cotton  lay,  so  as  to  catch 
the  fibre,  and  draw  it  through,  leaving  the  seeds.  'The  teeth  not  |)roving 
strong  enough,  he  substituted  a  series  of  saws  on  his  cylinder,  whi(  h  worked 
far  better.  Behind  the  saw  cylintler  he  placed  revolving  brushes,  which  dex- 
terously removed  the  fibre.  When  the  machine  was  completed,  he  showed  it 
to  the  neighboring  farmers,  who  pronounced  it  a  success.  The  next  year  he 
got  his  invention  i)atented,  and  then,  with  the  cooperation  and  capital  of  one 
Miller,  went  into  the  business  uf  manufacturing  it,  and  using  it  to  gin  cotton 
for  patrons.  Hut  patent-laws  were  then  new,  almost  unknown,  and  poorly 
understood,  (,'otton- cultivators  hired  ordinary  mechanics  to  make  these 
machines  for  them,  in  utter  disregard  of  the  patentee's  rights.  In  1794 
Whitney's  sickness  and  that  of  his  employees  delayed  their  work  ;  and  in 
1795  their  sliop  was  destroyed  by  fire.  Thus  the  infringers  were  given  still 
greater  chance  to  impose  tipon  him,  the  immense  value  of  the  invention 
being  almost  instantly  recognized.  Protracted  and  wide-spread  litigation 
ensued  ;  but  so  ably  was  Whitney  fought  in  the  courts,  that  he  could  get  l)ut 
slight  damages,  or  none  at  all,  in  return  for  his  pains  and  his  own  outlay. 
Subsecjuently  the  State  of  South  Carolina  paid  him  fifty  thousand  dohars  for 
his  invention  ;  but  the  costs  of  his  litigation  swallowed  it  all  up.  The  story  is 
one  of  the  most  jiitiable  in  American  history.  'I'he  original  invention  was  sus- 
ceptible of  little  improvement,  unlike  many  others  for  which  Americans  have 
become  famous  ;  and  he  deserves  the  honor  of  being  on<;  of  his  country's 
greatest  material  benefactors.  Yet  he  reaped  not  a  bit  of  fruit  for  his  skill, 
and  there  stands  not  a  monument  to  his  memory  to-day. 

Of  course  the  invention  of  the  gin  wrought  a  wontlerful  effect.  The  profit 
Effect  of  his  of  cotton-culture  was  thus  immensely  enhanced,  and  the  business 
invention.  ^y.,g  rapidly  extended  ;  rice  and  tobacco,  which  for  a  time  exceetl- 
ed  cotton  in  value  as  an  export,  very  quickly  dropping  to  a  subordinate  rank. 

A  third  influence  upon  American  cotton-culture  was  the  introduction  of 
negro  labor ;  which,  however,  was  an  effect  as  well  as  a  cause.  The  blacks 
seemed  to  be  admirably  adapted  to  jierform  the  recpiisite  labor  in  the  scorch- 
ing climate  of  the  Southern  States,  where  alone  the  plant  could 
be  grown  :  hence  the  ra])id  development  of  the  slavery  system, 
already  ingrafted  upon  our  body  jjolitic.  Although  the  experience  of  the 
past  twelve  years  shows  that  slavery  is  not  essential  to  cotton-culture ;  that  free 
n(?gro  labor  is  as  good  as  slave  labor,  so  far  as  the  yield  is  concerned,  if  not 


Negro  labor. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


%% 


better ;  anrl  that  arrlimatcd  whites  can  do  good  service  on  the  cotton-planta- 
tion,—  yet  i)racti«ally  the  work  of  raising  our  cotton  was,  until  the  late  civil 
war,  done  altogether  by  the  negroes  of  this  country  ;  and  they  have  been  an 
important  means  in  the  extension  of  the  industry. 

Fourthly,  the  expansion  of  the  area  of  the  United  States  In  the  South 
naturally  gave  further  <leveIopment  to  cotton-culture.     At  the  close   of  the 
last  century,  as  wc  have  already  indicated,  the  little  cotton  grown   ^^       . 
in  this  country  was  confined  almost  entirely  to  South  ('arolina  and  of  ara*  of 
(leorgia.     From  the  former  it  extended  into  North  t'arolina,  and  'o"""' 

^  culture. 

from   the    latter  into  what   soon   became   the  State  of  Alabama. 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  were  rapidly  occupied  by  settlers  at  that  period  of 
our  history,  and  the  latter  gave  great  attention  to  cotton.     At  the  commcncp- 
nient  of  the  present  century  the  Louisiana  purchase  gave  us  the  State  of  that 


-»-ani\r.  ^n 


LoITONHjIN. 


name,  Arkansas,  and  other  territory  beyond  the  Mississippi,  which  soon  was 
occupied  and  developed.  The  State  of  MississipjM  rose  to  the  dignity  of 
sisterhood  in  our  Union.  Florida  was  annexed  in  1820,  and  finally  Texas 
was  added  to  our  domain  in  1845.  p:ach  of  these  territorial  acquisitions,  and 
the  enterprise  thereby  stimulated,  gave  impetus  to  this  particular  branch  of 
American  agriculture. 

And,  fifthly,  the  great  foreign  demand  for  this  product  of  America  has 


liii 


Ij      !(;,     'I 


^smm 


*  llil 


':!    .!i 


54  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

conduced  enormously  to  its  culture.  To  be  sure,  much  of  the  cotton  which 
we  exported  for  manufacture  abroad,  particularly  in  F2ngland,  came  back  to  us 
again  for  our  own  use  as  clothing.  But,  inasmuch  as  our  manufac- 
turmg  mdustry  was  not  developed,  we  could  not  have  utilized  the 
staple,  and  would  no'  have  had  any  occasion  to  raise  it  if  Europe  had  not 
called  for  it.  And  t'  le  demand  was  the  greater,  because  it  was  soon  discovered 
that  our  cotton  was  altogether  the  best  in  the  world.  For  instance,  in  the 
year  1 790  only  one  bale  out  of  every  thousand  imported  into  England  canif 
from  this  country :  in  1 799  the  proportion  was  one  in  every  nine.  This  pro- 
portion steadily  increased,  until,  in  thirty  or  forty  years,  we  furnished  England 
with  seven  bales  out  of  every  eight  that  she  consumed.  Of  late  years  our 
exportation  to  England  has  not  kept  pace  with  our  production,  because  we  are 
coming  to  manuf;^  ture  a  larger  shi.re  of  our  yield  ourselves,  both  for  our  own 
use  and  for  export ;  yet  our  export  has  steadily  increased,  and  even  ni)\v 
amounts  to  nearly  two-thirds  of  our  yield,  r.nd  still  constitutes  England's  cliief 
reliance. 

The  stimulus  which  the  foreign  demand  gives  to  oir:  cotton-culture  will  be 
better  understood  if  one  considers  the  proportion  in  which  the  various  couii- 
Cottonpro-  ^■''*^^  °^  ^^^  world  produce  the  raw  material,  and  the  proportion  in 
duction  of  which  they  manufacture  it.  The  foregoing  figures  represent  the 
thewori  .  situation  before  our  late  war;  sin  e  which  time  we  have  come  to 
manufacture  more  of  our  product  ourselves,  and  foreign  countries  have 
obtained  a  perceptibly  smaller  supply  from  us.  As  yet,  however,  these  changes 
are  slight.     The  production  of  the  world  in  1856  was  as  follows  :  — 

BALES. 

West  Indies 4.090 

Brazil 5,500 

Egypt 86,445 

East  Indies 445.637 

Total  outside  United  States 541,672 

United  Statts 3,880,580 

That  is,  we  produced  seven-eighths  of  the  world's  cotton.  Now  for  tiie 
consumption.     In  1850  it  was  thus  estimated  :  — 

BALKS. 

Great  Britain 1,513,000 

United  States 487,800 

France t        .        .        .  369,300 

Russia 125,300 

Trieste  and  Austria 125,200 

Hamburg  and  Hremen 70,700 

Holland  and  Belgium 7ii700 

Spain 80,400 

Italy,  Sweden,  &c 52,100 

Total 2,895,400 


the  cotton  which 
,  came  back  to  us 
;h  as  our  manufac- 

have  utilized  the 
■  Europe  had  not 
as  soon  discovered 
or  instance,  in  the 
ito  England  camo 
y  nine.  This  pro- 
furnished  England 

Of  late  years  oui 
ion,  because  we  are 
s,  both  for  our  own 
icd,  and  even  now 
tes  England's  chief 

jtton-culture  will  be 
1  the  various  couii- 
id  the  proportion  in 
gures  represent  tlic 
le  we  have  come  to 
ign  countries  have 
vever,  these  changes 
jUows  :  — 

BALES. 
4.090 
S.5OO 

86,445 
.       445.637 


541,672 
3.880,580 


otton.     Now  for  the 


BALRS. 

1,513,000 

487,800 

369,300 

125,200 

125,200 

70,700 

71,700 

80,400 

52,100 

2,895,400 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES.  55 

Thus  it  appeai-s  that  England  manufactured  half  or  more  of  the  world's 
cotton.     Very  naturally,  then,  the  principal  producer  furnished  the  Quantity 
principal  consumer  most  of  her  supply,  as  will  appear  from  tlie   exported  by 
following  statement  of  our  export  in  i860  :  — 

BALES. 

To  England 3.037.762 

"    France 709.9'8 

"   Other  Countries 671,535 

Total 4,419,215 

This  figure  represents  the  abnormal  export  of  the  year  following  that  of  our 
largest  crop,  and  is  the  largest  aggregate  shipment  we  ever  made  in  any  one 
year.    We  propose  to  give  now,  somewhat  more  in  detail,  a  state-   shipment 
ment  showing  the  extent  of  our  exportation  of  cotton  during  a  for  several 
series  of  years ;   and,  if  thi«   be   compared  with  the   statement  *""•■ 
which  we  shall  presently  give  of  our  total  production,  it  will  be  easy  to  see 
what  share  of  the  whole  yield  we  have  been  accustomed  to  sell  to  other  coun- 
tries in  exchange  for  what  we  have  been  obliged  to  buy  from  them. 

We  have  already  mentioned  that  we  sent  small  amounts  in  "  sacks "  to 
England  in  1748,  1754,  and  1770;   and  that  seventy-one  bags,  amounting  to 
about  eight  bales,  were  seized  aboard  an  American  vessel  in  1 784,   Early  ihtp- 
because  it  was  deemed  impossible  that  this  country  could  produce   "e^**- 
so  much,  and  that  such  a  quantity  of  cotton  could  only  have  been  obtained  by 
the  ship  illegitimately.     In  1789  we  shipped  no  less  than  842  bales  to  Eng- 
land.    In  1 791,  it  is  stated  in  the  Agricultural  Bureau's  Report  for  1862,  we 
exported  189,316  pounds,  or  4,733  bales  of  the  modern  standard.'     In  1800, 
so  rapid  was  the  development  of  the  industry,  we  exported  17,789,803  pounds, 
or  44,476  bales,  —  an  increase  of  nearly  ten  to  one  in  a  single  shipmenM 
decade.     During  the  next  thirty  years  the  increase  was  about  four-   i>3»->'S5- 
teen-fold,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  following  table  :  — 

^  POUNDS. 

Five  years  ending  1830*  .        .        .        .        .        .     1,273,232,281 

1835 1,695,970,409 

"        "         "        1840 2,621,360,414 

'84s 3.443.757.674 

•850 3.S5'.036,3i7 

'855' 5,128,295,80s 

During  the  twenty-five  years  from  the  first  half-decade  to  the  last  half- 
decade  here   registered  the  increase  was  a  trifle  over  fourfold,   shipmeata 
I  lerewith  we  give  the  figures  for  the  next  twenty-two  years,  sepa-  «856-i»77. 
rately  and  in  bales  :  —  ■    \ 

•  Four  hundred  pounds.  •  Average  per  year,  in  bales,  636,616. 

*  Average  per  year,  in  bales,  3,564,148, 


rn'itirir  -rrfmn ■  ■  j-iriBiBr—iBBMaMI 


56  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

,  VBAR.  h.  LBS. 

1856 2.953.77' 

IS57 2,251,496 

1858 2,589.732 

1859 3."20,5i9 

i860 3.773.256 

1861 3,126,867 

1863 12,661 

1S63 28,462 

1864 29,982 

1865 16,517 

1866 1.552.457 

1867 1.552.761 

1868 1,657,015 

1869 1,448,020 

1870 2,178,917 

1871 3.'66,742 

1872 i.9S7.3'4 

1873 2,679,986  ^ 

1874 2.838,172 

1875 2,680,841 

1S76 3.248.409 

1877 3.043.084 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  in  i860  we  attained  the  climax  of  our  exportation, 
the  amount  being  nearly  a  hundred  times  what  it  was  in  1800,  and  almost  a 
Comments  thousand  times  what  it  was  in  1791.  The  war  accounts  for  the 
onforcgoiaK  falling-off  of  the  next  five  years,  and  the  slow  recuperation  from 
*■**'■  that  influence  for  the  figures  of  the  next  five.     While,  however,  the 

crops  have  once  more  gotten  up  to  ante-war  figures,  the  development  of  our 
manufactures  lessens  the  exportation  of  the  raw  material ;  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  we  reach  the  figures  of  i860  again  for  many  years.  It  must  be 
remembered,  however,  that,  prior  to  the  war,  a  share  of  the  cotton  which  we 
exported  came  back  to  us  manufactured,  and  costing  us  nearly  six  times  what 
we  were  paid  for  it  in  a  raw  state  :  hence  our  receipts  for  exported  cotton  were 
not  clear  gain.  I5ut  now  we  are  repurchasing  only  small  (juantities  of  our 
cotton  in  thread,  yarn,  or  cloth,  and  are  sending  abroad  manuflictured  cotton 
to  an  extent  more  than  compensating  for  the  falling-off  in  ti.e  raw  material. 

At  the  commencement  of  this  century,  the  export  to  England  represented 
PMdttctio  pretty  much  our  whole  yield.  We  manufacti'.rcd  at  home  an 
before  and  Utterly  insignificant  amount.  As  late  as  1850,  our  export  com- 
after  civil  prised  Over  five-sixths  of  the  crop.  The  following  table  shows  the 
total  production  for  the  eleven  years  immediately  before  the  wai 
and  the  eleven  immediately  after,  the  bdles  averaging  440  pounds  each  :  — 

VHAR.  nALiis. 

1S50 2,355,257 

1851 3.015.029 

1852 3,262,882 


h.  LBS. 

2,953.77' 
2,251,496 
2,589.732 
3>"20.5'9 
3.773.-56 
3,126,867 

12,661 

28,462 

29,982 

16,517 

1,552.457 

.    1,552.761 

,    1,657.0"  5 
.    1,448,020 

.  2,i78,9>7 

.  3,166,742 

.  i,957.3'4 

.  2,679.986  \ 

.  2,838,172 

.  2,680,841 

.    3.248,409 
.    3.043.084 

jf  our  exportation, 
5oo,  and  almost  a 

accounts  for  the 
recuperation  from 
Hiile,  however,  the 
:velopment  of  our 
and  it  is  doubtful 
jars.  It  must  be 
e  cotton  which  we 
irly  six  times  what 
ported  cotton  were 

quantities  of  our 
inufiictured  cotton 
e  raw  material, 
jgland  represented 
tured  at  home  an 
,  our  export  coni- 
ng table  shows  the 
tely  before  the  wai 
ounds  each :  — 

nALus. 

•  2.355.257 

•  3.015.029 
.       3,262,882 


n 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES.  57 

VBAR.  BALKS. 

1853 2,930,027 

1854 2,847,339 

1855 3.527.845 

1856 2>939.5'9 

1857 3."3.962 

1858 3.851.481 

1859 4.669,770 

i860 3.656.006 

Total 36,169,117 

1865 2,193,987 

1866 2,019,774 

1867 ,        •        •        •  2,593,993 

1868 .  2,439,039 

1869 3.'54.946 

1870 4.352.3'7 

1871 2,974,351 

1872 3,930.508 

1873 4,«70,388 

1874 3.832,991 

1875 1 4,669,288 

Total 36,33'.582 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  increase  in  our  crop  is  quite  steady.     The  varia- 
tions noticeable  are  partly  due  to  pests  (of  which  the  army-worm  is  the  most 
destructive),  to  wet  weather,  and  to  the  fluctuation  •,'"  prices.     Inasmuch  as 
the   increase    in   the   demand   is   .-ly  slight  and   gradual,   it   is  Effect  of 
noticeable  that  over-production  usually  so  depresses   the   price,   production 
tliat  the  cultivation  next  year  is  slightly  discouraged.     This  will  °"  '"^'"' 
be  apparent  from  a  comparison  of  the  yield  of  1859  with  i860,  and  1870 
with  1871.     The  effect  of  quantity  on  ])rice  will  be  realized  from  the  follow- 
ing comparison  :  1869,  crop  of  3,154,940  bales  brought  23.6  cents  a  pound, 
or  ;?346,223,774 ;  1870,  crop  of  4,352,317  bales  brought  only  14.9  cents  a 
pound,  or  $301,550,283. 

The  effect  of  the  late  civil  war  was  to  stop  the  production  of  cotton 
almost  altogether  for  four  years.  Some  of  the  staple  produced  before  that 
interruption  was  hoarded;  some  was  captured,  especially  in  the  Effect  of  war 
Attakapas  region  of  Ix)uisiana  in  1863  ;  some  was  burned  to  keep  on  produc- 
it  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Unionists  ;  and  a  very  little  of  *'°"' 
it  was  taken  out  by  blockade-runners  to  foreign  countries.  The  Southern 
States  made  loans  of  money  in  England  in  anticipation  of  future  production 
and  of  securing  inilependence  ;  which  loans  were  necessarily  left  unpaid. 
During  the  war,  attempts  were  made  in  the  North  to  cultivate  cotton;  seed 
from  our  own  country,  China,  Peru,  and  elsewhere,  being  widely  distributed 

>  The  crop  of  1876  was  about  4,500,000  bales,  and  that  of  1877  was  4.750,000,  —  the  largest  ever  known  in 

•his  country. 


I:'     ;! 


ilf*( 


58 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


and  planted.  From  Maine  to  Minnesota,  and  from  Canada  to  Mason  and 
Diy.on's  Line,  earnest  efforts  to  cultivate  this  then  rare  and  precious  fibre  were 
put  forth.  But,  while  the  plant  flourished  finely,  the  bolls  would  not  mature  ; 
and  except  in  limited  localities,  in  Delaware,  Maryland,  Missouri,  and  Kansas, 
nothing  was  accomplished.  Meantime  India's  crop  and  export  were  largely 
augmented,  and  became  the  chief  reliance  of  the  outside  world.  Hut,  as 
soon  as  the  war  was  over,  this  country  (luickly  came  to  the  front  as  the  world's 
chief  producer. 


LUrru.S-PKESii. 


since  the 
war. 


Indeed,  the  recuperation  of  this  industry,  in  view  of  the  emancipation  of 
the  slaves,  the  change  from  compulsory  to  free  labor,  the  necessary  demorali- 
Pro<«  action  '-^tion  of  society  attendant  upon  the  substitution,  and  the  repeiAtod 
predictions  that  we  could  ne\er  raise  a  crop  of  three  million 
bales  again,  is  simply  marvellous.  Reference  to  our  tables  of 
production  will  show,  that,  during  the  eleven  years  next  after  the  war,  wc 
raised  more  cotton  than  during  the  corresponding  period  betorr,  and  that 
five  times '  since  the  war  we  have  raised  a  larger  crop  than  any  year  an- 
terior to  it,  omitting  the  exceptional  crop  of  1859;  and  there  is  no  doul)t, 
that,  were  our  market  once  assured,  we  cou'd  increase  our  annual  yield  tu 
ten  million  bales  inside  of  ten  years. 

Besides  the  substitution  of  free  for  slave  labor,  some  other  notable 
changes  have  lately  been  taking  place  in  this  indi;.stry. 

As  with   most  of  our  other  agricultural   interests,  there  is  a  westward 

I  In  1870,  1873,  187s,  1876,  and  1877.    llie  lait-namcd  r.jup  t:xce«ii*  even  thai  of  1859, 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


59 


a  to  Mason  and 
ccious  fibre  were 
»uld  not  mature  ; 
3uri,  and  Kansas, 
port  were  largely 
i  world.  But,  as 
ant  as  the  world's 


e  emancipation  of 
necessary  demorali- 
n,  and  the  repeated 
p  of  three  million 
;  to  our  tables  of 
t  after  the  war,  wc 
d  betort',  and  that 
than  any  year  an- 
there  is  no  doubt, 
3ur  annual  yield  to 

ome   other   notable 

iiere   is  a  westward 

veil  that  of  1859. 


movement  of  the  centre  of  -cotton  production.     In  1849  Alabama  stood  in 
the   front  rank,  with   Georgia  next,  and   Mississippi  third.     In  p,„j^,  ,.;,n 
1859  Mississippi   had  the  lead,  with  Alabama  second,  Louisiana  of  the  sev 
third,  and  Georgia  fourth.     In  1876,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  follow-  "^'^Ji,"""" 
ing  table  showing  distribution  of  yield  and  fertility,  Mississippi 
was  first,  Texas  second,  Louisiana  third,  Alabama  fourth,  and  Arkansas  and 
Georgia  nearly  equal :  — 


ACKKS    I'KR 
HAl.E. 


North  Carolina, 

Soutli  Carolina . 

(a-ori^ia 

Florida 

Alabama    . 

Mississijipi 

Louisiana  . 

Texas    ^     . 

Arkansas   . 

Tennessee . 

Intlian  Territory,  &c. 

Total    . 


210,000 

310,000 

505,000 

50,000 

S33.000 
760,000 

560,000 

690,000 

515,000 

260,000 

45,000 


4,438,000 


2.9 

3-oS 

3 

33 

3-25 

2.6 

2,2  c 

2.15 

2.85 
2.6 


2.63 


609,000 

945,500 

1,515,000 

165,000 

1.732.250 
1,976,000 

!  ,260,000 

1,483,500 

1,133,000 

741,000 

117,000 

11,677,250 


It  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  that,  while  our  product  is  as  large  as  before 
the  war  (larger  on  the  average),  our  acreage  is  less,  it  having  ^^,g,geies« 
bcLMi  upwards  of  thirteen  million  in  i86o.*    This  shows  an  im-   than  before 
provcment  in  methods  of  cultivation.  °  ^"' 

Improved  cultivation  is  noticeable  in  several  respects.  The  relative  pro- 
portion of  corn  and  other  supply  crops  is  increasing.  Heretofore  pork  and 
meal  have  been  bought  from  the  North  ;  but,  raising  them  at  home,  the  food 
of  the  laborer  is  made  cheaper,  and  the  profit  on  labor  is  greater.  Then,  too, 
rotation  of  crops  is  studied  more  closely  in  consequence. 

Greater  pains  are  taken  to  prevent  waste  of  the  soil,  and  also  to  feed 
and  restore   it.      Beyond   the   Mississippi,  along  the  new  and  0,^,^^^ 
rich  alluvial  bottom-lands  of  the  Red  River  and  Ouachita,  no  economy  in 
such  expedients  are  now  necessary  :  but,  in  the  States  east  of  the  '"'**v»tion 
Mississippi,  greater  economy  is  practised  with  cotton-seed   and 
lot  manures ;  and  experirnents  are  numerous  with  commercial  fertilizers  used 
chiefly  in  combination  with  composts  of  home  material. 

•  The  distribution  of  the  cotton-'mlture  in  the  so-called  cotton-belt  is  very  uneven.  Out  of  seven  hundred  and 
fifty-nine  counties,  no  less  than  ninety-three  produced  no  cotton  at  ^1  in  1870,  and  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  others  from  less  than  a  thousand  bales  down  to  one;  whereas  seventy-nine  produced  about  hclf  of  the 
whole  crop,  each  yielding  upwards  of  ten  thousand  bales.  As  an  illustration  on  a  smaller  scale,  it  may  be  staled 
that  four  out  of  Tennessee's  eighty-five  counties  produced  fovir-tenths  of  that  State's  crop  in  1870.  Com,  the 
other  prominent  Southern  crop,  though  of  much  loss  importance  in  the  aggregate,  is  much  better  distributed. 


6o 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


The  soil  is  being  cultivated  more  thoroughly,  and  with  improved  imple- 
ments, especially  in  those  regions  where  white  labor  is  in  the  largest  pro- 
portion. 

A  noticeable  diminution  in  the  size  of  farms  is  going  on,  which  conduces 
to  higher  culture.  Between  i860  and  1870  the  number  of  farms  of  over  a 
SmBiier  hundred  acres  decreased  in  every  cotton  State,  and  those  of  under 

farms.  ^  hundred  acres  increased,  the  reduction  being  twenty-two   per 

cent,  and  the  increase  thirty-five  per  cent.  This  movement  is  still  progress- 
ing, the  ratios  being  largest  in  fjjuth  Carolina,  Louisiana,  and  Florida. 

There  is  a  tendency  to  depart  from  the  method  of  working  on  shares 
(which  came  into  vogue  immediately  after  the  war),  and  to  pay  cash  wages 
Mode  of  instead  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  wag?s  are  growing  a  trifle  less.  Where 
working  the  share  system  prevails,  —  and  it  still  predominates,  —  contracts 
'"""■  vary  somewhat  in  particulars.     Thus  bare  labor  gets  al)out  one- 

fourth  of  the  crop  on  rich  lands,  and  one-third  on  poor  soils.  If  the  laborers 
Rates  of  re-  fumish  their  own  rations,  they  get  from  four-tenths  to  one-half  the 
muneration.  crop,  according  to  the  productiveness  of  the  soils.  As  the  supply 
of  crops  becomes  more  plenty  and  larger,  the  tend(.'ncy  will  be  for  the  help  to 
provide  themselves  more  and  more  with  rations,  and  rely  less  on  the  land- 
owner.   The  proprietor  receives  a  third  or  half  of  the  yield ;  if  he  provides 

implements,  live- 
stock, and  rations 
for  the  help,  about 
two-thirds.  Rations 
^^  ___  » onsist  of  about  two 

^k'  ^       W^M'^''^««fi^^kftr "         "^HMBpff-i^    luuidred  pounds  ul 
<-W^  •'"      iuBHnn/.BKIHBBE: * '.iJ.  *'?r  ■•^^w      i    bacon    and     fifteen 

bushels  of  meal  per 
man  a  year,  which 
is  cfiuivalent  to  from 
forty  dollars  to  sixty 
dollars.  A  iantUorii 
will  sometimes  let 
his  land  for  a  bale 
of  cotton  to  a  man, 
and  half  a  bale  for  a 
woman,  giving  them 
the  rest.  Where  cash 
is  paid,  the  yearly 
system  rather  than  the  monthly  is  pursued ;  and  the  rate  is  from  a  hundred 
dollar:,  to  a  hundred  and  forty-five  dollars  for  a  "full  hand,"  and  half  or 
two-thirds  that  for  youths  and  women. 

The  freedmen  are  coming  to  take  a  proprietary  interest  in  the  labor,  rather 


1^. 


'*Si#S 


COTTON-I'ACKBT. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


«t 


twenty-two   per 


than  to  work  as  hirelings ;  which  tends  to  greater  economy,  thrift,  and  energy. 
One  in  twenty  of  tlie  freednien  are  cultivating  lands  of  their  own,  and  in 
Florida  the  propOiPon  is  one  in  twelve. 

Like  every  other  great  industry  of  the  country,  cotton-culture  has  given 
character  and  development  to  cities,  railroads,  and  shipping-interests.     Just  as 
Chicago  and  Buffalo  are  built  up  out  of  tlie  grain-business,  Cincinnati  out  of 
pork-i)roduction,  and  Pittsburg  out  of  iron ;   so  cotton  has  done   Effect  of  cot- 
much  to  create  Charleston,  Savannah,  Mobile,  New  Orleans,  (Jal-   ton-cuiture 
veston,  Vicksburg,  and  Memphis.     Railroads  from  the  interior  of  "n''d*u"t°rier 
the  cotton  States  to  their  centres  of  export  have  been  built  more  and  move- 
for  this  class   of  freight  than  for  passenger- traffic,  and  it  is  the   """*•• 
cotton-interest  that  so  earnestly  seconds  the  schemes  of  Northern  capitalists 
for  a  Texas  Pacific  Railroad.     Mxcept  river-boats,  the  South  has  never  owned 
mucii  shipping ;  but  the  heavy  export-trade  of  cotton  necessarily  has  given 
great  expansion  to  American  and  foreign  ship-building  and  navigation.     So 
wide-spread  and  huge  is  the  production,  that  no  cotton-rings,  like  the  coal,  oil, 
and  grain  cli(iues,  have  ever  existed  to  control  the  markets.     Hut  the  political 
influence  of  the  cotton-growers  has  been  the  most  powerful  tliat  has  ever  been 
wielded  by  any  one  interest  in  this  country ;  tiiough  now,  the  necessity  for 
its  assertion  having  gone  by,  it  is  no  longer  noticeable. 


n  the  labor,  rather 


\(  .  .! 


6a 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


CHAPTER     v. 


WHEAT. 


•«  rj  ;;■ 


-.■i 

* 

t 

% 

*  '  ;; 

P 

ft 

Mk 

Iflli 

THE  culture  of  wheat  is  among  the  very  earliest  products  in  American 
agriculture,  and  is  now,  in  point  of  aggregate  cash  value,  one  of  the  three 
Importance  most  valuable.  Moreover,  it  is  a  prime  necessity  of  existence, 
of  wheat.  Food  to  maintain  life,  and  clothing,  and  houses  to  shelter  us,  arc, 
of  course,  the  very  essentials  of  living.  Bread  is  indeed  the  staff  of  life  ;  and 
though,  previous  to  its  invention  by  the  Greeks  several  centuries  before  Christ, 
otlier  articles  of  diet  formed  the  stajile  of  human  food,  yet  wheat  breail  is 
nt)\v  characteristic  of  civilization.  No  people  on  the  face  of  the  globe  have 
fully  emerged  from  barbarism  who  do  not  live  principally  upon  wheat. 

Indeed,  the  cultivation  of  that  grain  has  had  more  than  any  other  one 
thing  to  do  with  raising  man  from  a  nomadic  and  unintellectual  life,  as  will 
_  be  apparent  to  almost  any  one  upon  reflection.     C'rt:vec(eur,  thr 

wheat-  old  French  traveller,  illustrates  this  point  by  attributing  this  uttcr- 

raising  u,.on  ^^^^^,  j^  ^^^  ^j-  ^^  aboriginal  cliiefs  in  this  country,  in  a  speech 

nomadic  life.  "  ^ 

to  his  own  people  :  "  Do  you  not  see  the  whites  livmg  upon 
seeds,  while  we  eat  flesh?  tiiat  flesh  requires  more  than  thirty  moons  to  grow 
uj),  and  is  then  often  scarce  ?  that  each  of  the  wonderful  seeds  they  sow  in  thf 
earth  returns  them  a  hundred-fold?  The  flesh  on  which  we  subsist  has  four 
leg.i  to  escape  from  us,  while  we  have  but  two  to  pursue  and  capture  it.  The 
grain  remains  where  the  wh.ite  men  plant  it,  and  grows.  With  them  winter  i> 
a  period  of  rest,  while  with  us  it  is  a  time  of  laborious  himting.  For  tlu■^c 
reasons  they  have  so  many  more  children  than  we,  and  live  longer  than  we  do. 
I  say,  therefore,  unto  every  one  that  will  hear  me,  that  before  the  cedar  of  our 
village  shall  have  died  down  with  age,  and  the  maple-trees  of  the  valley  haw 
ceased  to  give  us  sugar,  the  race  of  the  little  corn  (wheat)  sowers  will  haw 
exterminated  the  race  of  flesh-eaters,  i)rovided  their  huntsmen  do  not  become 
sowers." 

The  thought  might  be  traced  still  further ;  but  it  is  not  within  our  provim  c 
to  do  so. 

The  earliest  origin  of  wheat  is  unknown.     It  is  generally  conceded,  that, 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


63 


'  tinlike  oiir  fruits  and  domestic  animals,  it  was  not  developed  from  a  wild, 
inferior  growth  by  iumian  culture.'  It  is  claimed,  moreover,  that  it  has  been 
found  growing  wild  in  uninhabited  regions  of  I'ersia,  Mesopotamia,  and  Texas. 
Kgypt  was  one  of  the  greatest  wheat-producing  countries  of  origin  o( 
ancient  limes :  thither  Jacob's  sons  went  for  it  in  the  days  of  a  w*""- 
famine  in  Canaan  thirty-six  centuries  ago.  Identically  the  same  grain  of 
that  age,  extracteil  from  the  cerements  of  mummies  th^t  were  entombed  in 
Joseph's  time,  has  lately  been  planted;  and  the  produc  is  a  grain  substan- 
tially the  same  as  our  moflcrn  wheat,  only  a  trifle  larger  and  better.  Thus 
it  will  be  seen,  that,  from  the  earliest  historical  period,  this  grain  has  remained 
substantially  unchanged ;  and,  though  upwards  of  three  hundred  vn  -i  ^  are 
said  to  exist,  these  may  practically  be  narrowed  down  to  three, --v he  .rd 
wheat  of  Southern  Russia,  Italy,  Sicily,  P^gypt,  the  Barbary  •  tes.  li, 
i'eru,  and  other  warm  countries ;  the  so-called  Polish  wheat ;  na  the  soft 
wheat  of  Northern  Russia,  France,  England,  and  North  America.  ^'  e  hard 
wheats,  it  may  Ijc  remarked,  possess  rather  morr  of  gluten  tuan  ^.le  other 
varieties ;  while  the  soft  wheats  abound  rather  in  siarch. 

The  I'oypuans  were  not  only  among  the  most  famous  of  a.ici..nt  agricul- 
turists, but  they  also  devised  a  method  of  preserving  grain  which  has  never 
yet  been  excelleil ;  namely,  placing  it  in  stone  depositories  her-   cultivation 
metically  sealed.     Many  eminent  historians  have  taken  the  mam-  of  wheat  in 
moth    Pyramids  of  that  land  for  granaries ;    but,  besides  these,     '*'''*■ 
they  are  known  to  have  had  other  huge  receptacles  in  which  they  stored  grain 
for  years  at  a  time. 

The  Israelites  were  educated  in  the  arts  of  husbandry  during  their  bond- 
age to  the  Pharaohs,  and  practised  them  extensively  in  later  days ;  and  the 
Hible  contains  many  beautiful  references  to  the  wheatfields  of  Palestine. 

Without  dwelling  further  upon  the  ancient  history  of  this  precious  grain, 
we  proceed  to  consider  its  introduction  to  and  culture  in  our  own  country. 
Cereal  grasses  were  found  under  cultivation  in  Mexico  by  Cortez  in  1530; 
hut  luiropean  wheat  was  introduced  there  by  accident ;  one  of  the  Spaniards 
finiling  a  few  grains  mixed  with  his  rice,  which  he  carefully  sorted  _ 
out,  and  planted.  Thus,  in  time,  the  newly-brought  grain  was  scat-  cultivation 
tcrtd  about  the  Spanish-.Xmerican  colonies,  and  finally  spread  into  °'  *•'«■*•'» 

'  "^     '  America. 

ten itory  now  belonging  to  the  United  States.     Wheat  was  neces- 
sarily sown  by  the  earliest  English  colonists  of  this  country  almost  immedi- 
ately upon  their  arrival :  indeed,  Gosnold  is  said  to  have  planted  it  on  the 
I'.lizabelh  Islands,  off  Massachusetts,  as  early  as  1602.     For  a  time,  Virginia 
gave  much  attention  to  its  cultivation ;  and  in  1648  several  hundred  acres  in 

•  In  The  Ve.->r-Book  of  Agrictiliiirc  for  1856  the  editor  mentions  some  curious  facts  which  had  recently  been 
laid  before  the  French  Academy,  relative  m  the  iransforniation  of  two  gr.isses,  —  /Egilops  ovata  and  jfigilo^i 
triariistrata.  A  gardener  named  Esprit  Kabrc  of  Ailge,  France,  by  seven  years  experimenting  found  he  could 
develop  from  these  two  grasses  all  or  the  greater  niimlwr  of  our  species  of  wheat.  A  savage  plant,  under  culli- 
vatioo,  was  thus  made  lu  change  its  entire  aspect  and  figure,  and  gradually  auumc  a  new  character. 


64 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


that  colony  were  sown  with  wheat.  Hut  the  more  profitable  tobacco-crop 
soon  supplanted  it ;  and  for  nearly  a  century  scarcely  any  was  raised,  even 
though  the  colonial  authorities  offered  a  premium  thereon.  Since  the  Revo- 
lution, iiowever,  this  branch  of  agriculture  has  revived ;  anil  Virginia  raises  a 
good  wheat-crop.  In  New  Kngland,  wheat  was  grown  rather  assiduously  imtil 
about  1G62,  when,  for  four  successive  years,  the  blast  and  mildew  damage«l  \W 
crop  to  such  an  extent  as  to  greatly  discourage  those  who  raised  itj  and  so 
the  colonists  fell  back  again  on  corn  and  potatoes,  to  which  they  have  given 


r^.^ 


iM 


K 

: 

*  ■  ■ 

1' 
1 

11 

J'^A\ 

I 

Bl.Vn-IAN  GKANAKV. 


great  attentioo,  even  down  to  the  present  time.  Colonial  subsidies  Id 
wheat-growers  in  those  days  stimulated  them  but  very  little,  the  failure  oi 
their  crops  more  than  offsetting  such  encouragement.  Wheat  was  grown  in 
New  England  somev.-hat  more  generally  in  the  early  part  of  the  present 
century ;  but  the  wearing-out  of  the  soil,  and  other  causes,  led  to  its  neglei  t. 
Vigorous  efforts  have  been  made  to  revive  the  industry,  but  without  success. 
During  the  last  century  consideral)Ie  wheat  was  grown  in  the  Hudson  ami 
Mohawk  River  valleys  of  New  York,  and  in  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania. 
In  1750  New  Jersey  produced  more  wheat  than  any  other  of  our  colonics; 


or    THE    l.'.\'/7ED    S7-A7V-:s. 


65 


and,  long  ht-forc  fliat  date,  wheat  and  wheat-flour  were  exportcfl  from  New 
York  and  I'liiladelpliia.  After  tlie  Kevohition.  Western  New  York  graihially 
tame  to  l)e  settled  ;  and  it  is  now  a  particularly  produetive  region,  although 
the  impoverishing  of  the  soil  makes  a  slight  decline  in  the  culture  of  the 
wheat  there. 

Writing  nearly  twenty  years   ago,  when   the   enormous   development  of 
wheat-culture    in  the  Western    States  had    not  been  attained,    Klip[iart  said, 
"The  Slates  south  of  North  Carolina,  or,  say,  latituile  thirty-three   Kiipparf* 
<legrees,  never  have   been  and  never  will  he  wheat-growing  States,   opinion  upon 
Kentu(kv, 'I'ennessee,  and  Missouri  are  best  ailapted  to  corn  ;  and   e^""^'"' 

'  .     .  ,  wheat. 

wlieat  can  never  l)e  regarded  as  the  great  staple  of  either.     Cotton 

is   liie   great    staple   of  'I'ennessee ;    hemp   and   tobacco,   of   Kentucky  and 

Missouri.     Kentucky,  and    Missouri  too,  are  unsurpassed  as  grazing  sections 

and  for  raising  stock  ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  will  change 

tlie  agriculture  best  suited  to  their  conditions  for  wheat-culture." 

The  ceusus  of  i860  and  of  1870  verify  these  predictions  won-   ^^^    ^^^, 

derfuUy  ;  alliiougii  the  wheat-map  given  in  connection  with  the  last   opinion  verl- 

national  census  shows  an  area  where  some  wheat  is  cultivated  in   '"•«'•  by  cen- 

lUI. 

Nortii-western  Soutli  Carolina,  and  Northern  (leorgia  and  .Alabama. 

Klijiparl  furthermore  says,  in  tlie  same  connection,  '•  It  is  a  melancholy 
truth,  and  one  that  reflects  much  on  the  skill  and  foresight  of  .American 
farmers,  that,  while  the  wheat-croi)  of  I'!ngland  has  increased '  at  least  fifty  per 
cent  in  the  last  centurv,  that  of  the  United  States  has  fallen  off  in   _. 

'  '  Change  of 

nearly  the  same  proportion.     A  century  ago,  New  ICngland,  Deli-  wheat-pro- 
ware,"  and  Virginia  raised  an  ordinary  crop  :  now  a  wheatfield  is  a  ''"'='"8 

,  ,     ,  region. 

rarity  in  those  States,  and  they  may  be   regarded   as  no  longer 
wheat-producing  regions.     Portions  of  New  York  that  formerly  produced  thirty 
bushels   to   the   acre    now   seldom   average   over  eight   bushels ;    and  Ohio, 
new  as  she  is  (in  1S60),  with  her  virgin  soil,  does  not  yield   thir-   consequence 
teen  bushels  to  the  acre.     If  we  go  on  as  we  have   for  the   past  o»  change 
century,  from  bad  to  worse,  in  our  tillage,  the  lands  in  Ohio,  in   ""*'"""• 
half  a  c  entury  from  this  time,  will  not  produce  wheat  enough   to  supply  our 
own  wants.     It  is  less  than  that  time  since  Vermont  was  a  great  wheat-export- 
ing State  :  now  she  does  not  export  a  bushel,  but  imports  at  least  two-thirds  of 
all  the  flour  consumed  in  that  State.     Instead  of  increasing  the  productiveness 
(li Our  wheat-land,  as  is  done  in  England,  our  wheat-region  is  diminished  more 
than  one-half,  and  the  productive  quality  of  what  is  still  used  has  diminished 
in  e(|ual  proportion  " 

I  The  writer  evitlcntly  does  not  me.nn  increase  in  the  aEgregalc  yield,  but  incre.ise  in  proportion  to  acreage 
mill  |Ki[)ul.niQn.  I'crhap.s  he  uses  some  such  basis  of  calculation  as  that  employed  by  the  coiiiinissioner  of  the 
I  iiiieil-Si.ites  census  for  1870  in  his  crop  maps.  By  him  the  number  of  bushels,  tons,  or  (Munds,  produced  in 
cull  ciiunty,  is  divided  separately,  first  by  the  number  of  inhabitants,  and  then  by  the  number  of  acres  of  im- 
jirovcil  land:  the  two  quotients  thus  obtained  are  multiplied  together,  and  the  square  root  taken  of  the  result. 

'  I'his  is  less  true  to-day  of  Delaware  than  the  other  sections  named.  It  certainly  is  not  true  of  Maryland 
and  Pennsylvania. 


^ 


M 


INDUSTKIAI.    IIISTONY 


Whether  or  not  tliese  hi},'iil)rioiis  im'»li(tions  will  nltim;ite!y  |)r()ve  true,  if 
is  iin|)()ssible  to  say.  In  the  ( dik  Imling  p.uanraidi  of  tliis  « ii.i|itiT  we  .show 
Wheat  cui-  ^^''X  '''^T  '"''■'  ""'  *"  '""'  ^i-'i ^■'V'-'tl  will)  the  utmost  I'onrKience.  Itiii 
ture  moving  ihls  iiuiih  is  certain  :  witiiin  the  jjast  thirty  years  the  star  ofenipiri 
weitwar  .  j^^  wlieat-prodiictioii  has  moved  rapidly  westward  :  and  the  conn 
try  has  rapidly  iiu  reased  its  wheat-production,  even  out  of  proportion  to  tin 
increase  of  poi)iilation.  Thus  in  1X50  Pennsylvania  was  the  larj,'est  wheat 
producing  State  in  the  I  nion.  Ohio  second,  New  York  third,  ami  Virj^ini  i 
fourth.  For  the  next  decade,  ( )hio  iiel<l  the  lead.'  In  iSOo  Illinois  was  lir->i. 
Indiana  second,  W  isi onsin  third,  Ohio  fourth,  Virj;inia  fifth,  IVnnsyKani.i 
sixth,  and  New  York  seventh,  with  Iowa  and  Mi(  hi^^an  a  close  eighth  and 
ninth.  In  1870  Pennsylvania  had  sunk  to  the  seventh  rank,  with  Virginia  and 
New  York  still  lower  ;  and  to-day  they  rate  still  farther  down  the  list.  In  1X50 
Maryland  produced  as  miic  h  as  either  Michigan  or  Wisconsin  :  now  ea(  h  of 
those  States  yields  from  four  to  six  times  as  much  as  then,  while  Maryland's 
production  has  scarcely  changed. 

The  United-States  commissioner  of  agriculture  brings  out  this  Western 
movement  forcibly  in  his  report  for  1876.  He  says,  "  Not  only  is  the  volume 
of  wheat  to-day  more  than  threefold  greater  than  twenty-eight  years  ago,  but  the 
increase  of  that  portion  of  it  grown  west  of  the  Mississippi  River  is 
greater  than  the  entire  croj)  of  1849.  Five  jjercent  only  was  then 
produced  west  of  the  Mississippi  River;  and  in  1876,  a  year  of 
comparative  failure  in  the  North-West,  it  was  forty  per  <ent. 
Dividing  the  country  into  three  sections,  —  the  first  including  the 
Atlantic-coast  States,  with  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Virginias  to  the  Ohio  River, 
and  the  second  and  third  separated  by  the  Mississippi  River,  —  we  find  more 
than  half  the  wheat  grown  in  the  first  in  1 849,  the  percentages  in  each  section 
changing  rapidly,  as  follows  :  —  - 


Wheat 
frown  weit 
of  the  Mli- 
aiaaippi 
River. 


•■^v'pl;; 


tW'- 


Is  «, 


Atlantic  Coast 
Central  IJelt  . 
Trans-Mississippi  Ucit 


~- 

-■     -  ■  — • 

^^^H 

1849. 

1859. 

1869. 

1876. 

■ 



■  < 

51.4 

307 

20 

19.6 

43-3 

54.6 

49 

40.8 

^H  I 

53 

14.7 

3' 

39-6 

■  ' 

"  The  first  section  has  now  a  little  more  than  one-third  of  its  former  ])r()- 
portion  ;  even  the  second,  which  was  swept  with  so  heavy  a  wave  of  immigra- 
Proportioni  ^'""  '"  ^'^'-'  '^''^^  (Icccnnial  period,  exhibits  a  declining  percentage  ; 
between  the  while  the  third  has  eight  times  its  former  prominence,  even  in  a 
•ectons.  y^^^j.  Qf  JQ^y  production  of  spring  wheat,  and  jjromises  to  make  the 

proportion  nine  to  one  in  1877.     A  few  years  more  will  find  a  i)repondcrating 

'  Pennrlvania  was  returned  iis  yielding  15,367,69:  bushels  of  whe.il  in  llie  .cnsus  of  1850,  and  Ohio  as 
only  16,487,351.  nii.1  W.1S  really  the  crop  of  1849.  Ohio  produced  28.769,119  buslich  of  wheal  in  18511.  — ^ 
tremendous  leap  10  the  fnmi, 


OF    THE    UNITEP    STATES. 


•» 


liMy  provi-  tnic,  it 
iluiplir  wr  sliDw 
confitlciit  r.  liiil 
the  star  of  fiiipiri 
I  :  antl  tin-  i oun 
l)ri>p<irtit)n  to  tin 
;hc  larj;cht  wheat 
linl,  and  Virnini.i 
)  Illinois  was  fir-^t. 
iflh,  IVnnsylvani.i 
close  eighth  am! 
with  Virginia  and 
1  the  list.  In  1S51) 
sin  :  now  eai  h  ol 
,  while  Maryland's 

out  this  Western 
only  is  the  voinnu' 
t  years  ago,  Init  tin- 
Mississip])!  River  is 
cent  only  was  then 

in  1876,  a  year  ot 
as   forty  per   rent. 

first  inchiding  the 
o  the  Ohio   River. 

r,  —  we   fiml  more 
[jes  in  each  section 


/  ,1 


i8«9. 

1876. 

20 

19.6 

49 

40.S 

3« 

39-6 

I  of  its   fc 

rmer  pro- 

a  wave  of  immigra- 

L'clining  per<:entage  ; 

minence,  even  \\\  a 

•omises  to  make  tin; 

id  a  prep 

andcrating 

.oiiMis  of  1850,  and  Ohio  as 
,lich  i)f  wheat  in  i8y>,  — » 


weight  of  wheatprodiKtion  lieyond  the  '  Father  of  Waters.'  ('omparin«  rela- 
tive (|iianlities.  rather  tlian  proportions  of  the  crop,  we  find  that  the  Atlantic 
coast  has  held  its  own  and  little  more  :  the  central  lielt  produces  three  times 
as  much  ;  the  trans- Mississippi  holt,  more  than  twenty  times  aH  much.  I'he 
figures  are  as  follows  :  — 


Atlantic  Coast 
Ciiitral  lli'lt      . 
'l'raii!i-Mis!iiHHi|)pi  licit 


Tcilal  . 


«*4'J. 


l«S9- 


51,657,020   1     53.294.  "37        57.4-6,37' 

4),522,646  !     04,4S«/)O0      i.to.S77,o7o 

5,306,278        25.352,178        89,.}(>.m85 


1M9. 


100485,944 


173,104.9^4 


287,745,626 


1I76. 

56,4»<j,5oo 
1 18,122,000 
1 14,745,000 

2K«y.356.5oo' 


Crop  of  1B77. 


If  the  exact  distribution  of  the  crop  of  1877,  amounting  to  three  himdred 
and  sixty  millions    of  bushels,  could    be   given,  w«'  imagine  the 
change  would  a|)pcar  even  more  marked  than  in  these  figures  of 
the  ( ommissioner. 

The  jiopulation  of  this  country,  for  the  years  1850,  i860,  1870,  and  1877. 
was  in  the  almost  exact  ratio,  respectively,  of  three,  four,  five,  ,j,j|„  „,  p,o. 
and  six ; '  but  the  aggregate  wheat-production  of  those  years  was  auction  to 
in  the  ratio  of  four,  seven,  eleven  and  a  h.ilf,  and  fourteen  and  a  f"''"'"  ""• 
half.-'  As  the  increase  from  1840  to  1850  was  only  fifteen  per  cent,  —  stimcly 
e(|ual  to  the  increase  in  population,  —  it  is  easy  to  see  when  the  new  impulse 
began  to  be  felt. 

We  now  come  to  consider  some  of  the  causes  of  the  marked  development 
of  this  dei)artment  of  .American  agriculture.     The  first  of  them  was  the  rapid 
occupation '  of  the  prairie-land  in  the  Ohio  and  Upper-Mississippi  Valleys  l)y 
emigrants  from  the   l-'astern  States,  and  from  (lermany,  Scandi-   c^,^,  „, 
navia,  and  other  countries  of  Ktirope,  toward  the  middle  of  this   development 
century.     Another  was  the  remarkable  adapt.ibility  of  the  soil  and   "*'*'*"=■»- 
climate  of  th;«    section  to  wheat-growing.*     Still  another  was  the 
famine  in  Ireland  in  1847,  which  made  an  unusual  foreign  demand  for  Ameri- 
can cereals.      Still   another  was  the  development  of  the  railroad  *  system  in 

'  The  exact  figures  are,  23,191,876,  31,443,331,  38,558,371,  and  aliout  45,c<»,u<x.. 

'  The  figures  arc,  100,485,941  bushels,  173,104,934,  387,745,626,  and  about  360,000,000. 

'  While  cmigralion  promoted  wheat-culture  and  exiK)rtation,  the  wheat-intcrei,!,  in  turn,  built  u;.  citie*. 
Kiir  twenty  years  Chicago  has  been  the  greatest  grain-di!p6t  of  the  world.  Diiflaln  was  likcwiitc  Vw'i  up  by 
Ihf  (jrain-trade. 

«  J.nncs  Caird,  an  Englishman,  hiiving  travelled  through  Illinois  in  1858,  rcmarke<l  upon  the  fr:til,;r  of  its 
M>il  in  his  writings.  He  attributed  it  largely  to  the  luxurious  growth  of  grass  on  the  prairicx  ».h«  .,  bc'ng 
liiiriH'd  by  the  Indians  or  whites,  year  after  year  for  centuries,  deposited  a  great  wealth  of  ashf  .  He  look 
Mvcral  samples  ol  the  soil  to  Prof.  Voelcker,  consulting  chemist  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  rf  England, 
wild  said,  "  I  have  never  before  analyzed  soils  which  contained  so  much  nitrogen:  nor  do  I  find  any  suilr  richer 
in  nilrojjen  than  these." 

•''  The  railroad  companies,  by  advertisement  and  by  selling  lands  at  lo  /  figurck,  did  much  to  promote 
.'Miii;  ration. 


If'  .,)f^'4. 


68 


/NDl'S  TK/A  L    Ills  TOR  Y 


If 


Sift' 


'Hi 


V  i 

i*  ii 

it 

those  States,  and  the  construction  of  the  Erie  Canal,  whicli  opened  up 
ample  facilities  for  transportation  eastward.  But  more  than  any  of  these 
other  influences,  perhaps,  the  improvement  of  agricultural  implements  (l)y 
Yankee  ingenuity)  gave  impetus  to  wheat-culture.  I'",lsewhere  we  have  con- 
sidered this  matter ;  and  of  the  improvement  in  tiie  plough  early  in  tills 
century,  and  of  the  invention  of  tlic  thresliing-machine  in  place  of  the 
poetic  but  feebly-efficient  old  flail,  we  need  not  here  remark.  But  what  Mr. 
Charles  L.  Flint  says  of  the  reaper  bears  immediately  upon  the  subject. 
He  remarks,  — 

"  The  sickle,  which  was  in  almost  universal  use  until  a  very  recent  date, 
is   undoubtedly   one   of    the    most    ancient   of   all   our   farming-implements, 

Reajiing  by  the  use  of  it  was  always  slow 
and  laijorious :  while,  from  the  fact  that 
many  of  our  grains  would  ripen  at  the  same 
time,  there  was  a  liability  to  loss  before  they 
coukl  be  gathered ;  and  practically  there 
Quotation  was  a  much  greater  loss  from 
from  Flint.  |].,j,;  (ausc  tluui  tlicrc  is  at  the 
l)resent  time.  It  is  not,  therefore,  too  mucii 
to  say,  that  the  successful  introduction  of  the 
reaper  into  the  grainfields  of  this  country 
has  added  millions  of  dollars  to  the  value  of 
our  annual  harvests,  by  enabling  us  to  se- 
cure the  whole  proiluct,  and  to  enlarge  tlie 
area  of  our  wiieatfields,  with  a  certainty  of 
being  able  to  gather  the  crop.  NoUiing 
was  more  suri)rising  to  the  mercantile  coiii- 
numity  of  iMirope  than  the  fixct  that  we 
( ould  coiUinue  to  export  such  vast  tiuanti- 
ties  of  wheat  and  other  breadstuffs  through 
the  midst  of  the  late  Rebellion,  with  a  mil- 
lion or  two  of  able-bodied  men  in  arms. 
.  .  .  The  number  of  two  -  horse  reapers 
in  operation  throughout  the  country  in  the 
harvest  of  1861  performed  an  amount  of 
work  equal  to  about  a  million  of  men." 

Probably  the  number  of  these  machines  used  in  tlie  summer  of  1877  was  more 
than  three  hundred  thousand,  —  eriuivalent  to  at  least  five  millions  of  men. 

'J'he  exportation  of  wheat  and  wheat-flour  from  this  country  was  a  large 
Exportation  l>usiness  prior  to  the  Revolutionary  war  and  for  twenty-five  years 
ofwheatand  subsequently.  In  1791  we  sent  abroad  619,681  barrels  of  flour 
wheat-flour.  ^^^^  1,018,339  bushels  of  wheat :  this  was  equivalent  to  a  trifle  over 
4,000,000  bushels.     What  proportion  of  our  total  product  this  was,  we  cannot 


,r:|!!||:';.  ' 


4  \,'l) 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


69 


say.  The  quantity  has  steadily  increased  in  a  larger  proportion  than  the 
yield,  just  as  the  yield  has  increased  in  larger  proportion  than  the  population. 
For  tiie  five  years  ending  1845,  the  average  exportation  was  but  7,000,000 
busiiels,  including  flour.  This  was  a  comparatively  slow  increase.  l'"roin 
that  point  it  was  more  rapid,  partly  owing  to  the  start  given  by  the  Irish 
(limine.  l''or  tiie  next  five  years,  the  average  was  over  14,000,000  ;  and,  as 
the  crop  of  1849 'was  100,485,941  bushels,  it  will  be  seen  that  our  exports 
amounted  to  about  one-seventh  of  the  yield.  The  Crimean  war,  by  reducing 
Russi.i's  production,  stimulated  our  export  of  wheat.  During  our  own  civil 
war,  tlie  Southern  market  being  cut  oiT  and  our  supply  steadily  increasing,  we 
exported  abnormally,  the  proportion  to  the  whole  crop  being  something  like 


THRASHING   WHEAT. 


one-fifth.  Our  average  crop  for  the  years  1870-74  was  261,015,920  bushels; 
and  the  average  exportation  61,579,517,  or  nearly  one-fourth.  The  export  of 
tliat  year  was  slightly  abnormal,  owing  to  the  failure  of  foreign  crops.  In  1874 
it  aggregated  91.510.408  bushels;  but  in  1875  it  was  only  72,802,605.  'I"hc 
crop  of  1877  was,  in  round  numbers,  360,000,000  bushels  ;  and  the  estimated 
exports  very  nearly  a  third  thereof- 

In  his  report  for  1868,  the  United-States  commissioner  of  agriculturo  says, 

'  Census  i)f  i8so. 

»  The  cocnmissioner  of  :ipriciilture,  in  his  report  for  1876,  snys,  thnt,  in  niir  exporn  of  wheat  nnil  flniir,  \\» 
tcn.lenoy  is  to  send  less  flour,  nnil  more  Rrain.  Fifty  years  .iro,  flour  .ouslitntcil  nearly  the  whole  of  our  wheal 
exporl;  lint  in  iS;!)  it  was  luit  little  over  oni--f  Mirth  of  the  whole,  either  in  value  or  quantity.  A  special  r.-ason 
for  this  is  found  in  the  necessity  for  siviiit;  ivery  possible  scope  to  indusiri.il  production  In  Kurope.  Ttic 
UK  reasiuK  cost  of  Kiainproduction  in  Kurope,  on  the  one  hand,  aiid  the  improvement  in  transatlantic  transpor 
taii.m.on  the  other,  khvc  to  the  Tuilliui;  interest,  espe,  i ally  in  Knglanil  and  Kr.ancc,  a  margin  of  profit  in  grinding 
American  grain,  which  secured  to  that  interest  an  euornions  development. 


■iiiiki 


iiHii 


!■     I 


-it- 


70 


/A'z?  f/^  rA'/^  A  y/ A?  yo  A'  r 


over  other 
countries. 


"The  policy  of  growing  grain  for  exportation,  except  as  a  pioneer  expedient 
Ascendency  '"  opt-^n'^g  '1'^d  improving  farms,  is  not  to  be  commended.  No 
material  portion  of  our  exports  can  ever  be  made  up  of  brcadstuffs, 
nor  is  it  desirable  that  this  should  be."  But  since  then  our  produc- 
tion ^nd  exportation  of  cereals  have  rapiilly  increased  ;  while  the  exijortiuion  of 
cotton,  with  which  he  made  comparison,  has  decidedly  tlecreased.  (^ur  exports 
of  cotton  in  1868  were  worth  $152,820,733  ;  of  uiicat  and  flour,  $51,135,430 
and  of  all  brcadstuffs,  $79,046,187.  In  1875  our  cotton  exports  amounted  to 
only  about  $175,000,000  ;  while  wheal  and  wheat-flour  amounted  to  ^83,317, 
937;  corn,  to  $25,747,470  more  ;  and  these,  with  other  brcadstuffs,  to  about 
$125,000,000.  C'otton  increased  only  about  one-sixth,  and  cereals  about  one- 
half,  in  the  interval.  When  we  consider  that  Russia  and  the  United  States 
furnish  those  covmtries  of  the  worKl  wiiich  cannot  raise  wheat  enough  for 
theinsL-lves  with  three-(]uarters  or  more  of  the  surjjlus  in  the  producing  coun- 
tries ;  that  the  United  States  now  export  nearly  twice  what  Russia  docs  ;  that, 
notwithstanding  Russia's  recent  introduction  of  improved  agricultural  imple- 
ments, we  are  likely  to  maintain  the  same  ascendency  over  her  as  regards 
l)roduction,  —  we  see  that  our  wheat-exjjortation  promises  to  continue  a  lead- 
ing industry  for  many  years  to  come.  'I'his  will  further  appear  on  the  consid- 
eration of  two  or  three  other  promising  features  of  the  history  of  wheat-culture 
in  .America. 

Although  the  wheat-crop  is  susceptible  to  many  hurtful  influences,  —  sucii 
as  rust,  blast,  smut,  the  wheat-fly,  weevil,  chinch-bug,  grasshoi)per,  winter-killing 
Injurious  in-  ^^^"^  exposure  to  frost,  and  the  blowing  and  lodging  from  heavy 
sects,  grass-  galcs,  —  yet  these  influences  have  thus  far  proved  local,  and  havi' 
oppers,  c.  j^c^rccly  affcctcd  the  total  production  of  the  country  at  any  tinu'. 
The  New-Fjigland  blights  of  1662-65,  though  discouraging,  were  limited.  Tlu' 
grasshop])er  depredations  of  1875  and  1876,  in  Minnesota,  Nebraska,  Iowa, 
Kansas,  Missouri,  Illinois,  and  Wisconsin,  were  very  serious  \n  their  effects 
upon  the  farmers  temporarily;  and  yet  the  effect  on  the  total  yield  of  tlu' 
coimtry,  or  the  ])rice  of  flour  in  the  P'.ast,  inasmuch  as  we  had  some  of  i874\ 
wheat  left  on  hand,  was  to  lessen  but  slightly  our  exportation.  In  1877  tlu- 
])est  had  nearly  disappeared  ;  and,  by  i)lanting  an  extra  area,  we  more  '  llian 
made  up  the  loss. 

The  wars  of  independence  and  of  181 2-14  temporarily  impaired  our 
product  and  exportation  ;  l)ut  the  war  with  Mexico  in  1847-48,  and 
the  late  ci\il  war,  di<l  not  interfere  ])ercej)til)lv.  Clreat  Britain  i^ 
now  so  dependent  upon  us  for  bread,  that  sIk  can  scarcely  go  in 
war  with  us  again  untler  any  circumstances  :  so  we  are  safe  in  that 


Effect  of 
wars  upon 
production 
of  wheat. 


regard. 


'  The  crop  of  1875  was  not  mine  iliaii  Iwo  iicr  ccMil  1k;I(iw  llic  avcrnge,  and  that  of  1876  not  more  than  tlircf 
per  cent,  — alKiiit  eleven  million  Ixishels  sliorl.  The  crop  oC  1877  was  Iwenty  per  lent  al»vc  the  average,  ami 
fifty  million  bushels  inoru  tlian  any  fircvioiis  yielj. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


71 


)neer  expedient 
nmended.  No 
p  of  breadstuffs, 
len  our  produc- 
L'  exportation  of 
[1.     Our  exports 

ir,  55 >.i 35-430  ■ 
ts  anioinitcd  to 
ted  to  ^8.^,317,- 
dstuffs,  to  alxnit 
reals  about  one- 
,e  Ignited  States 
leat  enougli  for 
producing  coun- 
issia  <locs  ;  tbat, 
jricultural  imple- 
r  her  as   regards 

continue  a  lead- 
ir  on  the  consid- 

of  wlieat-culture 

nfluences,  —  sucl) 
per,  winter-killiuK 
dging  from  heavy 
:d  local,  and  havi' 
untry  at  any  time, 
-ere  limited.     Thf 
,  Nebraska.  Iowa, 
IS  in  their  effects 
total  yield  of   the 
d  some  of  1874'-- 
on.     In   1.S77  the' 
a.  we  more  '  than 

irily  impaired  our 
coin  1H47-48.  ami 
(keat  Britain  is 
can  scarcely  go  to 
wo  ar  •  safe  in  thai 


r)f  1876  not  more  limn  il'iif 
nt  above  the  average,  aiiJ 


villi 


72 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Within  ten  or  fifteen  years  the  centre  of  wheat-production  has  moved  west 
of  the  Mississippi  River.  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  and  Michigan 
Future  pro-  '^'^^P  Steadily  increasing  their  yields ;  while  Minnesota,  Iowa, 
auction  of  Nebraska,  and  Kansas  have  each  a  still  greater  developmenl  yol 
^  ""*■  in  store.     Then,  too,  California  is  looming   up   tremendously  as 

a  wheat-growing  State.  In  1850  she  .aised  but  17,325  bushels  ;  ten  years  later, 
5,928,470;  twenty  years  later,  16,676,702  ;  and  now,  upwards  of  30,000,000. 
If  not  so  already,  she  will  soon  be  the  largest  producer  of  wheat  in  the  Union, 
with  a  huge  latent  capacity  for  further  development.  Outside  of  the  Slates 
here  named,  there  is  comparatively  little  new  territory  which  we  can;  devote  to 
the  culture  of  this  grain  ;  yet  here  is  still  magnificent  promise,  anil  one  which 
even  Russia  cannot  equal. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  Klippart's  gloomy  prophecies  as  !o  the  failure.- 
of  our  wheat-production  through  impo- erishment  of  the  soil.  7he  expe- 
rience of  the  Allan  ic  States,  however,   where   (he  chemical  ele- 


Restoring 

exhausted       ments  of  the  soil  are  different  from   tnose  of   the  y  ti<ie-lancls 

soils. 


i^,.: 


and  from  those  of  California,  offers  no  sure  analogy,  it  .iiust  be 
admitted  that  Ohio,  which  in  1859  yielded  over  thirteen  IiihIkIs  to  the  acre, 
now  produces  but  nine  bushels  and  a  half;  yet,  within  a  fov.  uigcs  of  tliese 
same  dark  auguries,  Klijjpart  points  out  the  ajility  of  Ameii'  husbandmen 
to  restore  the  fertility  of  the  soil  by  artificial  manui'.i.  .^  the  Fnr  ishnvjn  do, 
and  quotes  Mr.  Caird's  allusions  to  the  whea' fields  of  Lombardy,  wiiicii 
have  steadily  yielded  crc;  i^  i  two  thousand  years.  In  v.ow  o.'  all  these  facts, 
we  fail  to  see  why  America  i,-  liV  ..)•  :  >  be  worse  off  than  iier  principal  rival, 
Russia. 


;   ^'f;: 


m4 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


73 


CHAPTER  V. 


CORN. 


INDIAN-CORN,  or  maize,  is  the  crop  which  this  countrj'  produces  in  the 
largest  quantity  and  value,  and  which  has  the  widest  acreage,  while  it  ranks 
next   to  wheat   among   our  agricultural   exports.      Tiius   in    1875   we   raised 
292,136,000   bushels   of  wheat,  and   1,321,069,000   ot  corn.     In  importance 
1877   the   corn-product  was  the   same   nearly,  while  wheat  had  of  corn-crop, 
increased  to  360,000,000  bushels.     In  1875  the  value  of  our  corn-crop  was 
^555>44S»930  j  of  wheat,  $294,580,990  ;  of  hay,  $342,203,445  ;  and  of  cotton, 
$272,936,400.     That  same  year  we   had    10,803,030   acres   yielding   cotton, 
23,507,964  yielding  hay,  26,381,512  yielding  wheat,  and  .^1,841,371  yielding 
corn.     Such  is  the  story  which  the  figures  tell  by  comparing  them.     Though 
used   almost    exclusively  among    the 
cereals  by  the  mass  of  the  Southern 
'people  as  an  article  of  diet,  it  is  not 
so  exclusively  an   article   of  human 
food  in  the  United  States  as  wheat. 
It  is  fed  to  horses  largely,  and  to  cattle, 
sheep,  and  poultry,  but  to  swine  more 
than  to  any  other  animal,  the  pork  of 
this  country    )eing  largely  fattened  on 
this  grain.     The  stalks  of  tills  grain, 
too,  make  more  nutritious  fodvl"r  for 
live-stock  than  the  straw  of  any  other. 
'riicre  is  also  a  perceptible  consump- 
tion of  corn  liy  distillers  of  whiskey ; 
and  at  times  it  has  been  so  plentiful 
ill  some  of  the  W^estern  States,  that  it 
has  been  used  fcir  fuel.     It  was  much 
cheaper,  its  heat  considered,  in  many  ^ 

localities,  in  1871,  than  coal  at  nine  dollars  a  ton  ;  and  it  was  thus  consumed 
in  large  ([uantities  although  fires  made  of  it  required  close  attention. 


dimtm 


liiiC- 


'11 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Regarding  the  origin  of  this  particular  grain,  there  has  been  much  con 
troversy.  It  has  been  claimed  as  a  purely  American  product,  all  otlur 
Origin  of  Countries  getting  it  from  the  New  World.  While,  however,  then- 
corn,  c-i,^  \^Q  ,^Q  doubt  that  it  was  indigenous  to  America,  it  caniKii 
be  established  that  it  first  made  its  appearance  in  this  country.  In  1 204  tlif 
Marquis  of  Montferrat  and  his  companions  brought  back  from  the  Orient  to 
Italy  a  grain  known  as  "  mclica,"  or  "  melaga,"  —  a  name  which  was  afterwards 
used  interchangeal)ly  with  that  of  the  real  maize,  and  led  to  the  supjiosition 
that  this  kind  of  corn  came  first  from  Asia.  The  name  "Turkish  corn," 
which  it  long  bore  in  Europe,  gave  rise  to  a  supi)osition  that  it  came  fron, 
Turkey's  Asiatic  possessions.  Neither  of  these  theories  has  been  demon- 
strated, however.  Iiclter  evidence  of  the  fact  that  the  Old  World  had  tins 
same  grain  under  cultivation  betbre  Columbus  discovered  America  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  Chinese  historian,  Li-chi-tchin,  speaks  of  a  plant  exactly 
corresponding  to  it  in  his  country  toward  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
The  proverbial  slowness  of  that  people  in  introducing  new  ideas  and  institii 
lions,  the  sliortne.ss  of  the  uUorval,  and  the  inference  from  his  remarks  tli.it 
the  crop  was  long  established,  incline  one  to  believe  that  they  really  had  our 
Indian-corn  in  ('iiina  more  than  'our  centuries  ago.  Inileed,  Oriental  tniv 
ehers  incline  to  believe  that  it  has  been  cultivated  in  the  islands  of  the  Indi.ni 
Arciiipclago  from  rhe  earliest  ages.  A  fact  of  still  more  decisive  character  ii, 
the  disi:(Aery  of  maize  in  the  cerements  of  a  mummy  exhumed  at  Thelns, 
Egypt,  under  cin  iimstances  leading  to  a  belief  that  it  was  two  c^r  tinw 
thousand  years  old. 

Ni.\\.rtheless,  it  is  known  that  it  was  cultivated  on  this  continent  a  great 
many  centuries  ago.  Longleilow  embodies  in  his  "Hiawatha"  a  well-known 
E  riiestcui-  ^^g*-""*^'  "^  ^hc  Ojibways  as  to  the  gift  of  maize  to  the  red  man 
tivationof  by  the  CJreat  Spirit.  The  .Aztec  nations  of  Mexico  and  Central 
America,  who  attained  a  high  civilization,  have  a  tradition  that 
the  Toltecs  introduced  the  culture  of  maize  into  this  ccnmtry  in 
the  seventh  century ;  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  already  com 
mon  with  the  natives  at  that  time,  and  that  the  Toltecs  merely  improved  \Yx 
metluxl'^  of  cultivation.  The  Mexicans  had  a  deity  corresponiling  to  \\\<: 
Ceres  of  the  Romans,  who  was  supposed  to  watch  over  this  croi),  and  wlidiii 
they  worshipped  accordingly.  The  grain  was  raised  plenteously  from  .SoutiKiii 
Chili  to  the  southern  part  of  Pennsylvania  when  Kuropeans  first  visited  Americ  a. 
Parched  corn  was  the  great  \egetable  staple  of  Indian  diet. 

Corn  requires  less  <  ultiv,uiun  than  alniust  any  other  food-crop  in  tin- 
country,  although  it  is  affectot  more  by  the  corwlition  of  the  season  than  somi 
Modeof  cui-  otlurs.  It  iwtffeis  ilry.  loamy  soils,  and  rich  boltom-iands,  to  wet, 
tivation.  j,^^,}  tjays.     Thoogh  there  are  man''  varieties   (some  growing  to 

the  height  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  feel,  and  others  scarrdv  above  one's  knee  ;    nid 
some  being  better  adapted  to  one  section  than  another,  there  b'-int;  variation. 


corn  in 
America 


OF    TJIK    UNITED    STATES. 


75 


ccn  much  con 
jiluct,   all   otlur 
,  however,  there 
erica,  it   caniioi 
^.     In  1204  the 
m  the  Orient  to 
■h  was  afterwarils 
I  the  supposition 
"Turkish  com.' 
at  it  came  fruin 
as  been    ilemon- 
l  World  hail  tins 
\merica  is  found 
)f  a  plant  exactly 
sixteenth  century, 
ideas  and  instiUi 
his  remarks  th.ii 
hey  really  had  our 
eed,  Oriental  trav- 
nds  of  the  Indi.in 
L'cisive  character  1:1 
hunied  at  'I'hebes. 
was   two    or    tlirce 


also,  in  the  shape,  size,  and  color  of  the  kernel),  there  are  practically  but  two 
kinds,  —  the  white  anil  yellow,  —  each  being  divided  into  the  hard  and  soft ;  and 
one  or  another  is  cultivated  in  almost  every  jjart  of  the  United  States  where 
agriculture  is  practised  at  all.  From  these  various  causes,  the  first  emigrants 
to  tiiis  country  raised  it  extensively,  relying  upon  it  as  the  principal  article  of 
food,  and  using  it,  also,  for  barter  and  export.  Later,  the  crop  was  combined 
with  potatoes  or  pumpkins,  or  both,  on  small  tracts  of  land  ;  and  the  three 
flourished  togiMher  more  prosperously  than  any  one  of  them  would  with  any 
other  common  agricultural  product.  Thus  we  find  that  corn-culture  followed 
the  whites  into  all  new  territory  which  they  occupied.  New  Kngland  raiseil 
but  cojuparatiscly  little  ;  Init,  long  before  the  Revolution,  New  Jersey,  Penn- 
syi\ania,  ;i.iid  Delaware  were  exporting  corn  extensively,  Virginia  even  more  so, 
and  the  two  Carolinas  ami  Oeorgia  also,  having  a  surplus  to  exchange  with 
I'.nrope  tor  necessary  imports.  The  aggregate  export  of  the  colonies  in  1770 
was  57X,_54Q  bushels,  —  an  amount  more  than  once  ecpialled  by  Virginia  alone, 
before  the  Revolution. 

.\t  the  close  of  tiiat  war.  for  a  time,  agriculture  in  this   '     ■;:try  maile  little 
heailway  ;  and  some  sp  ;cial  causes,  like  the  sudden  deve'i.ip.ent   Effect  of 
of  cotton-culture  in  the  South,  mav  lune  retarded  the  progress  ot    Revolution- 

'  ,  ary  war 

other  lines  bl  agri(  uUure.       From  these  various  causes,  we  find,   upon  com- 

that  from   1791,  when  we  exported  corn  .and  meal  amounting  to   culture. 

about  2,064,936  busiieis  of  grain,  there  was  a  gradual  decline  for  over  twenty 

years  in  the  export.     In  i.Soo  it  amounted  to  2,032,435  bushels,  and  in  1810 

to  only  1 40,996. 

Ill   tiie  next  two   decades,  influences  of  a  stimulating  character  began  to 

operate  on  this  industry,  which  were  followed  up  by  others  during  succeeiling 

vears  ;  so  that  the  corn-croii  has  for  tlie    i)ast   fiftv  years   shown    , 

■  \  .     J  Increase 

rapid  im  lease.     In  1X25  tiie  I'lric  (.'anal  was  opened,  giving  cheap   during  next 
transportation  to  Western  croiJS.     Railroads  were  built  later,  pen-   *wenty 

'  years, 

etrating  all  the  more  productive  sections  of  the  West.  Emigra- 
tion rapidly  increased.  I''arm-implements  greatly  improved,  althougii  these 
were  not  so  essential  to  corn  a^  to  some  other  grains.  The  value  of  this  cereal 
tor  fattening  cattle,  too,  began  to  be  realized  ;  and  its  demand  for  this  use  was 
soon  vigorous.  From  184010  1850.  the  tot.al  yield  increased  from  377,531,- 
S75  liushels  to  592.071,104,  — ;;  irain  of  fifty-seven  per  cent,  while  population 
was  increasing  but  thirty-five  yjer  rent.  Ihe  increase  of  wheat  during  this 
Mine  was  oniv  fifteen  iwa-.cnt.     H\   iS<io  the  figures  Ii.id  grown  to  838,792, - 

i".  —  an  ad\ance  of  but  a  trifle  over  lorty-one  per  cent,  —  three-   increase 
tr.arirTs  of  which  gain  was  in  the  Northern  States.     Huring  that   *'"'=''• 
(lei.u!-:  the  jiopiilatiun  increased  thirty-fi»'e  per  cent  as  [lefore,  and  wheat  h.ad 
increased  nearly  seventv-five  jiercent.     In  i8>>  a  falling-off  was  not. "cable,  the 
product  i)eing  only  760,944,349  bushels.     This,  probably,  was  due  to  the  corn- 
linds  beinii;  converted,  in  some  cases,  to  wheat-cultiire  ;  which,  how  ver.  is  n<H, 


ii 


76 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


in  the  long-nin,  quite  so  profitable.  To  continue  the  comparison:  it  may  be 
rcmarkctl  tliat  tlic  increase  in  population  during  tiiat  time  was  but  a  trifle  over 
twenty-two  percent;  but  tl'.e  wheat-yield  rose  over  sixty  per  cent.  In  1871 
corn  was  unusually  plenty  in  the  West,  and  so  cheap  as  to  be  used  for  fuel. 
In  1875  the  product  was  1,321,000,000,  nearly  500.000,000  of  which  gain  was 
effected  witiiin  the  last  year  of  the  five.  This  was  a  jump  of  nearly  seventy 
five  jier  cent ;  while  wheat  was  increasing  but  two  or  three  per  cent,  and  the 
population  about  eighteen.  , 


ss:^"' 


COKN-ltUSKER. 


'fi: 


depresses 
the  price. 


It  is  noticeable,  however,  that  a  large  crop  of  cereals  or  cotton  so  depresses 
the  price,  that  the  real  gain  is  l)ut  slight ;  and  a  re-action  usually  ensues, 
Lar  e  yield  which  checks  the  production  for  a  year  or  two.  Thus,  despite  the 
increase  in  the  corn-production  from  1874  to  1875  above  men- 
tioned, the  two  crops  were  marketed  respectively  for  ;^55o.o43,oo() 
anil  5555,445,000.  The  yiekl  of  the  two  years  subsequent,  accordingly,  fell 
off  somewhat. 

The  export  of  corn  from  this  country  to  Europe  is  a  very  important  item 
of  our  trade.  Corn  and  corn-meal  make  up  forty  per  cent  of  our  cereal 
Export  of  export.  We  have  already  remarked,  that  from  1791,  when  we 
'^'""-  sent  abro.id  2,064,036  bushels  of  corn,  there  was,  for  many  years, 

a  falling-off  in  the  export  of  that  commodity.  For  the  whole  five  years  end- 
ing 1845,  the  total  export,  including  com  reduced  to  meal,  was  but  8,005,005 
bushels,  —  an  average  of  less  than  in  1791.  But  the  Irish  famine,  during  the 
next  half-decade,  made  a  tremendous  demand  ;  and  during  that  interval  the 
exports  aggregated  53,796,933  busiiels,  or  over  10,000,000  bushels  a  year. 
With  the  terminatic   of  that  famine  came  a  falling-off  in  our  export ;  and  these 


t,f ..  .■■ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


w 


n  so  depresses 


figures  were  not  paralleled  again  until  1865-70,  when  we  sent  abroad  53,413,- 
372  bushels.  During  the  next  five  years  we  sent  ofl"  152,569,127  bushels, — 
an  average  of  over  30,000,000  a  year.  In  1876'  we  sent  50,910,532  bushels, 
of  which  1,416,960  was  in  the  form  of  meal.-' 

Corn  being  cultivated  in  but  small  quantities  in  Europe,  especially  outside 
of  France  and  Russia,  the  nations  of  that  section  of  the  globe  are  dependent 
chiefly  upon  the  United  States  for  their  supjjly  ;  and  our  shipments 
to  Italy,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Holland,  Belgium,  and   France,  arc  ""o^er"""^" 
.stcailily  increasing.     As  an  article   of  human  diet,  it  is  inferior  countries 
to  wheat :  nevertheless,  it  is  finding  constantly-increasing  applica-  g^°"  """'^ 
tions   as   such.      As  food  for  horses,   its  consumption   in   Conti- 
nental cities  is  also  rapidly  augmenting,  it  having  been  discovered  that  the 
investing  of  money  in  corn  is   more   economical  than  the   purchase  of  oats. 
The  enormous  crop  of  1S75,  anil  the   consequent   low  })rices,   led  Chicago 
jjarties  to  negotiate  with   liritish   stock-raisers  to  purchase   corn  for  fodder, 
h'rom  the  low  prices  and  freights  then  prevailing,  it  was  estimated  that  this  trade 
would  prove  profitable  to  both  countries.     But  the  movciiu'nt  parUy  defeated 
itself  by  caUing  out  supplies  of  grain   in  excess  of  a  normal  demand,  and, 
consequently,  by  cutting  down  prices  in  Kngland  below  the  calculated  mini- 
mum.    Some  of  the  grain,   from  lack   of  care   in   shipment,  was   injured   by 
lieating  in  ocean  transit,  causing  considerable  losses.     On  the  whole,  however, 
it  is  estimated  tiiat  tlie  profits  of  this  movement  iriorc  than  coimterbalanced 
its  losses.     This  was  one  of  the  causes  that  so  greatly  enlarged  the  export  of 
< orn  during  tiie  fiscal  year  1876. 


In    1862   iIk'   commissioner  of  agriculture   remarked  ll.at   the 


Opinton  of 


export  of  corn  was  very  unilesirable,  as  it  was  worth  more  to  this   commis- 
<  ountry  to  keep  our  supply  at  home,  have   low  prices,  and  fatten   ^'^'^^"  °' 

......  '  agriculture 

<mr  cattle  more  cheaply.     As  the  possibilities  of  our  product  are   concerning 
< omparatively  unlimited,   such   solicitude    does   not   seem   to   be   ^^port  oj 
fully  warranted. 

It  may  be  remarked,  that  corn  exhausts  our  lands  less  rapidly  than  wheat ; 
that  it  returns  more  handsome  profits  for  increased  care  in  cultivation  than 
some  other  crops ;    and  that  careful  experiments  show  that   ex-    _ 

'  '  Corn  a  more 

luuisted  land  may  be  renewed  with  artificial  manures  to  sucli  an   exhaustive 
extent  as  to  pay  immense  dividends  on  the  investment.     These  "°^  *''^" 

'     •^  wheat. 

farts,  and  the  steady  increase  of  territory  devoted  to  the  produc- 
tion of  this  cereal,  make  the  outlook  for  the  future  of  the  industry  rather  more 
certain  and  bright  than  that  of  wheat-culture. 


■  These  dates  are  of  fiscal  years,  ending  June  30.  The  export  of  1876,  therefore,  is  really  based  upon  the 
crop  of  the  calendar  year  1875. 

'  As  in  the  case  of  wheat,  the  tendency  in  our  corn-export  has  been  steadily  to  send  less  manufactured 
grain,  and  more  unground.  Thus,  during  the  five  years  ending  1830,  we  sent  abroad  3,530,710  bushels  of  corn 
unground,  and  3,133,632  in  the  form  of  meal.  In  1876  the  corn  sent  abroad  as  meal  was  but  two  and  three- 
fourths  per  cent  of  the  whole  quantity. 


IXnUSTKIAL    //IS  TO  NY 


The  distribution  of  corn-culture  tliroughout  tlio  country  is  more  even  than 

that  of  any  other  crop.     Sugar,  cotton,  tobacco,  iiay,  and  wiicat  arc  eacii 

more  sectional  than  corn.     However,  it  is  more  particularly  con- 


pmii 


Corn  more  ,  ......       ■  ,,  .<  ..i.  i 

gener.iiy        fined  to  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Valleys.     Illinois  produces  not 

raited  than      y,^|y  jugre  than  any  other  one  State,  but  more  than  all  the   ten 

cotton   States   together,  with   Maryland  and   the   two   Virginias; 

while  (Jhio,  Indiana,  Uli 
nois,  Iowa,  Missouri,  and 
Kansas,  together,  produce 
two-thirds  of  the  whole  «T()p 
of  the  country.  The  cul- 
ture of  t:orn,  however,  is 
more  evenly  distributed 
than  that  of  cotton,  sugar, 
and  tobacco  in  the  South- 
ern and  Horder  States  ;  ami 
the  policy  of  raising  home- 
supplies  of  this  cereal  is 
coming  to  be  more  gener- 
ally pursued  there,  that 
section  having  suffered 
more  than  once  recently 
from  insufficient  food-sup- 
ply. New  England,  en- 
gaged in  manufacturing 
pursuits     rather    than     in 


nit-KiiV  III    I.Nl'.il-Mil.l.. 


agriculture,  does  almost  nothing  in  corn. 

Production  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^  wheat,  SO  with  maize,  there 


moving 
westward. 


is  a  westward 

migration  of  the  centre  of  our  production,  as  will  be  apparent 
from  the  following  table  of  percentages  :  — 


SECTION. 

1849. 

1859. 

.869. 

187s. 

Atlantic-coast  St.-ites 

Central  Helt 

Trans-Mississippi  licit 

30 
58 
12 

24 

SS 
21 

20 

53 

27 

»4 
5' 
3S 

The  East  has  declined  continuously  and  hopelessly ;  the  centre  has  held 
a  determined  struggle,  yielding  only  inch  by  inch ;  the  West  ha.s  trod  the 
track  of  destiny  with  accelerated  step. 

As  a  result  of  the  rapid  growth  and  the  geographical  location  of  the 
great  cornfields,  there  has  been  an  immense  growth  of  cities  and  railroads 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


79 


even  than 
arc  each 
ularly  «-on- 
Khiccs  not 
lU  the  tt;n 
Virginias ; 
iliana,   IWi- 
ssouri,   antl 
;r,   protUite 
^- whole  iri'l' 
The  f.ul- 
however,   is 
distribuletl 
oUoP,  sugar, 
n  the  South- 
r  States  ;  anil 
raising  home- 
his   e.ereal   is 
more  gencr- 
there,    that 
-ing      suffered 
once   recently 
ient  food-svip- 
England,    en- 
manufacturing 
ther    than     in 

is  a  westward 
ill  be  apparent 


in  that  section  of  country  between  the  Ohio  and  the  (Ireat  Lakes,  and  just 
west  of  the  Mississippi.     On  the  rivers  and  lak-s,  especially  the  latter,  ship- 
ping  has   grown    immensely,  to  carry  on   the  work  of  Iranspor-   comequan- 
tation.      It  would  be  difficult  to  say  exactly  how  much  of  this  ce«of  railing 
material  wealth  of  development  is  due  to  corn,  and  how  much  otherlndua- 
to  wheat  j  but   the  division  would  give    the   former  the  larger  triai  and 
share.     (Chicago  is,  of  course,  the  great  centre  of  the  corn-interest ;   ""»*•'"«"'•• 
but  many  other  lake  and  interior  cities  are  the  product  of  this  industry.     So 
I  oiuoletely  dependent,  too,  on  the  grain-transportation  business,  are  many  of 
the  Western  railroads,  that  their  stocks  rise  and  fall  on  Wall  Street  with  every 
ihu  tuation  of  the  crops  and  the  demands  therefor.     Indeed,  to  corn,  more 
tiian  to  any  other  one  agricultural  product  of  this  country,  do  we  owe  the 
expansion  of  our  material  prosperity. 


.-•^% 


1869. 


i875. 


20 

53 
27 


U 
5" 
35 


centre  has  held 
/est  ha.s  trod  the 

.1  location  of  the 
ties  and  railroads 


A. 


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WltSTU.N.Y.  MStO 

(716)t72-4S03 


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^.,(fWm»J*Miliil»il,^MW>l mm.. 


So 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


'  i 


CHAPTER  VI. 


SUGAR   AND    MOLASSES. 


SUGAR  and  molasses  are  among  those  agricultural  products  of  the  United 
States,  which,  in  amount,  fall  far  short  of  our  necessities,  rendering  a 
heavy  import  (chiefly  from  the  West  Indies)  requisite  to  supply  the  defi- 
Description  ciency.  The  production  is,  moreover,  limited  in  locality,  as  well 
of  sugar-  as  in  quantity,  being  mostly  confined  to  Louisiana.  The  cane 
cane  region,  jj^jiygg^  ^^d  is  the  Staple  product,  in  all  parts  of  the  State  south 
of  tlie  latitude  of  Baton  Rouge,  except  in  the  pine  uplands  bordering  on 
Texas.  It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  the  whole  of  the  region  within 
these  boundaries  actually  produces  sugar.  The  area  of  cultivated  land  is 
comparatively  small ;  swamps,  lakes,  rivers,  and  bayous  occupying  most  of 
the  surface  of  the  country,  and  the  territory  available  for  planting  being 
restricted  to  narrow  strips  along  the  water-courses.  The  shores  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, for  fifty  miles  above  and  below  New  Orleans,  are  lined  with  cane- 
fields,  extending  back  for  about  a  mile  to  the  cypress-swamps.  Along  the 
Atchafalaya,  and  the  La  Fourche,  Plaquemine,  Teche,  Boeuf,  Courtableau, 
and  other  bayous  west  of  the  Mississippi,  there  is  little  besides  sugar  raised. 
The  Teche,  and  the  parishes  bordering  upon  it,  known  under  the  general 
name  of  the  Attakapas  country,  is  the  paradise  of  the  sugar-planter.  Per- 
haps the  land  is  no  better  than  that  along  the  other  bayous ;  but  its  conforma- 
tion makes  it  easy  of  drainage,  while  the  proximity  of  the  Gulf  gives  it  cool 
breezes  in  summer,  and  the  natural  beauties  of  the  region  make  it  the  most 
attractive  part  of  Louisiana.  Longfellow's  description  in  "  Evangeline  "  fits 
it  very  well :  — 

"  Beautiful  is  the  land,  with  its  prairies,  and  forest  of  fruit-trees ! 
Under  the  feet  a  garden  of  flowers ;  and  the  bluest  of  heavens 
Bending  above,  and  resting  its  dome  o'-.  the  walls  of  the  forest. 
They  who  dwell  there  have  named  it  the  Eden  of  Louisiana." 

There  are  many  little  descriptive  passages  in  the  poem  that  are  remarkably 
true  to  nature ;  and  the  wonder  is  that  Longfellow  could  have  got  the  local 
coloring  so  well  without  once  visiting  the  region  he  pictures. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


8i 


t; 


s  of  the  United 
es,  rendering  a 
iupply  the  defi- 
localily,  as  well 
ana.    The  cane 
the  State  south 
Is  bordering  on 
he  region  within 
jltivated  land  is 
upying  most  of 
■  planting  being 
jres  of  the  Mis- 
ined  with  cane- 
nps.     Along  the 
f,  Courtableau, 
des  sugar  raised, 
der  the  general 
ar-planter.     Per- 
ut  its  conforma- 
ulf  gives  it  cool 
lake  it  the  most 
ivangeline"  fits 

ees: 
;rens 
rest, 
a." 

t  are  remarkably 
ve  got  the  local 


Long  before  the  Revolutionary  war  the  New- England  colonies  carried  on 
a  large  commerce  in  sugar  and  molasses,  which,  with  rum,  they  brought  from 
the  West  Indies,  and  carried  hence  to  Europe.     There  were  re-   „   , 

'  •^  Early  eom- 

fineries  in  various  parts  of  Connecticut,  and  Massachusetts  too,  merce  in 
mostly  for  such  sugar  as  was  kept  for  home  consumption.    The  ""»•'  ■""' 
enactment  of  laws  by  Parliament,  restricting  this  carrying-trade 
to  British  vessels,  as  also  the  stamp-acts,  which  threatened  to  lay  a  tax  on 
such  sugar  and  molasses,  seriously  affected  this  industry. 

Accounts  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  by  the  earliest  settlers,  speak  of 
sugar-canes  as  indigenous  to  that  section,  but  inaccurately.     Sugar-canes  do 
not  appear  to  have  been  grown  in  any  part  of  what  is  now  the  g,^,  ^^jj,. 
United  States  until  1 751,  when  the  Jesuits  introduced  them  to  vation  in 
Louisiana  from  San  Domingo.     The  first  sugar-mill  in  this  section  ^°"*•'•"■• 
was  erected  by  M.  Dubreuil,  whose  plantation  is  now  covered  by  the  city  of 
New  Orleans.     But  little  headway  was  made  in  the  culture  until  1 794,  when 
persecuted  Frenchmen  fled  from  San  Domingo  to  Louisiana,  and  carried  their 
business  ideas  with  them.    This  State  did  not  form  a  part  of  our  Union, 
however,  until  1803.     In  later  years  the  culture  extended  into  Texas  to  a 
slight  extent.     In  1805  an  enterprising  Georgia  planter  obtained  Extension  of 
and  set  out  in  his  own  State  one  hundred  young  sugar    anes.  cu't^ire- 
These  were  rapidly  propagated ;    and  the  culture  extended  into   Florida, 
Alabam-    and  elsewhere.    It  was  soon  found,  though,  that  the  soil  of  Lou- 
isiana Wc^a  oy  far  the  most  productive,  and  the  industry  never  prospered  very 
much  elsewhere.     In    1850  eleven-twelfths  of  the  yield  of  cane  sugar  and 
molasses  of  this  country  was   Louisiana's.    The   following  table  shows  the 
distribution  in  1870  :  — 


Louisiana 
Texas     . 
Tennessee 
South  Carolina 
Florida   . 
Georgia  . 
Arkansas 
Mississippi 
Missouri 
Alabama 
Korth  Carolina 

Total 


SUGAR, 
HOGSHEADS. 


80,706 
2,020 
1,410 

I.OSS 
952 
644 
92 
49 
49 
3< 
35 


87.043 


MOLASSES, 
GALLONS. 


4.585.150 
246,062 

3.629 
436,882 

344.339 

553.19* 

72,008 

152,164 


166,009 

33.888 


6.593.323 


8a 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Just  as  the  tobacco-industry  built  up  Richmond,  so  the  sugar-business 
built  up  New  Orleans,  although  the  cotton-interest  had  a  share  in  the  latter 
work.  Very  few  statistics  are  obtainable,  showing  the  product 
of  cane  sugar  and  molasses  in  other  States ;  and  statisticians 
treat  that  of  Louisiana  as  about  all  there  is  in  the  country. 
Bearing  this  fact  in  mind,  one  can  learn  much  of  the  history  of 
the  cane-sugar  industry  of  this  country,  and  realize  how  far  it  is 
from  meeting  our  needs,  by  glancing  at  the  following  table,  showing  the  total 
consumption  in  this  country  by  tons,  and  what  jiroportion  thereof  was  im- 
ported, and  how  much  was  raised  in  Louisiana  :  — 


Sugar- 
Interests 
gave  rise  to 
New 
Orleans. 


,  'if 


YEARS. 

IMPORTED.' 

LOUISIANA. 

TOTAL.' 

I82I     .... 

26,672 

14,000 

40,672 

1831 

44,178 

35,000 

"9.178 

I84I 

65,601 

38,000 

103,601 

1842 

69,474 

39,200 

108,674 

1843 

28,854 

64,360 

93.214 

1844 

83,801 

44.400 

128,201 

1845 

88,336 

45,000 

133.336 

1846 

44.974 

83,028 

128,002 

1847 

98,410 

71,040 

169,450 

1848 

104,214 

107,000 

211,214 

1849 

103,121 

99,180 

202,301 

1850 

160,210 

144,600 

304,810 

I85I 

201,493 

120,331 

321.824 

1852 

196,558 

118,659 

3'S.2i7 

•853 

200,610 

172.379 

372.989 

1854 

150,854 

234.444 

385.298 

•855 

192,607 

185.145 

377.752 

1856 

255,292 

123,468 

378,760 

1857 

241,165 

39,000 

280,765 

1858 

244,758 

143.734 

388,492 

1859 

239.034 

192.150 

431,184 

i860 

296,950 

118,331 

415,181 

1S61 

241,420 

122,399 

363-819 

1862 

241,411 

191,000 

432.4" 

1863 

231.398 

52.910 

284.308 

1864 

192,660 

28,000 

220,660 

1865 

345.809 

5,000 

350,809 

1866 

383. '78 

8,500 

391,698 

1867 

378,068 

22,500 

400,568 

1868 

446.533 

23.000 

469,533 

1869 

447,899 

45,000 

492,899 

1870 

483,892 

46,80c 

530,692 

187  I 

553.714 

79,600 

633.3 '4 

1872 

567.573 

69,800 

637.373 

1873 

592,725 

59.300 

652,025 

1874 

661,869 

48,500 

710,569 

187s 

621,852 

63,500 

685.352 

^1876 

• 

561,369 

77,000 

638,369  " 

Omitting  that  which  was  cx[)ortcd  again, 


'  Omitting  the  trifle  consumed  on  Ihc  I'acific  coast, 


OF  THE   (TNI TED  STATES. 


83 


ugar-business 
in  the  latter 
the  product 
[  statisticians 
the  country, 
he  history  of 
how  far  it  is 
,'ing  the  total 
;reof  was  im- 


TOTAL.' 

40,672 

79.178 
103,601 
108,674 

93.2 '4 

128,201 

133.336 
128,002 

169,450 
211,214 

202,301 
304,810 
321,824 

3'S.2i7 
372,989 
385,298 

377.752 

378,760 

280,765 

388,492 

431,184 

415,181 

363,819 

432,411 

284,308 

220,660 

350,809 

391,698 

400,568 

469.533 
492,899 
530,692 
633.314 

637.373 
652,025 
710,369 

685.352 
638,369 

ic  I'acific  coast. 


Starting  at  nothing,  our  domestic  production  rapidly  gained  on  bur  im- 
ports until  1843,  when,  spasmodically  as  it  were,  it  suddenly  overleaped  and 
more  than  doublad  them.  In  1846,  1848,  and  1854,  our  domestic  product 
exceeded  the  imports,  hut  not  to  so  great  an  extent.  Owing  to  increase  of 
the  accumulation  of  a  large  stock  in  the  country  in  1856,  the  P'^oductiou. 
next  year's  home  yield  fell  off  amazingly.  What  abrupt  and  utter  ruin  was 
brought  upon  this  industry  by  the  war  m.iy  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that,  by 


SlKiAK-MILL. 


the  year  1863,  the  cane-crop  had  dwindled  down  to  50,000  tons.  In  1864  't 
fell  to  30,000  ;  and  in  1865,  the  last  year  of  the  war,  shrunk  to  the  minimum  of 
only  5,000  tons.     'I'he  great  tratle  tliat  was  thus  shattered  in  three  years,  has, 


Jfe*: 


84 


INDUSTRTAL    HISTORY 


since  the  war,  been  slowly  reviving ;  but  still  a  long  time  will  have  to  elapse 
before  it  again  reaches  the  proportions  to  which  it  had  attained  in  1853.  For 
the  past  three  or  four  years,  owing  to  lalwr-troubles  and  political  causes 
which  need  not  now  be  mentioned,  the  crop  harvested  in  Louisiana  was  not 
so  large  as  many  supposed  it  would  be :  still,  in  spite  of  every  drawback,  it 
has  increased  25,000  hogsheads  each  year,  and  during  the  season  of  1876-77 
amounted  to  169,331  hogsheads,  or  a  total  of  190,672,570  pounds.  It  is 
confidently  expected  that  the  crop  of  the  season  of  1877-78  will  amount  to 
not  less  than  200,000  hogsheads. 

It  is  asserted '  that  the  business  of  sugar-planting  offers  peculiar  induce- 
ments to  Northern  people  who  want  to  find  new  homes  in  the  South.  The 
Profits  and  pro^ts  are  immediate,  and,  with  proper  management,  very  large, 
prospects  of  A  plantation  near  Franklin,  with  1,100  acres  in  cane,  received  for 
its  product  of  sugar  and  molasses  $120,000;  and  the  net  profit, 
deducting  all  expenses,  even  to  the  cigars  smoked  by  the  planter 
and  his  friends,  was  160,000  dollars.  This  is  an  excepdonally  large  plantation. 
About  300  acres  under  cultivation  is  an  average  one.  The  following  is  the 
condensed  balance-sheet,  for  1876,  of  a  300-acre  place  above  Franklin  :  — 


this  Indus 
try 


RECEIPTS. 

400  hhds.  sugar  at  eight  cents  per  pound ^1,600 

300  bbis,  molasses  at  two  dollars 600 

Total ^2,200 

EXPENSES. 

Labor :  twenty-five  hands  throughout  year,  and  ten  extra  in  sugar-mak- 
ing season    $12,000 

Rations :  five  pounds  pork  and  a  peck  of  meal  a  week  to  each  hand  2,500 

Mule  feed 1.500 

Hogsheads  and  barrels 2,500 

Purchase  of  mules,  tools,  repairs,  &c. 3.000 

Commission  on  sale  of  crop      .....         ....  1.275 

22.775 

Profit I19.425 

The  cost  of  a  plantation  like  this,  in  good  condition,  with  sugar-house  and 
machinery  in  good  repair,  would  range  from  $40,000  to  $75,000.  There  is 
usually  three  or  four  times  as  much  swamp  as  arable  land  sold  with  a  planta- 
tion. But  the  swamp  has  a  value  ;  for  it  furnishes  the  wood  required  for  fuel 
in  the  sugar-mill.  A  hogshead  of  sugar  to  the  acre  is  a  small  yield,  a  hogs- 
head and  a  half  a  fair  yield,  and  two  a  large  one.  There  are  thirteen  hundred 
pounds  of  sugar  in  a  hogshead ;  and  the  price  in  New  Orleans  ranges  from 
seven  cents  for  an  ordinary  brown  grade  to  ten  and  eleven  cents  for  the 
white  coffee-sugar  made  by  vacuum  pans  and  centrifugal  machinery  for  sepa« 

I  N<ny-Vork  Tribune. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


8| 


rating  the  molasses  from  the  sugar.  Field-hands  are  paid  sixteen  dollars  a 
month  and  a  ration,  and  have  Saturday  afternoons  to  themselves,  and  the  use 
of  a  mule  to  cultivate  patches  of  their  own.  The  cane  they  raise  on  these 
patches  is  worked  up  by  the  planter,  and  they  get  half  the  product.  An  in- 
dustrious negro  will  thus  add  a  hundred  dollars  or  more  to  his  yearly  earnings. 

Thus  far  the  land  has  usually  been  cultivated  in  large  sections,  two  hun- 
dred acres  being  considered  the  minimum  quantity  that  would  sustain  the 
expenses  of  a  sugar-mill  and  of  the  colony  of  hands  necesr  iry  to  work  both 
land  and  mill.  The  large  planters  are  now  encouraging  the  tenant-system, 
and  a  tendency  to  separate  the  business  of  sugar-making  from  Large  and 
cane-growing  begins  to  show  itself.  On  the  smaller  farms,  where  •""■"  'Mmt. 
only  a  few  hogsheads  of  sugar  are  produced,  the  owners  are  obliged  to  con- 
tent themselves  with  crushing  and  boiling  in  the  old-fashioned  style ;  thus 
wasting  much  of  the  cane,  and  producing  a  very  inferior  brand  of  sugar. 
Indeed,  it  is  stated,  that,  of  the  1,050  sugar-houses  in  operation  in  Louisiana, 
upward  of  250,  or  nearly  one-fourth,  still  crush  the  cane  by  horse-power,  —  an 
exceedingly  primitive  and  unsatisfactory  process,  by  which  it  is  impossible  to 
extract  any  high  percentage  of  juice  from  the  cane.  Great  waste,  and  conse- 
quently great  loss,  is  naturally  the  result  of  this  practice.' 

It  is  proposed  to  revolutionize  the  whole  system  of  sugar  manufacturing  by 
abolishing  all  the  old-fashioned  and  comparatively  useless  sugar  houses  and 
presses,  and  establishing  in  each  district  of  the  great  cane-growing  region  an 
accessible  and  well-appointed  mill  of  the  most  approved  descrip-   f^^^  ^^, 
tion,  and  containing  all  the  latest  machinery.    To  these  mills  all  of  making 
small  farmers  are  to  send  theiv  cane  as  soon  as  it  is  cut,  disposing  ""■■'• 
of  it  at  a  fair  market-price,  or  having  it  ground  into  sugar,  paying  the  mill- 
managers  a  small  percentage  for  the  work.     It  will  be  noticed  that  this  system 
is  similar  in  many  respects  to  that  which  governs  the  manufacture  of  cheese  in 
some  of  the  great  dairy  districts  of  this  State.     There  seems  to  be  no  reason 
why  its  establishment  in  Louisiana  should  not  be  the  beginning  of  a  new  and 
more  prosperous  era  in  the  history  of  the  sugar-producing  districts  of  the  Peli- 
can State.     It  ought  certainly  to  result  in  the  employment  of  large  capital  in 
the  manufacture  of  the  staple,  and  a  great  increase  in  the  area  cultivated. 

The  consumption  of  sugar  in  all  parts  of  the  world  is  constantly  increasing, 
—  increasing  with  amazing  rapidity.  In  the  United  States  alone,  during  the 
year  1876,  the  total  consumption,  including  the  product  of  the  maple-tree  and 
the  sugar  made  from  molasses,  is  estimated  at  not  less  than  745,000  tons. 
This  is  fully  one  hundred  per  cent  more  than  the  amount  consumed  in  1863, 
or  than  the  average  of  the  decade  immediately  preceding  that  year.  From 
these  figures  it  will  readily  be  seen,  that,  even  were  every  acre  of  the  rich  allu- 
vial bluff  and  prairie  lands  of  Louisiana  devoted  exclusively  to  the  cultivation 
of  sugar,  there  would  still  be  no  fear  of  over-production.     Every  pound  that 


•  New- York  Times,  Sept.  ii,  1877. 


U  made 
from. 


Beet-»U!*r. 


INDUSTKIAI.    HISTORY 


••an  Ik:  maniifartnrod  will  liiid  a  ready  market,  ami  a  quick  sale  at  remunera- 
tive prices. 

Most  of  the  niolasses  produced  in  this  country  is  in  suitable  condition  for 
tahie  use  when  it  le^"''s  the  S')uthern  sugar-house.     The  (ondition  of  sugar 
usually  is  very  (lin'crent,  as  it  is  the  raw  brown  muscovado  which 
'  needs  to  be  refmed.      Tliere  are  refineries  for  this  product,  as  well 

as  for  the  raw  sugars  imi)orteil  iu  many  of  the  large  cities  of  the  coimtry, 
which  <lo  nn  enormous  businiss.  and  which  have  generally  been  very  suc<ess- 
ful.  riie  process  of  refining  has  l)een  mu(  h  improved  within  a  few  years ; 
and  the  former  method,  which  seemed  to  Ik.'  any  thing  but  a  refining  process, 
is  rajndly  going  into  disuse. 
^,   .  SuL'ar  is  made  from  three  other  plants  besides  the  American  or 

What  bU|{Br  ^  * 

West-Indian  « ane  ;  namely,  the  sugar-beet,  the  ('iiinese-cane  or 
sorghum,  and  mai)le-sap. 
Forty  per  cent  of  the  total  sugar-product  of  the  world  is  made  from  lu-ets. 
Kx|)eriment  was  made  in  (iermany.  toward  the  latter  i)art  of  the  last  century, 
by  a  chemist  named  .\(  hard,  who  demonstrated  that  sugar  could 
be  made  from  iieets.  ihe  first  Napoleon  did  nuich  to  encourage 
this  industry  in  FraiK  e,  e>pe(  ially  in  iSi  j,  when  the  blockade  of  French  ports 
prc(  luded  a  foreign  supply  of  <  aucsugar.  At  one  time  520o,ooo  were  jilaced 
in  the  hands  of  tlie  minister  of  agri(  ulture  to  encourage  it.  Hut,  after  Water- 
loo, l)eet->ugar  production  .iluiost  died  out.  In  1S20  it  revived  again,  ancl, 
with  lluctuations,  has  since  rapidly  and  extensively  developed,  until  the  prod- 
;;<t  is  inunense.  Kxi)eriments  in  this  country  began  as  early  as  1S38  ;  David 
I,.  (Jhild  (jf  Northampton,  .\l.iss.,  having  produc  ed  1,300  pounds  of  sugar  that 
year.  The  next  attei'.pt  was  tliat  of  the  (lennert  brothers,  (lermans,  at  ("hats- 
worth,  111.,  in  1863,  who  bought  2,400  a<  res  of  land,  and  went  into  beet-culture 
for  sugar  very  extensively.  'I'hey  had  bad  luck  for  sevcr.il  years.  In  1870 
they  lonsolidated  with  a  like  establishment  at  Freeport,  III.,  ami  produced 
that  year  200,000  pounds  of  good  sugar  at  moderate  cost.  Messrs.  Honesteel 
^^  Otto  embarked  in  the  busitiess  at  Fond  <iu  I^nc,  Wis.,  in  1867;  and 
another  co-operative  enterprise  was  started  at  IJIack  FLawk,  Wis.,  in  1870. 
Several  ventures  were  made,  too.  in  (,'alifornia,  Mr.  Wentworth  of  Alvarado 
securing  the  .assistance  of  Honesteel  and  Otto  in  1870;  and  the  next  year 
they  produced  1,000,000  pounds  of  sugar.  Amherst  Agricultural  College, 
the  Virginia  University,  and  other  institutions  and  individuals,  have  experi- 
mented. 

Sorghum,  or  the  Chinese-cane,  was  introduced  into  this  country  by  the 
liureau  of  Agriculture  in  1856.  It  can  be  -ultivated  in  almost  any  part  of  the 
country  ;  and,  under  the  extensive  notices  given  it  by  the  commis- 
sioner's reports,  it  soon  met  with  a  wide  acceptance.  It  yields  a 
gooil  sinjp,  and  but  little  sugar.  The  census  of  i860  showed  the  product  of 
that  year  to  be,  — 


Sor|{hum. 


I 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


89 


ncri<"an  or 
;o-(anc  or 


^-   \ 


88  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

CAI.LX>NI. 

Iowa 1,211,512 

Indiana 881,049 

Illinois 806,589 

Missouri 796,111 

Oliio 779,076 

Tennessee 706,663 

Other  States 568,123 

Total 6,749,123 

Iowa  was  then  the  largest  producer;  but  Ohio  developed  the  industry 
more  rapidly  until  1866,  since  which  year  it  has  gradually  declined  there  and 
Production  *"  Indiana  and  Illinois.  It  extended  up  into  Wisconsin  too, 
from  tor.  somewhat,  but  rather  more  largely  in  Kansas,  and  all  through  the 
ghum.  South,  prominently  in   Georgia.     It   is   estimated   that   we   raise 

annually  1 2,000,000  gallons  of  sirup,  which,  at  sixty-five  cents  a  gallon,  would 
come  to  17,800,000 ;  and  250,000  pounds  of  sugar,  which,  at  six  cents  a 
pound,  would  make  the  annual  yield  worth  over  ^7,815,000.  When  the 
value  of  the  crop  comes  to  be  c«tter  understood,  it  is  believed  its  culture  will 
be  vastly  increased. 

The  maple-sugar  industry  dates  from  the  earliest  colonial  days,  but  has 
not  been  carried  on  extensively  in  any  part  of  the  country.  It  is  mostly  in  the 
Maple.  hands  of  individual  farn:ers,  and  is  chiefly  confined  to  the  North- 

•uK«r.  gfn  States,  from  Maine  into  Minnesota,  though  reaching  into  Ken- 

tucky. Statistics  arc  imperfect  and  scarce ;  but  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
says,  that,  in  181 1,  Ohio  produced  3,033,086  pounds,  Kentucky  2,471,647, 
and  Vermont  but  1,200,000.  Probably  the  total  production  throughout  the 
country  was  something  like  15,000,000  or  20,000,000,  with  sirup  equivalent  to 
as  much  more,  a  gallon  of  sirup  counting  for  ten  pounds  of  sugar.  The 
census-returns  for  1850,  i860,  and  1870,  show  the  following  total  product  in 
pounds  and  gallons :  — 


1850. 

i860. 

1370. 

Sugar     .... 
Sirup     .... 

34,253,436 
106,782 

40,120,205 
'.597.589 

28,443,645 
921,436 

In  1850  New  York  was  the  leading  State,  producing  about  thirty  per  cent 
of  the  whole.  Vermont  held  the  second  place,  with  Ohio  third, 
and  Indiana  fourth.  In  i860  the  order  was, —  New  York,  Ver- 
mont, Michigan,  and  Ohio.  In  1870  Vermont  had  reached  the  first 
place,  with  New  York  second,  Ohio  third,  Michigan  fourth,  and 
Indiana  fifth.  Several  of  the  States  have  since  improved  on  the  fig- 
ures of  1870 ;  and  it  is  likely  that  the  total  product  now  almost  equals  that  of 


Production 
of  maplt- 
sugar  in  the 
several 
States. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES, 


89 


i860,  and  is  worth  something  like  |6,ooo,ooo.    The  utmost  limit  has  already 
been  reached,  in  all  probability,  however ;  though  we  are  not  likely  to  see  a 
very  marked  decline  for  a  number  of  years.    Much  of  the  maple  sugar  and* 
sirup  used  in  this  country  comes  from  Canada. 


9° 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


CHAPTER  VII. 


TOBACCO. 


Early  hii- 
tory  of 
tobacco. 


WHEN  Columbus  landed  in  Hispaniola,  in  1492,  he  saw  the  natives 
brcathiny  out  smoke  from  their  nostrils  ;  and  he  was  offered  a  roll  of  a 
fragrant  narcotic  weed,  in  the  form  of  a  cigar,  that  he  might  ilo  likewise.  This 
was  the  first  that  the  civilized  world  ever  knew  of  tobacco.  The 
Spaniards  and  Portuguese  soon  made  Europe  accpiainted  with  the 
l)lant  and  its  uses.  In  1560  the  agent  of  the  King  of  Kran<  c  in 
Portugal,  named  Jean  Nicot,  obtained  from  a  Dutchman  some  seed  of  the  plant 
from  I'lorida ;  and  thus  it  was  introduccil  into  France,  where  it  was  known  as 
the  Nicotian  weed.  Tobacco,  the  Indian  name,  appears  to  have  been  ai)plied 
originally  to  the  pipes  wherein  the  Caribbecs  smoked  the  dried  leaves.  In 
1586  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  his  colleagues,  who  had  been  unsuccessful  in 
founding  a  colony  in  America,  brought  back  to  England  the  custom  of  iising 
tobacco;  but  until  1607,  when  the  Jamestown  Colony  was  planted,  England 
obtained  the  little  tobacco  which  it  used,  indirectly,  through  the  Spanianls, 
from  the  West  Indies.  As  the  various  nations  of  the  world  were  using  narcot- 
ics and  stimulants  of  various  sorts,  this  new  one  had  to  fight  its  way  into  favor 
against  great  prejudice.  King  James  I.  of  England  wrote  a  pamphlet  in  1616, 
vigorously  denouncing  its  use;  in  1624  Pope  Urban  VIII,  decreed  excommu- 
nication to  all  who  used  snuff;  in  1634  Russia  affixed  a  penalty  of  cutting  off 
the  nose  for  smoking  tobacco ;  and  other  nations  restricted  its  importation, 
culture,  and  use,  in  various  ways,  a  favorite  i)lan  being  to  lay  very  heavy  taxes 
thereupon.  Yet  the  use  of  the  weed  —  which  the  American  Indians  smoked  as 
a  solace  to  care,  a  cheer  in  idleness,  and  a  token  of  fidelity  around  the  council- 
fire  and  at  peace  negotiations  —  soon  became  popular  in  Europe,  and  thus 
spread  all  over  the  Old  World,  —  into  Turkey,  Egypt,  Arabia,  Persia,  the 
Indies,  and  China.  More  than  any  other  product  of  the  soil,  tobacco  has  an 
unquestioned  title  exclusively  to  American  origin. 

The  culture  of  tobacco  was  undertaken  almost  immediately  by  the  first 
settlers  in  Virginia;  and  it  is  recorded,  that,  in  1615,  not  only  the  gardens 
and  fields,  but  also  the  streets,  of  Jamestown,  were  planted  therewith.     It 


OF    TIfF.     UNITED    STATES. 


9« 


.[iiirkly  l)cramc  the  staple-  <  rop  of  the  colony.     'I'hc  laws  of  the  mother- 
<(»iiiilry  forhadc  any  maniifaduR's,  even  of  necessary  clothing;    and  tohacco 
was  soon  found  to  be  the  most  valuable  of  aj^'ricnltiiral  products,  cuitiv«tion 
even  wheat  beinj;  abandoned  for  its  culture.     IJy  the  year   \(\22   o«  tobacco 
the  product  of  Virginia  had  increased  to  sixty  thousand  pounds,    "    "'  "  '" 
and  it  doubled  in  twenty  years.     Its  culture  was  begun  in  llie  l)ut<  h  colony  of 
New  Netherlands  (afterwards  called  New  York)  in  1646;  but  it  never  spread 
very  rapidly.     Later,  it  was  cultivated  (|uite  extensively  in  the  neighborhood 
(if   I'hiladelphia.     I-'rom   Virginia  tlie  industry  extended  southward   into   the 
Carolinas.     The  l-'renth  corporation  known  as  "  The  Company  of  the  West  " 


SMOKIM.    INsTKlMtN:s   (M-    All     NATIONS. 


introduced  it  into  Louisiana  in  1718.  So  rapiilly  did  the  production  increase 
at  first  in  Virginia,  and  so  slowly  was  its  consumption  augmented  abroad,  that 
prices  fell,  and  the  colonists  could  not  make  tobacco  pay  for  their  <  lolhing. 
\\\  1639  the  .Assembly  ordered  the  product  of  the  next  two  years  to  be  burned, 
except  a  hunilred  anil  twenty  tliousand  pounds,  properly  divided  among  the 
planters,  in  order  to  check  production  and  raise  prices.  A  tract  on  Virginia, 
printed  in  Ix)ndon  in  1649,  said  that  the  price  of  ti)l)acco  in  the  colony  had 
fallen  to  threepence  a  pound  on  account  of  the  supply.     In  1652  Cromwell 


pa 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


i!«  ij- 


ordered  all  tobacco-plants  in  England  to  be  destroyed,  in  order  to  give  the 
colonies  a  l)ettcr  chance ;  and  the  increasing  popularity  of  the  weed  also 
stimulated  the  production  in  the  colonies  again,  and  it  made  rapid  strides. 
In  1729  the  proiluct  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  had  increased  in  quantity  and 
value,  so  as  to  be  worth  ;;^375,ooo;  and  a  fleet  of  three  hundred  sail  was 
employed  in  its  transportation.  Ihe  annual  export  from  all  the  colonics  for 
the  ten  years  prior  to  1709  averaged  28,868,666  pounds;  rmd  from  1744 
to  1776  the  average  was  40,000,000'  pounds,  or  one-tenth  of  our  i)rescnt 
yield.     Of  this  amount,  more  than  three-quarters  cai  lo  froiTi  Virginia  alone. 

Prior  to  the  Revolutionary  war  the  planters  had  discovered  that  their 
lands  werr  deteriorating;  and  from  1758,  when  Virginia  exported  75,000 
Increase  of  hogshcads,  there  was  a  falling-off  for  a  nimibcr  of  years  in 
acreage  until  the  amount  raised  on  the  original  plantations.  The  acreage  in- 
'**"■  creased,  however,  extending  into  new  States,  notably  Georgia  and 

Kentucky ;  so  that  the  total  yield  of  the  country  kept  about  the  same,  or 
increased  slightly.     In  1790  our  exports  were  118,460  hogsheads,  —  a  figure 

not  reached  again  until  1840.  In- 
asmuch as  domestic  consumption 
was  increasing  meantime,  and  the 
taxes  were  enormous  which  foreign 
countries  imposed  upon  our  tobacco 
when  imported  by  them,  it  is  proba- 
ble that  our  product  increased  at 
least  threefold  during  that  period  of 
fifty  years,  —  from  something  like 
60,000,000  to  over  200,000,000 
pounds. 

Between  1840  and  1850  tobacco 
rulture  remained  almost  at  a  stand- 
still :  indeed,  the  figures  given  by 
the  Agricultural  Ikireau  show  a  slight 
Production      falling-off.   Thusini840 

since  1840.         the   yij^id   ^vjis    219,163,- 

319  pounds,  while  in  1850  it  was 
but  199,752,655.  During  the  next 
decade,  however,  there  was  a  very 
marked  development  of  the  industry. 
In  that  short  time  it  attained  double 
dimensions,  the  returns  for  i860 
being  434,209,461  pounds.  Since  that  time  it  has  been  impossible  to  more  than 
approximate  the  yield,  inasmuch  as  the  heavy  internal  revenue-tax  on  tobacco 
has  induced  producers  to  falsify  their  returns  by  diminishing  them.     Thus  the 

>  Probably  equivalent  to  ioo,aoo  hogiheadii  in  that  day.     A  hogihead  now  contains  about  i,ioo  pound*. 


TOBAtCU-I'l.AM. 


If' 


li  Mi 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


93 


Effect  of 
emancipat- 


census-statement  for  1S70  gives  262,735,341  pounds  as  the  total  yield;  but 
tiie  commissioner  of  agriculture  estimates  that  it  was  at  least  360,000,000 ; 
and,  as  a  further  illustration,  it  may  be  stated,  that  in  Ohio,  in  1870,  while  the 
returns  to  Federal  census-takers  aggregateil  but  18,741,923  pounds,  the  State 
assessors  declared  the  crop  to  be  38,953,206  pounds.  The  returns  for  1875 
were  379,347,000  pounds;  and,  allowing  for  underrating  in  the  statements,  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  we  raised  something  like  50c  Joo,ooo  or  600,000,000,  or  a 
<|uartcr  more  than  in  i860.  That  we  have  mad<  no  more  headway  is  ciiiefly 
attributed  by  the  old  planters  to  the  erriancipation  of  the  slaves.  They  say 
that  the  industrial  demoralization  attendant  uj)on  freeing  the  blacks 
is  felt  far  more  by  the  tobacco-growers  than  by  the  cotton-growers, 
it  may  be  remarked,  however,  that,  while  the  culture  of  cotton   '"'*•"= 

'  slaves. 

was  almost  entirely  suspended  during  the  war,  the  tobacco-interest 
was  but  slightly  alTecte<l,  a  small  portion  of  the  crop  coming  from  Northern 
States,  and  the  Border  States,  which  yielded  the  most,  being  largely  free  from 
tiie  depredations  and  paralysis  of  the  pending  conflict. 

Though  produced  in  all  of  the  States,  yet  there  were  but  fourteen,  accord- 
ing to  the  census  of  1870,  which  yielded  as  much  as  one  million  pounds 
apiece.  Kentucky  alone  furnished  forty  per  cent  of  the  crop  of  1870,  and 
oser  thirty  per  cent  of  that  of  1875.  Kentucky  and  Virginia  have,  for  twenty- 
five  years,  raised  more  than  half  of  the  total  product.  The  following  table 
shows  the  quantity  produced  in  each  State  :  — 


STATES. 

1850. 

i860. 

1870. 

1875. 

Kentucky          .... 
Virginia 

Total  .... 
North  Carolina 
Tennessee         .... 

Missouri 

M. try  land          .... 
Ohio 

Total.       .        .       . 
I'ennsylvania    .... 

Indiana 

i'onnecticut      .... 
Massachusetts  .... 

Illinois 

Other  States    .... 

Grand  total 

55,501,196 
56,803,227 

112,304,423 
".984.786 
20,148,932 

'7.  "3.784 
21,407,497 
10,454,449 

'93.4' 3.87' 

6,338,784' 
'99,752,655 

108,102,433 

'23.967.757 

232,070,190 
32.853.250 
38.93'.277 
25,086,196 
38,410,965 
25,528,972 

392,880,850 

41,328,611 » 
434,209,461 

105,305,869 
38,086,364 

'43.392,233 
11,150,087 
21,465,452 
12,320,483 
15.785.339 
'8.741.973 

221,855,567 

40,879.774* 
362,735,341 

130,000,000 
59, 240,000 » 

189,240,000 
14.750,000 
35,000,000 
40,000,000 
22,000,000 
13,500,000 

314,490.000 
16,000,000 
12.750,000 
9,900,000 
8,500,000 
8,000,000 
9,7o7,ooo« 

379,347.000 

out  I, soo  pounds. 


'  Includes  1,140,000  from  West  Virginia.  *  Includes  last  five  Suites  above  named,  with  those  not  named 

at  all  in  the  table.  *  With  the  five  Slates  ab()ye  named,  makes  64,647,000. 


amutmtm 


I 


If 


wi 

•1 

,  WKti 

M 

■  Wm 

1 

94 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


This  irregularity  of  distribution  will  more  clearly  appear  on  a  more  minute 
examination  of  returns.  Thus  one  county  in  New  Hami)shire  (Cheshire) 
Other  fea-  yielded  nincty-seven  per  cint  of  the  State's  crop  in  1370.  Three 
tures  in  pro-  counties  in  Massachusetl  ,  adjoining  the  Coimecticut  River, 
uction.  yielded  all  but  23,610  of  the   7,8:2,885  pounds  raised  in  that 

State.  Connecticut  grows  some  in  each  of  her  eight  counties ;  and  yel 
Hartford  County  produced  5,830,209  of  the  8,328,798  pounds  raised  in  the 
State  that  year.  In  New-York  State,  three  counties  (Onondaga,  Chemung,  and 
Steuben)  yielded  1,884,048  out  of  2,324.730  pounds.  Pennsylvania  produces 
seven  times  what  New  York  does ;  and  yet  the  great  proportion  of  her  yield 
is  confined  io  Bucks,  Lancaster,  and  York  Counties ;  while  nine-tenths  of 
what  is  grown  in  Bucks  County  is  produced  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the 
old  William  Penn  mansion,  in  Falls  Township.  In  1869  three-fourths  of 
Ohio's  yield  was  inside  of  one  county  (Montgomery)  ;  although  the  next  year 
the  crop  was  so  disseminated,  that,  according  to  the  returns,  ten  counties 
produced  only  a  trifle  over  half.  In  the  great  tobacco  belt,  of  course,  the 
distribution  is  considerably  more  even  in  proportion  to  the  whole  yield ;  yet 
the  difference  between  the  yield  of  the  several  towns  in  a  county  is  often- 
times very  marked. 

Among  the  more  marked  minor  changes  in  the  production  of  tobacco 
is  the  development  of  the  yield  in  Indiana,  Illinois,  Pennsylvania,  Con- 
Production  nccticut,  and  Massachusetts,  within  the  past  twenty-five  years, 
by  States.  Ohio  had  already  come  to  grow  it  largely  prior  to  1850.  'I"hc 
two  States  next  west,  doubtless,  were  incited  to  the  experiment  more  by  her 
example  than  by  any  thing  else.  In  New  Kngland  the  culture  is  confined 
mostly  to  the  Connecticut  and  Housatonic  Valleys ;  though  tobacco-raising 
vt'as  scarcely  known  there  even  in  1850.  Massachusetts  yielded  but  138,426 
pounds  that  year  j  while  in  i860  she  produced  3,233,198,  and  now  raises  more 
than  8,000,000  pounds  annually.  Pennsylvania  raised  but  912,651  pounds  in 
1850;  but  in  1875  her  crop  amounted  to  16,000,000  pounds.  New  York  re- 
turned 83,189  pounds  as  her  yield  in  1850.  In  1869  the  figures  were 
8,500,000  :  since  then  they  have  greatly  declined.  This  decline,  as  also  that 
to  be  noticed  in  some  of  the  other  States,  is  probably  less  than  is  returned. 
Coming  to  the  more  productive  regions,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Maryland, 
North  Carolina,  Ohio,  and  Tennessee  have  bravely  held  their  own  during  the 
past  quarter  of  r  century,  on  the  whole,  though  not  doing  as  well  now  as  they 
did  formerly.  Virginia,  long  the  chief  producer,  has  been  compelled  to  take 
a  second  place  in  the  line  ;  and  Kentucky  has  come  to  the  head  of  the  pro- 
cession. This  westward  movement  of  the  centre  of  production  is  also 
noticeable  in  the  growth  of  Missouri's  ])roduction. 

The  vari'.'ties  of  tobacco  raised  in  the  Unitetl  States  differ  somewhat 
according  to  the  section.  Connecticut  yields  a  light-coloreil,  fine-fibred  leaf, 
which  niP!  -s  particularly  good  wrappers,  and  which  is  exported  largely  to 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


95 


Havana  for  the  famous  Havana  cigars.    This  variety  is  used  also  for  the  fillers 
of  a  cheaper  grade  of  cigars.     Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  New  York, 
and  Ohio  mostly  raise  the  Connecticut  seed-leaf;  although  West-  varieties  of 
field,  Mass.,  has  a  cross   between  the  Connecticut  and  Cuban ;  tobacco 
and  Ohio  has  also  the  so-called  "  Baltimore  Cuba,"  and  some  of  ^'own. 
the  stronger,  heavier  Virginia  and  Kentucky  varieties,  which  are  cut  or  pressed 
for  chewing,  and  are  exported.     Gadsden  County,  Florida,  has  alone  succeed- 
ed in  raising  the  Cuban  tobacco  in  all  its  excellence.     It  has  a  narrow  leaf, 
and  possesses  the  peculiar  aroma  and  delicious  fragrance  that  characterize 
ilie  genuine  Havana  cigar.     The  northern  counties  of  North  Carolina  raise 
particularly  fine  wrappers,  being  both  light-colored  and  of  fine  texture.      In 
otiier  parts  of  the  State,  coarser,  ranker  kinds  are  cultivated.     In 
Maryland  two  principal  varieties  are  noticeable,  —  the  broad  and 
narrow  leaf.     The  former  commands  the  higher  price ;    but  the 
latter  yields  the  greater  quantity.     Only  a  little  is  used  for  wrap- 
]H,'rs :    most  of  it  is  used   for  the  fillers  of  strong  cigars,  snuff, 
and  as  plug  and  twist  for  chewing.     It  is  exported  largely,  es- 
pecially to  France.     When  cured,  it  varies  in  co/or  from  a  bright 
yellow  to  nutmeg  or  mahogany.     The  same  is  the  case  with  Vir- 
ginia's product  and  Kentucky's,  which  are  of  coarse  texture  and 
great  pungency.    These  three  States  are  the  principal  exporters  of  the  leaf. 

W'e  have  already  remarked,  that,  previous  to  the  Revolution,  tobacco  was 
for  a  long  time  our  most  valuable  export ;  and  our  export  constituted,  doubt- 
less, nearly  or  quite  three-fourths  of  our  production.  Our  export 
of  1790,  which  was  118,460  hogsheads,  was  not  reached  again 
nominally  until  1840,  although  in  the  interim  the  quantity  contained  in  a 
hogshead  materially  increased.  A  hogshead  of  tobacco  now  averages  between 
1,200  and  1,450  pounds.  Herewith  we  give  a  statement  of  our  exports  since 
1840:  — 

HOGSHEADS. 

1840 119,484 

I84I 147,828 

1842 158,710 

'843 94.454 

1844 163,042 

1845 I47.I68 

•846 147.998 

1847 378,440 

1848 130,665 

1849 101,531 

'850 145.729 

'851 95,945 

'852 "37.097 

•853 159.853 

1854 126,107 

'855 150,213 


Exports. 


96 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


J 

i 

J 

^l| 

HOGSHEADS. 

1856 116,962 

1857 156,848 

1858 127,670 

1859 198,846 

i860 167,274 

I86I 160,816 

1862 107,233 

1863 111,896 

1864 109,905 

1865 149.032 

POUNDS. 

1866 190,826,248 

1867 184,803,065 

1868 206,020,504 

1869 181,527,630 

1870 185,748,881 

I87I 215,667,604 

•872 234,936,892 

•873 213,995,176 

1874 318,097,804 

1875 223,901,913 

1876 218,310,265 

1877 282,386,426 

Our  present  export  amounts  to  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  crop-returns, 
but  probably  amounts  to  scarcely,  if  any,  more  than  half  our  real  production, 
wher  the  ^^^  value  of  our  tobacco  export  is  upwards  of  twenty  million 
export  goes,  dollars.  Most  of  the  product  goes  abroad  in  the  form  of  leaf- 
■nd  in  what  tobacco :  only  a  small  proportion  of  it  is  manufactured.  Some 
of  the  raw  material  comes  back  to  us  worked  up,  though  but 
little.  Most  of  our  little  import  is  of  foreign  varieties,  desired  for  their  pecul- 
iar flavors.  The  great  bulk  of  our  export  goes  to  England,  France,  Holland, 
and  Germany.  In  the  large  cities,  there  are  extensive  cigar-manufactories. 
In  England,  the  tobacco  from  America  is  chiefly  for  chewing.  Scotland's  im- 
port is  largely  converted  into  snuff". 

It  is  worth  noticing,  in  connection  with  our  exports  of  tobacco,  that  Euro- 
pean countries  impose  a  very  heavy  tax  upon  the  American  article  ;  England's 
Foreign  duty  ^''^^  amounting  to  seventy-five  cents  a  pound,  and  the  average 
upon  to-  duty  on  the  bulk  of  American  tobacco  imported  into  all  Europe 
*"°'  being  about  fifty  cents  a  pound.     In  some  of  those  countries  the 

cultivation  of  the  plant  is  prohibited,  in  order  that  the  government  may  get 
the  full  benefit  of  this  source  of  revenue.  In  1859  the  United  States  made 
an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  secure  the  repeal  of  these  taxes.  Were  they  once 
removed,  undoubtedly  our  exports,  and  consequently  our  production,  would 
be  greatly  increased.  .       ; 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


0 


BADS. 

962 

848 

670 

846 

.274 
,816 

.233 
,896 
1,905 
1.032 

DS. 

3,248 
3,065 
3,504 

7.630 
8,881 
7,604 
,6,892 

>S.«76 
)7.8o4 

)i.9'3 
10,265 
56,426 


crop-returns, 
I  production, 
venty  million 
form  of  leaf- 
tured.     Some 
1,  though  but 
ir  their  pecul- 
.nce,  Holland, 
manufactories. 
Scotland's  im- 

CO,  that  Euro- 
;le;  England's 
id  the  average 
Uo  all  Europe 
:  countries  the 
iment  may  get 
:d  States  made 
Vere  they  once 
duction,  would 


It  is  estimated  that  the  world's  production  of  tobacco  to-day  is  4,500,- 
000,000  pounds.  Could  we  get  at  the  truth,  we  should  doubtless  find  that  the 
United  States  produce  more  than  one-ninth  of  this.  Most  coun-  worid'*  pro- 
tries  that  produce  it  either  use  up  their  own  supply,  like  Mexico,  «>"<:«o««- 
or  call  for  even  more,  as  do  France  and  Germany.  This  country  is,  therefore, 
the  main  resource  of  Northern  Europe. 

Already  our  tobacco-crop  is  worth  forty  million  dollars  or  more  to  us. 
Were  we  able  to  secure  its  free  admission  into  foreign  countries,  and  were  we 
to  resort  to  improved  culture,  restoring  the  soil  where  impov-   value  of 
erished,  this  industry  might  attain  a  development  almost  beyond  Americaa 
calculation.  *'"' 

The  several  ways  of  using  tobacco  are  too  well  known  to  require  descrip- 
tion. It  may  be  worth  while,  however,  to  note  how  the  "  hard  times  "  have 
affected  thosfc  who  indulge  in  this  luxury.  In  the  cigar-trade  Cigariand 
there  has  been  a  large  decrease  in  sales,  and  cigarettes  have  grown  c't"*"**' 
in  popular  favor.  The  sale  of  cigarettes,  until  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  was  an 
unimportant  item  in  trade,  and  they  were  kept  more  as  a  matter  of  conven- 
ience for  fashionable  people  than  as  a  profitable  investment.  Heretofore 
there  were  only  a  few  brands,  and  the  majority  were  of  foreign  manufacture  : 
now  a  hundred  and  twenty-one  diflerent  brands  find  a  ready  sale  in  the 
market,  two-thirds  of  which  have  been  manufactured  within  the  past  eighteen 
months.  During  the  year  1877  the  trade  of  New- York  retail  dealers  in  this 
line  increased  two  hundred  per  cent.  That  the  habit  of  smoking  tobacco  in 
tliis  form  is  resorted  to  as  a  matter  of  economy  is  plainly  shown  by  the  fact 
that  old  customers  who  were  wont  to  purchase  cigars  of  a  superior  quality 
are  now  content  with  those  of  an  inferior  grade.  Cigar-manufacturers,  on 
the  contrary,  deny  that  cigarettes  are  taking  the  place  of  cigars,  and,  while 
admitting  the  great  increase  in  the  sale  of  cigarettes,  regard  it  as  a  fashion 
among  smokers,  and  not  as  a  matter  of  economy.  They  further  declare,  that 
the  greatest  economy  is  shown  by  the  trade  in  the  purchase  of  inferior  cigars. 
The  high-priced  cigars  once  largely  sold  are  now  manufactured  in  smaller 
(juantities,  owing  to  the  hard  times.  This  does  not  include  the  very  finest 
(juality  of  Havana  cigars,  which  were  heretofore  obtained  almost  exclusively 
from  abroad.  Their  manufacture  is  now  carried  on  in  this  country,  and,  to  a 
great  extent,  has  usurped  the  trade  formerly  confined  to  Havana  and  Key 
\Vcst,  because  here  they  can  be  made  and  sold  much  cheaper.  The  manu- 
facturers at  those  places  are  said  to  have  become  greatly  alarmed  at  the 
increasing  trade  in  fine  cigars  in  this  country.  Domestic  manufacturers 
affirm,  in  relation  to  the  prevailing  custom  of  cigarette-smoking,  that  it  is 
injurious,  because  certain  poisonous  ingredients  are  used  in  preparing  the 
paper  of  which  the  outer  covering  is  made.  Statistics  at  Washington  show  a 
very  large  decrease  in  the  manufacture  and  importation  of  cigars  last  year 
in  comparison  with  that  of  the  previous  year.    According  to  the  Bureau  of 


98 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Statistics,  the  total  number  of  cigars  and  clieroots  upon  which  the  internal- 
revenue  tax  was  paid  during  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1876,  was 
1,828,807,396.  This  is  a  decrease  of  nearly  98,000,000  cigars  from  the  year 
previous.  The  amount  of  cigars  manufactured  and  imported  in  this  countr)' 
during  the  year  1875  reached  nearly  2,000,000,000.  The  value  of  the  im- 
ported cigars  consumed  in  the  United  States  during  1876  amounted  to 
12,289,712.89,  and  of  snuff  to  J!i8,470. 


a-- 


4: 


!'i 


:     t 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


n 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


GRASS   AND    HAY. 


THE  hay-industry  appears  to  have  been  forced  upon  the  early  colonists  in 
this  country  immediately  upon  their  occupation.     This  was  especially  the 
case  in  the  Northern  and  Eastern  States,  where  the  winters  were   _  ,,,    ,, 

'  Cultivation 

long  and  severe,  and  where  tlierc  was  great  danger  of  the  cattle  of  Braiie* 
and  horses  dying  of  starvation.      In  those  days  the  implements  ^^  "''^ 
for  cutting  and  gathering  it  were  the   simple  scythe,  rake,  and 
pilchfork.     The  grasses  utilized  were  native,  and  grew  wild,  either  on  upland 
meadows   or   sea-marshes.      In    England    the   clover  and   other  "  artificial " 


IIAV-LOADEK. 


grasses  were  cultivated  before  the  native  and  real  grasses ;  but  the  reverse 
was  the  case  in  this  country.  It  was  not  until  about  a  century  ago,  either, 
that  any  attempt  worth  noting  was  made  to  sow  grass-seed,  and  reduce  its 
culture  to  a  science. 


lOO 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


i 


Timothy. 


Probably  the  most  nutritious  hay  in  this  country  is  made  from  the  so- 
called  "Timothy-grass,"  which  is  named  after  Timothy  Hanson,  who  carried 
the  seed  of  it  from  New  York  to  Virginia  and  Carolina  about  the 
middle  of  the  last  century.  It  is  also  known  as  Herd's-grass, 
especially  in  New  England.  Jared  Eliot  says  that  a  man  named  Herd  found 
it  growing  in  a  swamp  near  Piscataqua,  N.H.,  early  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
In  England  it  was  already  known  and  cultivated,  and  it  is  said  to  have  been 
taken  to  Virginia  by  Peter  Wynche  in  1760.  The  Hungarian  millet,  which 
has  been  moderately  cultivated  within  a  few  years  past,  was  introduced  by 
the  Dejiartment  of  Agriculture.  Ancjther  importation  is  the  orchard- grass,  or 
rough  cock's-foot,  common  the  world  over,  and  introduced  into  Virginia  from 
England  in  1 764,  and  which  afterwards  obtained  a  wide  popularity  farther  north. 
It  endures  drought  admirably,  yields  a  luxuriant  aftermath,  and  affords  excel- 
lent pasturage.  Clover,  which  is  a  forage  i)lant  of  the  leguminous  family,  and 
not  a  genuine  grass,  was  likewise  imported  into  this  country.  ) 

The  varieties  of  native  grass  in  this  country  are  almost  innumerable, 
though  but  few  have  any  agricultural  value.  Among  the  earliest  known  and 
Varieties  of  "i^st  esteemed  is  the  Kentucky  blue-grass,  widely  prevalent  in 
early  the  West  and  in  New  P^ngland.     It  thrives  best  on  limestone  soils, 

erasiet.  ^^^  j^  ^.^,^  fattening.     Cattle  and  horses  fed  thereon  are  usually 

the  choicest-looking  stock.  It  is  an  early  and  vigorous  plant,  and  makes 
a  i)ermanent  turf.  It  is  prized  both  for  hay  and  pasturage.  The  red-top, 
sometimes  called  Herd's-grass,  in  Pennsylvania  and  farther  south  is  quite  a 
favorite,  but  is  generally  mixed  with  Timothy  and  clover.  A  grass  called 
"  English  bent,"  indigenous  to  the  Connecticut  Valley,  and  swamp  wire  or 
fowl  meadow,  are  two  local  New-England  varieties.  Besides  these,  the  salt- 
marsh,  goose  or  creeping  sea-meadow,  is  frequently  grown  at  the  seaside,  and, 
mixed  with  other  hay,  is  regarded  as  excellent  fodder.  Most  of  the  wild 
prairie-grasses,  while  affording  good  pasturage,  are  not  eligible  for  hay.  In 
the  Far  ^\■est,  mostly  in  the  Territories,  the  plains  are  coverec!  with  a  short, 
curly,  native  vegetation,  called  "gramma,"  or  "buffalo-grass."  It  is  the 
natural  and  princii)al  food  of  the  bison,  and  cattle  are  fond  of  it.  It  is  not 
gathered,  however,  as  hay. 

The  increasing  demand  for  fodder  for  live-stock,  and  the  improvement  in 
implements  for  cutting  and  curing  hay,  —  the  mower,  horse-rake,  tedder,  and 
horse-fork, — have,  within  the  present  century,  given  a  great  stim- 
ulus to  the  hay-business.  In  the  Southern  States  little  attention 
is  given  to  it,  because  the  stock  can  be  pastured  so  large  a  part 
of  the  season ;  but,  in  the  North,  the  severity  of  the  season  com- 
pels the  farmer  to  devote  more  attention  thereto.  There  is  a  large 
demand  for  hay,  too,  in  the  cities,  where  horses  are  stall-fed  the  year  round, 
and  where  large  numbers  of  these  animals  are  employed  for  private  and  public 
conveyance  and  cartage.    The  villages  and  smaller  cities  in  agricultural  dis- 


Causes  of 
increase  of 
cultivation 
and  con- 
Bumption. 


by  th( 


Corn 

Wheat 

Hay 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


lOl 


le  SO- 
:anicd 
ut  the 
i-grass, 
found 
entury. 
0  been 
,  which 
ced  by 
p-ass,  or 
ia  from 
:r  north, 
s  excel- 
lily,  and 

merable, 
awn  and 
ralent  in 
one  soils, 
e  usually 
d  makes 
red-top, 
(luite  a 
called 
wire  or 
the  salt- 
side,  and, 
the  wild 
hay.     In 
a  short. 
It  is  the 
It  is  not 

vement  in 
idder,  and 
great  stim- 

attention 
•ge  a  part 
ason  com- 

is  a  large 
^ear  round, 
and  public 
ultural  dis- 


iss 


CLOVBR-HULUtR. 


tricts  are  generally  supplied  by  cartage  from  bams  and  stacks  in  the  adja- 
cent country.  For  the  larjje  cities  hay  is  pressed  into  bales,  and  it  forms  a 
prominent  article  of 
domestic  commerce. 
It  is  consumed,  how- 
ever, almost  exclu- 
sively at  home. 

Our  census-returns 
indiuled  no  mention 
of  our  hay-crop  prior 
to  1840,  in  which  year 
the  total  product  was  ?1 
reported    at   10,248,-  ■jf' 
108  tons;  in  1850  it  ^. 
was    13,838,642  ;    in 
i860  it  was  19,083,- 
896 ;  in  1870  it  was 

27,316,048,  and  in  1875  the  scarcely  larger  sura  of  27,873,600  tons.     Of  this 
amount  New  York  produced  nearly  one-fifth  (namely,  4,900,000  tons),  and 
Pennsylvania   2,400,000,   or  about   half  that   quantity.      Illinois   statittieiof 
came  second  in  rank,  with  3,050,000  tons.     Ohio  and  Iowa  each   P'oducHon- 
raised  nearly  2,000,000  tons ;  while  Maine,  Vermont,  Michigan,  Indiana,  and 

Wisconsin  each  raised  over 
1,000,000  tons.  The  rest  was 
distributed  throughout  the  North 
and  West. 

With  the  exception  of  wheat 
and  corn,  there  are  no  crops  in 
this  country  which  equal  hay  in 
value;  although  in  1875  wheat 
threatened  to  step  from  the  third 
to  the  second  rank  as  regards 
value,  where  it  was  already  in 
point  of  acreage,  as  will  be  seen 


HORSE-RAKE. 


by  the  following  comparison  :  — 


•.■;.■.!   '  \' ...      \\ 

•                  .874. 

1875. 

•    f  '..'...tt    )- 

ACREAGE. 

VALUE. 

ACRBAGB. 

VALUE. 

Corn    .      ,.        i-      . 

Wheat. 

Hay     ...        . 

4434  >. 37 1 
26,381,512 

23.507.964 

#555.445.930 
294,580,990 
342,203,445 

49.033.364 
27,627,021 
25,282,797 

JS475,49i."o 
300,259,300 
300,901,253 

I03 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


i 

n 


CHAPTER    IX. 


MINOR   CROPS. 


BARLEY  grows  wild  in  Sicily,  Asia,  and  the  United  States,  but  is  among 
the  very  earliest  cultivated  cereals  of  the  world.     In  this  country  there 
g  are  two  varieties,  two-rowed  and  foiir-rowetl ;  but  in  Kurope  a  kind 

among  the      is  grown  which  has  six  rows  of  kernels  in  a  head,  and  is  without 
oldest  ^i^j,  jj^yf,  Qp  beard,  which  characterizes  other  barley.     This  is  t'en- 

cerealt. 

erally  planted  in  the  fall,  ours  in  the  sjjring.  In  remote  times  it 
was  used  largely  for  a  coarse  bread,  and  is  now  used  to  some  extent  abroad  for 
feeding  horses.  Its  principal  use  at  the  present  time  is  for  malt ;  and,  as  our 
crops  are  not  sufficient  for  our  needs,  we  are  obliged  to  import  in  addition  to 
our  own  yield. 

Barley  was  sown  by  Gosnold  on  Elizabeth  Islands,  Mass.,  in  1602,  and  by 
the  Jamestown  settlers  in  Virginia  in  161 1;  but  in  the  latter  region  it  soon 
Cultivation  gave  jjlace  to  tobacco-culture.  Good  crops  of  it  were  raised  in 
bycoioniitt.  Massachusetts  in  1630.  Small  samples  were  sent  out  from  the 
Dutch  colony  of  New  Netherlands  in  1626.  In  1796  it  was  Rhode  Island's 
principal  crop.  It  never  gained  a  very  extensive  foothold  in  this  country, 
and  its  culture  has  been  chiefly  in  those  States  which  give  the  most  attention 
to  grains.  In  1840  we  raised  4,161,504  bushels  :  in  1850  the  amount  returned 
was  5,167,015.  The  census  of  i860  stated  the  total  yield  at  15,825,898,  and 
that  of  1870  at  29,761,305  bushels.  From  the  table  of  minor  crops  appended 
to  this  chapter,  it  will  be  seen  that  California  is  the  leading  producer  of  this 
grain,  with  New  York  second,  and  the  grain  States  of  the  North-West  following 
closely. 

Of  all  the  grains,  the  oat  most  nearly  resembles  grass  in  appearance. 
There  is  but  one  principal  variety,  —  the  common  oat,  which  is  thought  to 
have  originated  in  Mesopotamia.  It  grows  in  cold  climates  and  sterile  soils, 
and  is  highly  prized  in  Northern  Europe  as  an  article  of  human 
food,  being  used  in  the  form  of  meal  for  porridge  and  small  cakes, 
and  as  grits,  or  groats,  for  gruel.  In  this  country,  however,  it  is  principally 
used  as  horse-feed.  The  straw  is  regarded  as  good  fodder  for  milch-cows. 
The  crop  is  generally  regarded  as  an  exhausting  one. 


Oata. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


10$ 


wild  oati. 


A  wild  oat  seems  to  he  indigenous  to  California,  whce  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  acres  are  covered  with  it.  The  Indians  gather  it,  and  use  it  as  any 
other  seed.  Karly  travellers  used  to  call  it  pin-grass.  The  culti- 
vated variety  was  introduced  into  this  country  liy  Oosnold  in  1602, 
.ind  it  attained  a  much  more  extensive  culture  than  either  barley  or  rye.  Of 
late  years  the  Department  of  Agriculture  has  done  much  to  disseminate  choice 
varieties  of  seed  for  experiment,  as  also  of  barley.  The  census-  statiitict  o( 
returns  of  1840  put  the  total  product  of  the  country  at  123,071,-  p«"o«>uc»»on. 
541  bushels:  in  1850  it  had  increased  to  146,584,179,  in  i860  to  172,643,- 
185,  and  in  1870  to  282,107,157  bushels.  Its  distribution  is  more  largely 
ill  the  central  and  Ohio-valley  sections  of  the  Northern  States.  As  will  be 
>een  from  the  table  appemled  to  this  chapter,  the  last  census  showed  Illinois 
to  be  the  leading  i)roducer,  with  Pennsylvania  second.  New  York  a  close  third, 
and  the  Western  grain  States  next  in  order.  Our  oat-crop  is  almost  entirely 
consumed  at  home,  and  the  exports  are  very  light. 


THKESIIBK,   iiUI'AKATOK,  AND  CLBANIR. 


Rya. 


Rye  ranks  next  to  wheat,  among  the  grains,  as  an  article  of  human  diet  in 
this  country.  In  ancient  Britain  they  were  planted  together.  It  grows  on 
sterile  soils  in  high  latitudes,  and  is  not  only  the  prevailing  grain 
of  Northern  Europe,  but  is  also  prevalent  in  the  colder  parts  of 
the  United  States.  In  bread-making,  rye-flour  is  usually  mixed  with  In- 
dian-meal ;  and  the  product  is  still  very  popular,  though  old-fashioned,  with 
the  rural  classes  of  New  England.  The  grain  is  largely  used,  also,  for  the 
distillation  of  whiskey  ;  and  the  straw  is  preferred  above  all  others  for  stuffing 
beds.  There  are  several  varieties  of  it ;  and,  like  wheat,  it  is  planted  both  in 
the  fall  and  spring. 

It  was  used  in  this  country  as  early  as  1648,  perhaps  1630;  and  in  1796 
no  less  thin  50,614  barrels  of  rye-meal,  representing  five  times  as  many  bush- 


104 


INDUSTRIAL    I/IS  TORY 


Buckwheat. 


els  of  grain,  were  exported  from  Philadelphia  alone.  In  1801  the  total  export 
from  the  whole  country  was  hut  392,276  bushels.  Its  «:ultivation  spread  pretty 
incrcai*  of  generally  over  the  Northern  States.  IJeing  well  adapted  to  sterile 
cultivation,  jjoils,  and  not  very  exhaustive,  it  has  retained  a  good  foothold  in 
the  Kast.  Wheat  so  largely  supplanted  it,  however,  that  the  increase  in  the 
crop  has  been  very  gradual,  no  real  headway  having  been  made  at  all  for  nearly 
forty  years. 

Thus  the  total  product  in  1840  was  18,645,567  bushels;  in  1850  it  had 
statiiticiof  fallen  to  14,188,813;  in  i860  it  had  risen  to  21,101,380;  but  in 
production.  1870  it  was  down  to  16,918,793,  at  which  time  Pennsylvania  was 
the  largest  jjroducer.  New  York  second,  and  Illinois  third.  It  .still  has  a  good 
show  in  New  Ilngland,  but  is  more  largely  cultivated  in  the  Western  grain 
States.  Our  total  jjroduct  is  not  consumed  at  home,  and  there  is  a  slight 
export  of  it  to  Kurope. 

Buckwheat,  like  rye,  is  generally  a  secondary  crop  in  this  country.  In 
some  j)laces  it  is  grown  simply  for  the  honey  it  gives  the  bees. 
The  grain  is  used  chiefly  in  flour,  for  pancakes. 

It  was  broui'ht  to  this  country  by  the  Dutch  West-India  Company,  and 
sown  on  Manhattan  Island  for  horse-feed.  The  Swedes  also  cultivateil  it  in 
Early  hii-  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania.  It  has  been  grown  chiefly  for 
♦•"y-  home-consumption,  and  the  extension  of  the  volume  of  the  cro|> 

has  been  very  slow.  The  (piantity  raised  in  1840  was  returned  at  7,291,743 
bushels;  in  1850  it  was  8,956,912;  in  i860  it  was  17,571,818;  but  in  1870 
only  9,821,721,  of  which  New  York  and  I'ennsylvania  raised  fully  two-thirds, 
the  former  rather  more  than  the  latter.  The  rest  was  pretty  evenly  distributed 
among  the  Northern  States. 

Pease  and  beans  have  been  grown  in  moderate  quantity  in  this  countr}- 
both  for  the  table  and  for  cattle-fodder.  Gosnold  planted  them  in  1602,  and 
Peaie  and  (he  Dutch  raised  them  in  1 644  ;  but  it  is  known  that  the  natives 
beam.  cultivated  them  before  the  white  settlers  did.     On  the  South-Atlan- 

tic coast  they  soon  became  popular,  and  from  those  colonies  were  exported  in 
moderate  quantities  before  the  Revolution.  Thus  North  Carolina  exported 
10,000  bushels  in  1753;  South  Carolina,  9,162  in  1754;  and  Savannah,  400 
in  1755.  The  total  exports  of  the  two  for  twenty  years  prior  to  181 7  averaged 
90,000  bushels.  In  1850  the  total  product  of  the  country  was  9,219,901 
bushels;  in  i860  it  was  15,061,995  ;  but  by  1870,  like  several  of  the  minor 
grain-crops,  it  fell  off  again,  the  census-returns  being  5,746,027. 

The  two  kinds  of  potatoes,  Irish  and  sweet,  are  said  to  have  originated  in 
this  country,  although  the  fact  is  not  established ;  and  the  two  varieties  are 
somewhat  confused  in,  early  accounts.  It  is  said  that  Raleigh  took 
back  the  potato  to  England  in  1586;  and  the  Spaniards  are  said 
to  have  found  the  people  of  Quito  eating  a  tuber,  which  answers  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  sweet-potato,  thirty  or  forty  years  before  ;  and  by  these  explorers 


Potatoes. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


««l 


fOTAT(>t)l«;iN0   rLOUCH. 


the  plant  was  introduced  to  Kiirope,  l)ecoming  very  pf)pular  in  Spain,  France, 
ami  Italy,  and  even  going  to  Asia.  The  ciiltiirt-  of  the  swcct-|)otato  has  been 
tinifincd  principally  to  the  Southern  States  of  lliis  country,  though  it  has  been 
f^rown  extensively  in  New  Jersey,  and  even  in  l^ght  loamy  soils  near  Moston. 
riif  Irish  j)otato,  however,  which  is  by  far  the  most  abundant,  is  mostly  con- 
fined to  the  North- 
ern States,  from  New 
l!ngland  westward. 
Neither  kind  attained 
much  prominence 
until  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  cen- 
lury,  when  we  began 
to  make  some  slight 
exports,  and  have 
(untinued  to  do  so 
to  the  present  ilay. 
Among  our  exports 
of  vegetable  food-stufls,  the  potato  ranks  next  to  wheat  and  corn.  Owin^ 
to  the  effects  of  wet  weather,  dry-rot,  the  i>otato-fly,  and  of  late  years  the 
Colorado  beeUe,  this  crop  has  fluctuated  largely.  The  census  of  1840  re- 
turned 108,398,060  bushels  of  both  kinds  of  potatoes  as  the 
American  product;  in  1850  it  h.id  fallen  off  to  104,056,044, 
owing  to  disease.  In  i860  we  raised  111,148,867  bushels  of  Irish  potatoes, 
and  43,095,036  of  sweet.  In  1870  we  produced  143.337.473  of  the  for- 
mer, and  31,709,824  of  the  latter.  In  1874  the  crop  of  Irish  potatoes  was 
166,000,000  bushels  ;  but  the  consecpient  low  prices,  and  the  depredations  of 
the  potato-bug,  cut  the  crop  of  1875  ilown  to  125,000,000.  The  distribution 
of  the  crop  of  1870  is  shown  in  the  table  a|)pen(led  to  this  chapter. 

Although  hops  grow  wild  in  this  country  in  some  of  the  I-'astern  States  and 
in  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  Valleys,  the  first  ones  cultivated  in  America 
were  from  imported  roots.  Tliey  were  grown  for  home-use  in 
Massachusetts  in  1638  or  1639,  in  New  York  in  1646,  and  in 
Virginia  in  1648;  their  culture  being  encouraged  by  governmental  bounties 
in  the  last-named  colony  in  1657.  This  branch  of  industry,  however,  grew 
slowly,  as  the  careless  modes  of  picking  and  packing  practised  in  America 
N])oiled  our  market.  But,  at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  the  present  system 
of  baling  was  resorted  to ;  and  subsequendy  something  like  a  careful  inspec- 
tion and  sorting  was  adopted.  In  1806  Massachusetts  created  an  office  called 
Inspector-General  of  Hops.  The  development  of  hop-growing  has  been  con- 
fined chiefly  to  the  last  two  or  three  decades.  In  1840  we  produced  1,238,- 
503  pounds;  in  1850,  3,497,029;  in  i860,  10,991,996,  of  which  New- York 
State  raised  more  than  nine-tenths ;  and  in  1 8  70  the  product  had  increased  to 


Statlitict. 


Hop*. 


io6 


1^•D  us  TRIAL    HIS  TOJi  V 


25,456,669  pounds.  A  heavy  export-demand  between  1850  and  i860  rather 
stimulated  the  production  ;  though  the  inauguration  of  the  system  of  stretching 
wires  from  j)ole  to  pole,  instead  of  using  isolated  poles,  by  Thomas  D.  Ayls- 
worth  of  Herkimer  County,  New  York,  and  other  causes,  seemed  to  confine  the 
industry  chiefly  to  that  State.     During  the  latter  part  of  the  next  decade  the 

crop  in  the  East  fared 
poorly  three  or  four 
years  in  succession ; 
and  this  gave  the 
Wisconsin  farmers  a 
chance,  which  they 
handsomely  im- 
proved.  In  1870 
New  York  produceil 
only  two-thirds  of  the 
total  yield,  and  Wis- 
consin nearly  one- 
fifth  :  the  rest  was 
distributed  among  the 
Northern  States.  At- 
tempts have  been 
made  recently  to  cul- 
tivate hops  in  the 
'  Southern  States,  but 

with  little  success.  In  California,  however,  the  hop-crop  is  beginning  to 
assume  prominence,  both  for  quantity  and  quality ;  the  price  being  the  highest 
of  any  hops  raised  in  America. 

Our  exportation  has  been  very  uneven.  American  hops  are  rather  stronger 
and  ranker  than  those  of  England  and  Bavaria,  and  are  not  sought  for,  except 
Export  of  when  the  crops  in  Europe  are  short.  Thus  in  1855  we  exported 
hop*.  a  trifle  over  four  million  pounds,  whereas  during  no  previous  ye.nr 

had  we  exported  much  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  pounds.  In  1856 
the  export  was  but  a  trifle  over  a  million,  and  in  1857  a  trifle  under  a 
million.  During  the  next  twenty  years  the  crop  gradually  reached  and  passed 
the  figures  of  1855.  In  1875  we  exported  5,331,950,  and  in  1876  nearly 
9,000,000  pounds. 

Flax,  the  fibre  from  which  linen  is  made,  grows  wild  in  nearly  all  countries 
of  the  globe,  but  was  probably  cultivated  first  in  Egypt.  It  is  very  largely 
grown  in  the  north  of  Europe ;  Russia,  Belgium,  and  Ireland 
having  a  wide  reputation  for  the  quantity  and  quality  of  their 
product.  The  plant  has  other  uses  too.  Its  seed  yields  a  valuable  oil  for 
painting  and  burning,  —  namely,  the  linseed-oil ;  and  the  refuse  oil-cake,  as 
also  the  ground  meal,  ere  highly  prized  as  fodder  for  cattle.     The  seed  is  used 


roDDBR-CUTTEK. 


Flax. 


OF    TI/E    UNITED    STATES. 


107 


Hemp. 


medicinally,  and  in  several  other  exceedingly  useful  ways.  It  was  first  grown 
in  the  New  Netherlands,  or  New  York,  in  this  country,  in  1626,  in  Massa- 
chusetts in  1629,  and  in  Virginia  before  1648.  The  British  Parliament  offered 
bounties  for  its  culture  by  the  patentees  of  Georgia  in  1 733,  1 743,  and  1 749. 
I'ennsylvania  raised  a  sufficient  crop  to  export  70,000  bushels  of  flaxseed 
in  1752,  and  by  1771  had  increased  the  amount  to  110,41'.  Prior  to  and 
immediately  after  the  Revolution,  flax  was  prized  more  highly  relatively  than 
now,  because  cotton  had  not  yet  been  utilized ;  and  the  colonists  prepared, 
spun,  and  wove  the  fibre  in  almost  every  household. 

Hemp,  a  different  though  similar  plant,  producing  a  coarser  fibre,  used 
(hiefly  for  cordage,  had  a  parallel  hiiitory  to  that  of  flax  in  the  early  days  of 
tliis  country.  Seed  was  brought  to  Plymouth  Colony,  and  planted, 
as  early  as  1629.  Bounties  were  offered  for  its  culture  by  Virginia 
.md  Penns'  ania ;  but  in  the  former  tobacco  was  found  to  be  more  profita- 
ble, and  soon  supplanted  hemp  almost  altogether.  New  Jersey  gave  great 
attention  to  hemp  previous  to  the  Revolution.  Afterwards  both  flax  and 
licnip  were  prominent  in  the  crops  of  Kentucky,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Missouri, 
which,  between  twenty-five  and  fifty  years  ago,  were  the  leading  producers  in 
the  United  States,  although  other  Northern  and  the  Eastern  States  continued 
to  raise  them  both  in  small  (juantities. 

Inasmuch  as  our  i)ro(luct  of  hemp,  ilax,  and  jute,  —  a  coarse  India  fibre 
resembling  iiemp,  and  used  for  cheap  bagging,  —^  h^s  fallen  short  of  our  neeils, 
and  our  importation  has  always  been  large,  amounting  in  the 
aggregate  at  the  present  time  to  a  value  of  over  thirty  million 
dollars,  the  Department  of  Agriculture  has  given  great  attention  to  these  plants, 
and  greatly  encouraged  their  culture.  It  was  found  some  fifteen  years  ago 
that  the  India  jute  was  being  largely  imported  into  this  country  for  bagging ; 
and  inasmuch  as  the  West  needed  the  fibre  for  wool  and  grain  shipments,  and 
the  South  for  cotton,  those  sections  were  urgetl  to  cultivate  the  new  plant. 
This  the  South  has  come  to  do  with  marked  success,  though  not  to  any  very 
great  extent.  In  the  West  it  was  found  that  four-fifths  of  the  tow  fibre  left 
after  removing  the  flax  was  wasted ;  yet  it  was  far  stronger  for  bagging  than 
jute.  Accordingly,  the  number  of  mills  for  utilizing  it  increased,  and  the  waste 
was  lessened. 

Since  the  breaking-out  of  the  war,  the  fate  of  the  flax  and  hemp  crops  has 
l)ecn  widely  different :  the  former  has  increased,  while  the  latter  has  sadly 
declined.  In  1850  our  total  hemp-crop  amounted  to  34,871  FUxand 
tons;  by  1859'  the  yield  had  increased  again  to  74,493,  of  which  •»««"?• 
Kentucky  produced  39,409,  and  Missouri  19,268;  but  in  1870  it  had  fallen 
to  12,746  tons,  of  which  these  two  States  together  contributed  five-sixths. 
In  1850  the  total  yield  of  flax  was  7,709,676  pounds,  and  562,312  bushels  of 
seed;  in  1859'  the  returns  were  only  4,720,145  pounds  of  flax,  and  566,867 


Jute. 


I  Cenius  of  i860. 


■H 


1 08 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


,K:S2 


Ramie. 


bushels  of  seed;  but  in  1870  the  crop  was  27,133,034  pounds  of  flax,  and 
Distribution    1.730.444  bushcls  of  seed. 

of  minor  On  the  opposite  page  we  give  a  table  showing  the  distribution 

crops.  pj-  jj^g  niinor  crops  thus  far  treated  for  1870. 

It  is  not  out  of  place  to  say  something  here  concerning  the  production  of 
ramie,  —  a  grass  which  is  now  being  utilized  in  India.*  More  than  seventy 
years  ago,  attention  was  first  directed  to  the  properties  of  a  fibre 
which  to  many  persons  has  since  been  made  familiar  as  the 
material  out  of  which  the  fabric  known  as  Chinese  or  Indian  grass-cloth  is 
manufactured.  Experiments  were  soon  after  made,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
British  Admiralty,  to  test  the  strength  of  this  fibre  ;  the  result  of  which  showed, 
that,  in  whatever  way  the  test  is  applied,  the  grass  is  three  times  stronger 
than  the  best  Russian  hemp,  while  it  is  also  much  lighter.  For  all  the 
purposes  for  which  hemp  is  used  it  was  admitted  to  be  very  much  superior. 
In  consecjuence  of  difficulties  that  arose  in  the  process  of  preparation, 
the  matter  remained  a  long  time  in  abeyance.  It  was  not  until  the  last 
Russian  war  that  the  subject  received  fresh  notice.  International  strife  has 
often  been  the  stimulus  to  new  discoveries.  When  French  ports  were 
blockaded,  and  French  commerce  was  destroyed,  in  the  days  of  the  first 
Napoleon,  French  physicians  found  a  good  substitute  for  ipecacuanha  in  the 
root  of  the  violet.  Our  own  civil  war  stimulated  the  production  of  cotton  in 
Egypt,  India,  and  the  Pacific  islands.  The  Russian  war,  cutting  off  the 
supply  of  flax  from  Western  Europe,  led  to  the  increased  cultivation  of  jute 
in  India,  and  to  its  extended  use  and  application  ;  at  the  same  time,  it  turned 
attention  anew  to  the  Indian-grass  as  another  substitute ;  and,  although  it  is 
only  recently  that  any  practical  result  has  seemed  likely,  it  promises  now  to 
develop  into  an  important  source  of  industry. 

In  addition  to  the  great  strength  of  the  fibre,  it  has  a  remarkable  power  of 
resistance  to  the  influence  of  moisture.  Compared  with  other  fibres,  it  may 
almost  be  said  to  be  indestructible.  It  is  as  fine  as  flax,  and  presents  a  glossy 
lustre  more  nearly  resembling  silk.  Manufacturers  give  it  an  intermediate 
position  between  animal  and  vegetable  fibres ;  and  those  who  have  interested 
themselves  about  it  appear  to  consider  it  as  an  equal  if  not  superior  substitute 
for  flax,  and  very  much  superior  in  every  respect  to  hemp.  The  chief  reason 
why  it  has  not  been  sooner  brought  into  use  lies  in  the  difficulty  that  has 
hitherto  been  encountered  in  the  preparation.  Six  years  ago  the  Indian  Gov- 
ernment offered  a  premium  equal  to  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  for  the 
best  machine  for  separating  the  fibre  from  the  stems.  This  was,  however,  only 
partially  successful.  Only  one  machine  was  sent  in,  and  that  only  partly  met 
the  requirements.  At  that  time  it  was  thought  that  only  the  green  sterns  could 
be  operated  upon ;  but  it  has  since  been  shown  that  this  is  a  mistake.  The 
dried  stems  afford  a  fibre  equal  in  strength  and  durability,  and  only  inferior  in 

>  This  account  of  ramie  is  drawn  from  Tlie  New- York  Times,  Aug,  17,  1875. 


1    "  3(W  ff  3  " 

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OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


109 


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::.::::::.:;;:■::.?:::::::.::::::::  :::i:::::::: 

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3  3 


I  lO 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


gloss,  and  for  these  the  existing  machinery  for  flax  and  hemp  is  found  to  be 
well  adapted ;  so  that,  while  the  best  cloth  will  probably  be  made  in  India,  or 
wherever  the  plant  is  grown,  the  manufacture  can  be  made  to  succeed  wher- 
ever the  stems  are  imported.  It  is  the  knowledge  of  this  fact  that  has  given  a 
new  impulse  to  the  discovery.  The  Indian  CJovernment  is  encouraging  the 
cultivation  on  a  large  scale.  Within  the  last  few  months  a  great  deal  of  new 
machinery  for  the  manufacture  ha?  been  patented.  Practical  men  are  busily 
at  work,  and  in  a  short  time  there  is  little  doubt  but  that  manufactured  articles 
from  this  fibre  will  be  placed  upon  the  market.  It  is  looked  upon  already 
as  one  of  the  most  useful  staples,  and  as  likely  to  take  the  place,  either  as  a 
substitute  for  or  in  combination  with  cotton,  flax,  hemp,  jute,  wool,  or  silk,  and 
to  be  valuable,  also,  in  the  mar   facture  of  paper  and  for  other  minor  uses. 

The  discovery  cannot,  however,  be  regarded  as  of  much  value  to  our 
people  unless  the  plant  can  be  produced  here.  If  this  cannot  be  done,  it  will 
be  more  likely  to  benefit  the  British  manufacturer  and  Indian  grower,  at  some 
cost  to  our  own.  This  is,  therefore,  an  important  aspect  of  the  question.  It 
is  not  quite  settled  whether  the  Indian  and  the  Chinese  fibres  are  produced  by 
exactly  the  same  plants.  If  they  are  (which  is  most  probable),  the  Chinese 
product  has  a  little  the  advantage  of  the  other  in  the  market.  This  shows 
tliat  either  climate  or  cultivation  has,  even  there,  something  to  do  with  the 
quality  of  the  fibre.  The  plant  grows  very  freely,  however,  in  India;  and 
experiments  on  a  small  scale  indicate  that  it  can  be  made  equally  successfii! 
in  Australia.  It  also  flourishes  wherever  it  has  been  tried  on  the  coast  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and  sonie  very  fair  samples  of  the  fibre  have  been  grown  in 
the  south  of  Franco.  With  care,  it  has  been  grown  in  England ;  but  it  never 
can  be  produced  there  on  any  scale  for  commercial  jjurposes. 

It  is  reasonable  from  this  to  conclude  that  there  are  many  parts  of  the 
United  States  where  it  could  be  cultivated  on  a  large  scale  with  advantage. 
Its  jiroduction  in  the  South  might  become  a  new  source  of  wealth,  second 
only,  if  not  superior,  to  cotton.  It  would  be  necessary,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
start  upon  practical  information,  obtained  in  India,  in  regard  to  the  best 
methods  of  cultivation.  About  this  there  fn  be  no  difficulty  ;  and,  whetiici- 
or  not  it  be  ultimately  found  that  the  soil  and  climate  of  this  country  arc 
suitable,  the  subject  is  one  which  eminently  deserves  the  careful  consideration 
of  persons  who  arc  interested  in  the  maintenance  of  our  manufacturing  in- 
terests. 

Rice  ranks  nexi  to  wheat  as  the  grain-food  of  human  beings,  taking  the 
whole  world  into  consideration,  although  it  forms  the  staple  of  the  diet 
of  less  civilized  nations  than  the  wheat-consumers.  It  is  most 
commonly  raised  in  India  and  China,  although  Ceylon  and  Java 
produce  it  in  large  quantities  also.  It  is  cultivated,  too,  in  France,  Himgary, 
and  other  parts  of  Europe,  and  in  the  United  State.^  and  South  America.  It 
is  rather  a  tropical  plant,  although  it  grows  as  far  north  as  the  Ohio  River ; 


Rice. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


Ill 


the 
diet 
most 
Java 
gary. 
It 
ivcr ; 


and  a  wild  rice  covers  thousands  of  acres  in  the  northern  part  of  Minnesota, 
furnishing  a  very  palatable  food  to  the  Indians.  Though  resembling  wheat 
in  the  height,  form,  and  appearance  of  the  plant,  and  its  harvesting  and 
threshing,  yet  it  usually  grows  in  marshy  lands.  An  upland  rice  is  found  in 
Maryland  and  Virginia,  like  that  of  Cochin  ;  but  it  yields  only  fifteen  or  twenty 
bushels  to  the  acre.  Rice  has  also  been  grown  on  the  sides  of  the  Himalayas, 
between  three  thousand  and  four  thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 
I'he  principal  growth,  however,  is  in  the  swamps,  and,  in  this  country,  near  the 
rivers  and  sea,  where,  by  a  carefully-adjusted  system  of  gateways,  the  land  can 
be  flooded  or  drained  as  occasion  requires,  and  where  from  forty  to  sixty 
bushels  an  acre  are  produced. 

Rice  was  introduced  into  Virginia  by  Sir  William  Berkeley  in  1647,  who, 
from  half  a  bushel  of  imported  seed,  raised  sixteen  bushels  of  grain.     South 
Carolina,  the  great  rice   State   of  this  country,  got  its  seed  by  Early  cuiti- 
accident  from   a  sailing-vessel   from   Madagascar   in    1694.      In  vatiooof 
1718   the   Company  of  the  West  introduced   it   into   Louisiana.   """ 
Threshing-machines  to  separate  the  grain  from  tlie  straw  were  brought  hither 
from  Scotland  in  181 1:  they  were  operated  by  wind-power,  and  cleaned  five 
himdred  bushels  a  day.     Later,  Cal- 
vin Emmons  of  New  York  invented 
a    machine    with    toothed    beaters, 
which  cleaned  from  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  to  eight  hundred  bushels 
a  day.    This  process  leaves  the  grain 
with  a  thin  hull  on  ;    and   in    this 
condition  it  is  calletl  "  paddy,"  or 
"  rough  rice."     Our  export  is  chiefly 
in  that  form.     To  complete  the  work 
of  cleaning,  the  rice  goes  tbrough 
another  mill,   between   stones    and 
under    jjoiuiders    like    those    of    a 
(juartz-mill.       Formerly    rice     was 
cleaned     by    hand     in     pitch-pine 
mortars  holding  a  bushel,  by  means 
of  an  iron-shod  pesde.    Nearly  every 
large  plantation  has  one  of  the  new 
mills  for  cleaning. 

The  climax  of  our  rice-culture 
was  reached  in  the  year  7850,  when 

we  raised  215,313,497  pounds,  of  which  South  Carolina  is  credited  with   159,- 
930,613  pounds,  Ceorgia  with  38,950,691,  North   Carolina  with  statittieaot 
5,465,868,    Louisiana   with    4,425,349,   and    the   other   Southern   production. 
States  together  with  less  than  7,000,000.     The  returns  of  i860,  showing  the 


KK  IMin.I.KH. 


112 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


crop  of  the  previous  year,  gave  a  total  of  onljt  187,167,032  pounds,  of  which 
South  Carolina  produced  119,100,528,  Georgia  52,507,652,  North  Carolina 
7,593,976,  Louisiana  6,331,257,  and  the  other  States  together  less  than  2,000,- 
000.  In  South  Carolina  all  but  2,765,729  pounds  were  raised  in  Georgetown, 
Colleton,  Charleston,  and  Beaufort  Counties,  the  first-named  yielding  nearly 
half  of  the  whole.  Nine-tenths  of  Georgia's  yield  that  year  was  confined  to 
Chatham,  Camden,  Mcintosh,  and  Glynn  Counties,  the  first-named  producing 
full  half  of  the  whole.  In  1870  the  total  crop  of  the  country  was  scarcely  a 
third  of  what  it  was  twenty  years  before.  It  was  returned  at  73,635,001 
pounds,  of  which  quantity  South  Carolina  produced  32,304,825,  —  less  than 
half,  instead  of  three-quarters  of  the  whole,  as  in  1850,  —  Georgia  22,277,380, 
Louisiana  15,854,012,  North  Carolina  but  2,059,281,  and  the  other  States 
less  than  1,000,000  pounds. 

The  effect  of  the  war  was  to  nearly  annihilate  this  industry,  labor  being 
Effect  of  war  demoralized,  the  dams,  gates,  and  mills  getting  sadly  out  of  repair, 
upon  this  and  the  rice-fields  growing  up  with  weeds.  Since  the  war  the 
in  uitry.  recuperation  has  been  slow,  but  sure  ;  the  negroes  coming  to  take 
a  proprietary  interest  in  the  culture,  and  Louisiana  doing  much  to  extend  and 
develop  this  branch  of  agriculture. 

Prior  to  the  war  we  exported  from  a  third  to  a  half  of  our  crop,  the  aver- 
age for  1850-60  being  60,000,000  pounds  a  year,  valued  at  nearly  |2,ooo,ooo. 
Export!  and  During  and  since  the  war  we  imported  to  nearly  the  same  extent, 
imports.  u^til  about  1 8  70,  when  the  increased  home-production  cut  down 
the  imports  very  perceptibly. 

Before  concluding  this  chapter,  a  word  or  two  is  needed  in  respect  to 
the  cultivation  of  that  luscious  fruit,  the  orange.  In  Florida  Nature  pro- 
duces this  fruit  in  greatest  perfection,  and  within  a  few  years  the 
cultivation  of  oranges  there  has  rapidly  developed.  It  is  said 
that  almost  everybody  in  the  St.  John's  River  country  is  engaged  in  trying 
to  raise  the  golden  fruit.  Very  few  groves  are  in  bearing ;  indeed,  it  has 
been  asserted,  upon  good  authority,  that  between  Jacksonville  and  Enterprise, 
a  distance  of  two  hundred  miles,  there  are  only  about  two  hundred  acres  of 
producing  trees :  but  the  large  profits  realized  from  the  old  groves  has  in- 
duced the  settlers  to  stake  every  thing  upon  the  venture  of  rearing  orchards 
of  their  own.  Nine  men  out  of  ten  are  nursing  young  orchards,  and  waiting 
impatiently  for  them  to  yield  some  return  for  the  money  and  time  expended. 
It  takes  from  six  to  ten  years  to  bring  an  orange-tree  to  bearing.  The 
cost  of  making  a  grove  is  very  heavy.  In  the  first  place,  the  land,  if  on  the 
river,  is  held  at  fancy  prices.  Comparatively  little  of  it  is  adapted  for  orange- 
culture,  and  a  good  site  commands  from  a  hundred  dollars  to  two  hundred 
dollars  an  acre  in  its  wild  state.  To  clear  off  the  heavy  growth  of  timber,  and 
get  the  stumps  out,  costs  from  fifty  dollars  to  a  hundred  dollars  an  acre  more. 
Then   the   young  trees   for  planting  are  worth   from   thirty-five  cents   to  a 


Orangea. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


113 


dollar  apiece,  and  at  least  fifty  dollars  an  acre  must  be  spent  before  the  grove 
is  planted.  Afterward  it  requires  a  yearly  expenditure  of  about  fifty  cents  a 
tree,  or  fifty  dollars  an  acre,  to  keep  the  growing  orchard  in  good  condition  ; 
for  the  orange-tree  is  like  a  tender  child,  and  requires  constant  petting,  nurs- 
ing, and  doctoring  to  make  it  thrive.  By  the  time  the  settler  has  paid  for  nis 
land,  started  a  grove  of  five  acres,  and  built  himself  a  house,  he  has  spent  six 
thousand  or  seven  thousand  dollars  at  least.  The  interest  on  his  money,  the 
constant  expense  for  the  care  of  his  trees,  and  the  support  of  his  family,  will 
bring  his  first  investment  up  to  a  large  figure  by  the  time  he  begins  to  sell 
oranges.  Still,  if  he  has  the  money  and  the  patience  to  remain,  and  the  frost 
does  not  kill  his  trees,  he  will,  in  the  end,  realize  a  handsome  competency.  A 
grove  of  trees  in  full  bearing  is  an  independent  fortune.  An  old  tree  produces 
from  a  thousand  to  two  thousand  oranges  a  year,  when  there  is  no  failure  of 
the  crop  ;  and  the  fruit  sells  from  a  cent  and  a  half  to  three  cents  apiece  at  the 
grove.  The  prospect  of  getting  twenty  dollars  a  year  from  a  tree  is  very  fasci- 
nating. Counting  a  hundred  trees  to  the  acre,  a  very  small  amount  of  land 
can  at  this  rate  be  made  the  source  of  a  fortune.  There  are  other  sides  to 
this  picture  not  so  pleasant  to  contemplate ;  yet  let  these  not  be  seen  while 
tlic  reader  longs  for  the  sweet  groves  and  the  still  more  delicate  and  healthful 
fruit. 


XI4 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


CHAPTER     X. 


NEAT-CATTLE. 


THE  histor)'  of  ncat-cattlc  raising  in  this  countr)'  naturally  divides  itself 
into  the  two  epochs  wiien  we  bred  only  native  <  attle,  and  when  we 
began  the  improvement  of  our  stock  by  the  importation  of  foreign  breeds. 
In  England,  the  country  which  has  given  more  attention  than  any  other  to 
Native  the  improvement  of  this  class   of  live-stock,  comparatively  little 

cattle.  scientific  breeding  to  develop  special  characteristics  was  practised 

until  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  ;  and  none  worth  mentioning  was  under- 
taken in  the  United  States  until  after  the  Revolution.  The  cattle  which 
are  commonly  termed  "  native  cattle  "  in  this  country  are  the  product  of  an 
indiscriminate  mixture  of  several  varieties  of  foreign  cattle,  —  two  or  three  not 
very  distinct  British  breeds,  Swedish,  Dutch,  French,  and  Spanish;  and  so 
thoroughly  have  these  original  importations  been  crossed  and  intermingled,  so 
poorly  pronounced  were  the  characteristics  of  the  parent  stock,  and  so  modi- 
fied were  such  characteristics,  not  only  by  cross-breeding,  but  also  by  the 
hardships  of  the  climate  and  their  owners'  neglect  in  the  early  colonial  days, 
that  our  native  cattle  have  come  to  be  a  distinct  breed  by  themselves. 

The  first  cattle  in  Massachusetts  were  the  heifers  and  a  bull  iirought  thither 
in  1624  by  Gov.  F^dward  W'inslow.  Twelve  more  cows  were  brought  to  Cape 
„,  Ann  in  1626,  thirty  more  in  1620,  and  a  hundred  in  i6?o.     These 

tationito  last  wcrc  kept  at  Salem,  antl  were  for  the  "governor  and  com- 
pany of  Massachusetts  Hay."  The  stock  bred  from  the  impor- 
tation of  1624  was  divided  u])  among  the  colonists  three  years 
later.  The  breed  of  these  cattle  is  not  known ;  but  they  are  spoken  of  as 
black,  white,  and  brindle.  Several  importations  of  cattle  were  made  by  Capt. 
John  Mason  into  New  Hampshire  in  1631-33 ;  and,  as  he  carried  on  consid- 
erable trade  with  Denmark,  his  cattle  were  mostly  Danish.  They  were  large, 
well  adapted  for  working  in  the  yoke,  and  of  a  uniformly  yellow  color.  Some 
of  the  breed  were  kept  pure  until  1820;  and,  though  they  were  crossed  more 
or  less  with  other  stock,  they  gave  a  prevailing  cast  to  most  early  New- 
England  cattle.  Connecticut  obtained  her  first  cattle  from  Massachusetts, 
tliough  perhaps  a  few  from  New  York,  and  a  few  by  direct  importation. 


New 

England 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


"5 


hither 
Cape 

These 
coiii- 

impor- 
years 
of  as 
Capt. 

;onsid- 

;  large, 
Some 

1  more 
New- 

lusetts, 


The  first  cattle  brought  to  New  York  were  imported  by  I'ieter  Evertsen 
Iluist,  vmder  the   auspices  of   the    Dutch  West-India  Company,    in    1625. 
'I'iiese   came    from  the  Island  of  Texel,  off  Holland,  and  were   _    ,    , 
l)lack-and-white  Dutch  cattle.     The  Swedes,  settling  in  Delaware,   portationa 
brouL'ht  cattle  from  their  mother-country  :  and  the  Dutch  in  New  *f  ^T^„, 

°  •'  York,  Vlr- 

Jersey  got  their  stock  from  New  York,  where,  in   1627,  a  milch  ginia,  and 
( o\v  was  worth  thirty  pounds,  and  a  pair  of  working-oxen  forty  °*''"' 

colonldf 

pounds.  William  Penn  encouraged  the  importation  and  breeding 
of  ( attle  on  liis  purchase  at  an  early  date.  Virginia  had  cattle  of  her  own 
in  16 10,  brought  from  the  West  Indies,  where  their  killing  was  legally  prohib- 
ited, by  Sir  Ralph  Lane.  The  next  year  a  hundred  head  were  imported 
from  Devonshire  and  Hertfordshire,  luig.  In  1620  there  were  five  hundred 
licad  in  Virginia,  and  most  of  them  were  bigger  than  the  ])arent  stock. 
Maryland  probably  obtained  most  of  her  cattle  from  Virginia  at  first.  The 
first  importations  into  South  Carolina  were  from  iMigland  in  1670;  but  Ceor- 
gia,  a  much  younger  colony,  had  none  until  1732. 

Colunil)us  had  brouglit  cattle  to  the  West  Indies  in  1493,  which,  with  later 
importations,  were   of   Spanisii   breeds.     These  were  largely  introduced  into 
Mexico,  and  form   the  basis  of  our  present  Texan  stock.     From   importa- 
thcse,  doul)tless,  were  derived  the  cattle  which  the  Indians  on  Red   tioniby 
River  are  known  to  have  had  in   1690.     The  Portuguese  landed      °'"'"''ua. 
tattle  on  the  Island  of  Newfoundland  in  1553  ;  but  no  trace  exists  of  them 
now.     The  French  brought  Norman 
<  attic  into  /Xcadia  in  1604,  and  into 
C!anada  in  1608.     These  were  small, 
^'cntle  stock  ;  and  several  animals  of 
this  breed  were  introduced  into  the 
"  .\merican   bottom "   in   Illinois  in 
16S2,  where  they  increased  rajjidly. 

Cattle  at  first  multiplied  very  fast 
in  this  country.  Gov.  Hutchinson  of 
Massachuietts  says,  that,  in  1632,  no 
farmer  was  satisfied  to  do  without  a 
cow  ;  and  there  was  in  New  P^ngland 
not  only  a  domestic  but  an  ex])ort 
ilrmand    for    the   West   Rapjj 

indies,     which      led      to    increase  of 

1. reeding  for  sale.     But  """' 

the  market  was   soon   overstocked, 

and  the  price  of  cattle  went  down 

from  fifteen  and  twenty  pounds  to 

five  pounds  ;  and  milk  was  a  penny  a  quart.     Virginia  is  known  to  have  had  a 

somewhat  similar  experience ;  for  in  1639  she  had  30,000  head  of  neat-cattle, 


FODDER-CUTTER. 


ii6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Poor  care 
taken  ol 
them  in  the 
beginning. 


and  only  30,000  ten  years  later.  Maryland  liad  so  many,  notwithstanding  a 
loss  of  25,000  by  pestilence,  in  1O94  and  1695,  that  there  was  left  a  great  |)lenty. 
Just  before  the  Revolution,  the  cattle  of  the  Carolinas  and  (ieurgia,  rather 
small  and  neglected,  were  so  plenty,  that  they  were  driven  up  to  Pennsyl- 
vania to  fatten  for  the  butchers,  and  sold  theic  for  one  and  two  guineas  ajjiece. 
During  the  first  twenty-five  or  fifty  years  of  our  colonial  history,  very  little 
shelter  or  care  was  taken  of  the  cattle  in  the  winter  time.  The  cows  were 
not  milked,  there  being  a  common  belief  that  it  would  kill  them 
at  that  season.  No  stables  were  built  for  them,  especially  in  the 
Middle  and  South  .Atlantic  States  ;  and  they  wandered  at  large. 
No  special  fodder  was  given  them,  either  ;  and  they  were  obliged 
to  pick  up  what  they  could  on  the  roadsides  anil  in  the  fieUls.  Many  a  farmer 
lost  twenty  or  thirty  herd  from  neglect  every  spring ;  and  it  is  a  mutter  of 
record  that  ten  thousand  head  of  cattle  diel  in  South  Carolina,  in  the  year 
1 73 1,  simply  from  hunger  and  cold.  From  this  same  cause,  pestilence,  or 
the  gradual  decline  of  breeding,  a  scarcity  was  again  noticeable  in  New  Jersey 
and  New  Kngland  along  toward  1 700. 

The  principal  value  attached  to  cattle  for  a  long  period  of  our  colonial 
uistory  was  for  their  hides.  The  several  assemblies  enacted  laws  to  encourage 
Hid  th  '''*^  tanning  of  leather,  to  prohibit  its  importation,  and  even  regulate 
principal  the  shoemaking  business.  Farmers  u.sed  to  take  their  hides  to  a 
currier,  have  them  tanned  and  returned,  an<l  then  let  itinerant 
shoemakers  work  them  up  into  foot-gear  for  the  family.  Besides, 
there  were  tanners  and  shoemakers  who  did  «n  indepentlent  business.  (Jxen 
were  very  extensively  used,  too,  in  hauling  logs,  ploughing,  carting  stones  and 
farm-produce,  and  in  other  ways.  Cattle  were  used  almost  exclusively  for 
farm-la  or  in  the  colonial  days,  so  scarce  and  costly  were  horses  ;  and  even 
in  the  present  generation,  in  New  England,  working-oxen  are  very  numerous. 
As  the  settlements  grew  in  size,  and  cities  began  to  develop,  there  sprang  up 
a  demand  for  cattle  for  beef.  In  1651  the  town  of  Fairfield, 
Conn.,  butchered  100  cattle.  In  New  York,  in  1678,  400  a  year 
was  the  average  number  slaughtered  ;  and  in  1694  it  was  4,000. 
In  1680  beef  brought  about  twopence  and  a  half  a  pound.  The  domestic 
dairy,  '  jo,  was  an  important  institution.  The  farmers  all  made  a  little  butter 
and  cheese  for  home  use,  and  took  a  little  to  the  cities  to  exchange  for  other 
merchandise.  Butter  was  quoted  at  sixpence  a  pound  in  Connecticut  in 
1680.  Quite  a  little  cheese-business  was  built  up  too.  There  is  a  record 
of  13,000  pounds  of  cheese  having  been  sold  from  one  farm  in  Rhode  Island 
s  ientific  '"  '75°  '  ^"*^  ^"^  another  farm  seventy-three  cows  are  rejjortcd  to 
breeding  of  have  yielded  10,000  pounds  of  butter  in  five  months,  or  about 
one  pound  apiece  per  day. 

During  the  last  half  of  the  last  century,  and  early  in  this,  the 
business  of   breeding  cattle  on   scientific   principles  developed  very  rapidly 


value  o( 
early  ttock 


Railing 
cattle  for 
beef. 


cattle  in 
England. 


in   England 
since   been 
implies,  the 
s(|iiare-conK 
a  hide  colo 
they   are   ch 
<|iialities.      'I 
red,    shai)ely 
t'>    fatten   wc 
cliiefly  knowr 
others.     The 
in   color,  ver 
adajjted  to  a 
the  richness 
name  in  the  I: 
like  the  Alder 
and  piebald,  : 
cers.     The  Fn 
or  less  of  a  re 
of  Spain,  are  r 
have  not  been 
I'robably  t 
ported  and  br 
numerous  in  t 
more  common 
horns  importer 
1 793.  and  to  \ 
took  some  of 
in  the  blue-gra: 
Lexington,  Ky 
breed;  and  C; 
From  these  pui 
and  the  two  w 
in  this  century 
stock-raising  A 
tucky's  examp 
sional  importat 
formed  in  the 
was  %,2oo,  all 
were  brought  t( 
sold.     Prices  r:* 
animal  would 
amount  dividec 


Hill: 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


U| 


Durham. 


Alderney. 


Jertey. 


Ayrihire. 


in  England.  Among  the  most  prominent  breeds  that  were  then  and  have 
.since  been  known  there  was  the  Durham,  or  sliort-horn.  As  the  name 
inijjlies,  the  horns  are  short ;  while  the  body  looks  very  nearly 
siiuare-cornered  from  the  side,  if  one  omits  legs  and  head ;  and 
a  hitle  colored  a  dark-red  piebald.  They  run  heavily  to  b(.cf,  for  which 
they  are  chiefly  prized ;  though  special  families  have  shown  good  dairy 
(jualities.  They  need  pretty  good  pasturage,  however.  The  Devons  arc 
red,  shapely,  with  medium-sized  horns,  a  soft  mellow  hide,  a  tendency 
to  fatten  well,  and  a  marked  adaptation  to  work.  The  (".alloways  are 
( liicfly  known  by  their  lack  of  horns,  and  are  not  so  highly  prized  as  some 
others.  The  Alderneys  are  light-red  or  yellow  mixed  with  white 
in  <'olor,  very  dainty  and  graceful  in  shape,  lightly  built,  well 
adapted  to  a  thin  pasturage,  poor  beef-producers  and  workers,  but  noted  for 
tlie  richness  of  their  milk.  The  Jerseys,  from  the  island  of  that 
name  in  the  British  Channel,  are  small,  and  of  Norman  extraction 
like  the  Alderneys,  they  are  greatly  prized  by  dairymen.  The  Ayrshires,  roan 
and  piebald,  are  also  highly  esteemed  as  milk  and  butter  produ- 
cers. The  French,  Hungarian,  Swiss,  and  Italian  cattle  have  more 
or  less  of  a  reputation  on  the  Continent,  but,  like  the  Andalusian  fighting-bulls 
of  Spain,  are  not  so  valuable  for  industrial  purposes  as  the  PLnglish  stock,  and 
have  not  been  imported  at  all  by  American  stock-raisers. 

I'robably  the  short-horns,  or  Durhams,  have  been  more  extensively  im- 
ported and  bred  with  native  stock  than  any  other  foreign  breed  ;  but,  while 
numerous  in  the  Eastern  and  Middle  Atlantic  States,  they  are  far  _    . 

'         ■'  Durham! 

more  common  in  the  Ohio  Valley.     Almost  the  first  pure  short-   moitexten> 
horns  imported  were  those  brought  to  Virginia  by  a  Mr.  Miller  in  "'veiy  im- 
1 793,  and  to  Maryland  by  Mr.  Gough  the  same  year.     Mr.  Patton 
took  some  of  these  cattle  to  Kentucky  in   1797,  and  they  were  widely  known 
in  the  blue-grass  region  as  "Patton  stock."     In   181 7  Col.  Lewis  Sanders  of 
Lexington,  Ky.,  imported  three  bulls  and  three   heifers   of    the   short-horn 
breed ;  and  Capt.  Smith  soon  had  another  bull  and  heifer  of  the  same  sort. 
From  these  pure  stock  was  derived,  and  crosses  made  with  the  Patton  stock ; 
and  the  two  were  the  parentage  of  the  choicest  Kentucky  breeds.     Very  early 
in  this  century  that  section  of  ihe  country  gave  great  attention  to 
stock-raising  for  the  Eastern    market,  and    Ohio  followed    Ken- 
tucky's example  in  improving  her  stock.     Individuals  made  occa- 
sional importations  prior  to  1834,  in  which  year  a  company  was 
formed  in  the  Scioto  Valley  for  this  especial  purpose.     The  .imount  subscribed 
was  ;^9,2oo,  all  of  which  was  invested  abroad  in  pure  short-horns.    The  cattle 
were  brought  to  the  company's  farm,  and  used  at  first  for  breeding,  and  then 
sold.     Prices  ran  everywhere  from  %2'^Q  to  ^2,500 ;  and  very  often  the  same 
animal  would  be  sold  again  in  a  short  time  at  a  decided   advance.      The 
amount  divided  by  the  company  three  years  after  organization  was  1^25,760. 


Attention 
paid  to  sub- 
ject in  Ken> 
tucky. 


^^y 


ii8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


■ 

ii 


III 


This  plan  was  imitated  afterwards  in  Kentucky  and  other  sections  of  the  conn- 
try.  Short-horns  were  Ijroii^ht  into  Westchester  County,  New  York,  as  early 
as  1793  and  1796.  The  breed  was  not  kept  pure  long,  tliouglitheir  descend- 
ants are  recognizable  to-day.  Other  importations  were  made  into  New  York 
in  1815,  1.S16,  and  1822,  and  still  others  more  recently.  In  1824  Mr.  Powell 
of  I'hikidelphia  commenced  importing  short-horns,  and  continued  to  breed  and 
sell  them  extensively  for  many  years.  In  1818  a  short-horn  bull,  "Ctelebs," 
and  a  heifer,  "  Flora,"  were  introduced  into  Massachusetts  by  Mr.  Coolidge, 
and  sold  to  Col.  S;xmiiel  Jatpies  of  Sor.ierville  in  1820. 

Selecting  particularly  fme  native  cows,  Col.  Jaques  effected  a  cross  with 
this  bull,  and  developed  a  breed  long  kept  pure,  and  called  "  Cream- Pots." 
Col.  jaquet'i  'I'hey  gave  extraordinarily  rich  milk.  Col.  Jatjues  thus  describes 
experiment!.  .,„  experiment  made  with  the  milk  of  one  of  his  cows  by  the  fore- 
man of  his  stock-(;irm  :  ".After  milking  he  took  two  quarts  of  her  milk  out 
of  the  pail,  strained  it  into  a  pan,  and  allowed  it  to  stand  twenty-four  hours. 
Having  then  skimmed  the  cream  into  a  bowl,  he  churned  it  with  a  spoon  ;  and 
in  one  minute,  by  the  clock,  he  formed  the  butter.  It  was  then  pressed  and 
worked  in  the  usual  way,  and  amounted  to  half  a  pound  of  pure  butter.  After 
this,  the  following  practice  was  pursued  for  eight  or  ten  weeks  in  succession  : 
At  each  of  four  successive  milkings  two  quarts  of  the  strippings  were  strained 
into  a  pan,  and  then  churned.  The  average  time  of  churning  did  not  exceed 
ten  minutes  :  in  some  instances  the  buttc"  was  formed  in  five  minutes.  After 
being  properly  worked  over  it  was  wei^'  t*''.  and  it  never  fell  short  of  two 
pounds." 

Stephen  Williams  of  Northborough,   Mass.,  imported   a   fine 
short-horn  bull  in  18 18,  which  became  the  sire  of  much  grade 
stock.     Other  short-horns  were   taken    into   that  State  in    1820. 
The  breed  like  luxuriant  pasturage,  and  have  never  proved  very 
popular  in  New  Kngland. 

t  «  n  Since  1840  short-horns  have  been  imported  in   even  greater 

of  ihort-        numbers  than  ever  before,  and  so  numerously  that  specific  men- 
tion is  unnecessary. 

In  181 7  the  Hon.  Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky  attempted  to 
introduce  the  Hereford  stock  into  that  State.  They  yield  less  beef,  but  require 
Henry  '^^^  pasturage  than  short-horns,  and  are  poorly  adapted  to  the 

Clay's  im-  dairy.  The  enterprise  never  succeeded  very  well,  and  the  stock 
portat  one.  ^^^  ^^^  ]fjQ^\.  pure  very  long.  Admiral  Coffin  presented  a  Here- 
ford bull  to  the  Massachusetts  Society  for  Promoting  Agriculture  in  1824. 
The  animal  was  kept  at  Northampton,  and  left  a  numerous  progeny.  Five 
bulls  and  seventeen  cows  and  heifers  were  imported  by  Messrs.  Corning  & 
Lotham  of  Albany  in  1840.  Other  importations  were  added  to  this  herd 
later.  Animals  of  this  breed  have  been  introduced  elsewhere  j  but  they  have 
never  attained  any  marked  prominence  or  popularity. 

■  m'   ■'  •  -      .    ■ 


Stephen 
WiUiami't 
importa- 
tioni. 


horn*  since 
1B40. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


1x9 


The  Devons  have  hecn  brought  here  and  bred  more  numerously.  The 
impression  that  the  native  Ncw-Kiiyland  stock  is  of  Devon  extraction  seems  to 
he  due  to  the  f^ict  that  it  is  mostly  red,  and  not  to  the  possession  importation 
of  real  Devon  traits.  Ihe  Massachusetts  Society  for  Promoting  "'  D'vom. 
Ajjriiiilture  has  imported  some  North  Devons  within  the  past  thirty  years;  but 
wliilc  iiandsome  animals,  good  gra/icrs,  and  fine  working-cattle,  they  have  not 
-.hown  the  dairy  (lualilies  <lesired  in  New  I'lngland.  Mr.  Patterson  of  Haiti- 
more,  before  the  middle  of  this  century,  had  begun  breeding  Devons  expressly 
for  milk,  and  greatly  improved  his  stock  in  this  regard.  The  Devons  are  said 
to  he  the  favorite  improved  stock  in  the  South  :  but  as  tiie  farmers  of  that 
sec  tion  give  little  attention  to  beef-raising,  the  dairy,  or  even  soiling,  cattle- 
breeding  has  attracted  less  attention  there  than  elsewhere  ;  though  the  exten- 
sive breeding  of  native  cattle  in  Texas  forms  an  important  exception  to  the 
general  rule. 

.Alderneys,  A)Tshires,  and  Jerseys  have  long  Veen  bred  in  the  old  country, 

with  a  view  to  developing  their  milk-produc  ing  ([ualities.     They  excel  rather 

in  richness  than  in  (pianlity  of  milk,  for  which  reason  they  are  prized  more  by 

the  butter-makers  than  by  the  cheese-manufacturers  :  although  the   _    „  , 

'  '  °  Qualitlei  o( 

Ayrshires  are  good  milkers.  .'V  letter  from  Richard  Mavis  to  the  several 
secretary  of  the  l'hiladeli)hia  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Agri-  •"**••» "' 
cult'ire,  dated  January,  1817,  mentions  a  pure  .Mderney  recently 
imported  and  owned  by  him,  which  so  excelled  in  the  richness  of  its  milk, 
even  upon  poor  feed,  that  he  deemed  it  worth  being  published.  This  cow 
gave  eight  pounds  of  butter  a  week  for  a  long  period.  Alderneys  are  great 
favorites  with  small  flirmers,  and  gentlemen  living  in  small  cities  and  keejjing 
cows.  ,\yrshires  have  been  introduced  into  New  Kngland  and  New  York 
since  1830,  and  rather  more  extensively  since  1850.  So,  too,  with  the  Jer- 
seys. Mr.  John  P.  Gushing  of  Massachusetts  imported  an  Ayrshire  which  gave 
3,864  (|uarts  of  milk  in  a  year,  or  an  average  of  nearly  eleven  quarts  a  day  for 
the  whole  twelve  months.  The  Ayrshire  generally  makes  a  better  return  in 
milk  for  her  feed  than  any  other  breed.  The  first  Ayrshire  imported  by  the 
Massachusetts  Society  for  Promoting  Agriculture  yielded  sixteen  pounds  of 
butter  a  week,  on  grass-feed,  for  several  successive  weeks.  Grade  Ayrshires 
are  almost  as  valuable  as. the  pure-blooded  animals,  and  are  consequently 
much  sought  after.  Jerseys  have  been  imported  by  the  Massachusetts  Society 
for  Promoting  Agriculture  since  1850,  and  by  individuals  in  New  England, 
New  York,  and  Maryland.  In  1853  there  were  but  seventy-five  pure-bred 
animals  in  Massachusetts  ;  but  since  then  they  have  rapidly  multiplied  in  that 
section,  in  the  New- York  dairy-regions,  and  elsewhere. 

There  have  also  been  some  slight  importations  of  Galloways  and  Holsteins. 

There  has  been  rather  more  uniformity  in  the  increase  of  the  number 
of  cattle  in  this  country  during  the  past  century  than  in  some  other  kinds  of 
live-stock.      The  most  marked  development  of  interest  of  which  we  have 


^1 


Ul 


\'h'^ 


f'C" 


n 


?'^1js 


'■ 


1 20 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


I 


y 


data  was  be^een  1850  and  i860.  We  have  no  record  of  the  number  of 
Uniformity  "^^'^'^  '"  1840,  unfortunately;  and  it  was  a  little  prior  to  that 
of  increase  time  that  the  great  impulse  in  the  beef-raising  business  began  to 
hi  United  jjg  f^j^  ']'j^g  special  start  taken  by  the  dairy-interest  was  not 
until  later.  In  another  chapter  we  consider  the  history  of  the 
clieese  and  butter  business  by  itself.  ; 


/■       (! 


The  beef-producing  industry  is  one  of  the  largest  and  oldest-established 
branches  of  American  agriculture.     Beef  is  the  great  staple  among  fresh  meats 


for  the  bettei 

of  the  extens 

great  impetus 

improvement! 

latter  influenc 

has  increased 

j)ast  few  years 

It  is  almo! 

lies  of  owners 

peddling  busi 

familiar.     The 

a  great  dema 

cities  are  pro 

fed  on  swill  ai 

made  to  the  n 

pains  are  takei 

into  town  by  r 

trains  having  L 

all  directions,  i 

the  cans  next  ( 

carried  on. 

Before  the 
to  the  more  \ 
quicker  metho( 
use  was  matle 
rcciuisition  by  t 
lakes  to  New 
was  unattendet 
Ohio  basin  an 
weight  and  qu, 
west  of  the  M 
there  is  reason 
great  extension 
Herewith  \\ 
States  for  a  few 


Milch  cows 
Oxen  and  other  c; 


4i\ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


121 


for  the  better  class  of  people.     As  we  have  already  remarked,  the  opening  up 
of  the  extensive  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Valleys  to  emigration  gave   Beef-produ- 
great  impetus  to  stock-raising  in  those  sections :  so,  too,  did  the   cing  indu*- 
improvements  in  our  grasses  and  in  the  breeding  of  cattle  ;  which  *'*'' 
latter  influence,  together  with  the  growing  custom  of  fattening  cattle  on  corn, 
has  increased  the  weight  and  value  of  our  beeves  very  decidedly  within  the 
])ast  few  years. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  estimate  the  value  of  milk  consumed  in  the  fami- 
lies of  owners  of  catde ;  nor  is  it  necessary  to  describe  the  milk-  conaump- 
peddling  business  of  the  smaller  towns,  with  which  everyone  is  tionofmiik. 
familiar.  The  consumption  of  this  fluid  in  the  larger  cities  necessarily  creates 
a  great  demand,  which  must  be  supplied  from  the  adjacent  country.  Such 
cities  are  provided  with  stables,  where  the  cattle,  in  immense  numbers,  are 
fed  on  swill  and  distillery  refuse.  Of  late  years  so  great  objection  has  been 
made  to  the  milk  produced,  on  account  of  its  unwholesomeness,  that  greater 
pains  are  taken  to  obtain  milk  from  the  rural  regions.  This  is  now  brought 
into  town  by  railroad  ;  the  large  cans  which  are  placed  on  the  morning  milk- 
trains  having  been  picked  up  along  a  route  of  fifty  and  a  hundred  miles,  from 
all  directions,  in  accordance  with  a  preconcerted  plan.  The  city  agents  return 
the  cans  next  day  to  the  owners ;  and  thus  a  regular  and  extensive  business  is 
carried  on. 

Before  the  great  railroad  era  of  the  West,  the  cattle  were  brought  eastward, 
to  the  more  populous  sections  of  the  country,  in  large  droves.     After  the 
quicker  methods  of  transportation  for  other  freights  were  provided,   Raiiroadt 
use  was  made  of  them  for  cattle.     The  railroads  were  put  into  and  driving 
reciuisition  by  the  drovers  all  the  way  from  Texas  and  the  upper  '^""  '" 
lakes  to  New  York  and  Boston.     The  immense  increase  in  stock  in  Texas 
was  unattended  with  imjirovement  in  (juality  ;  but  the  cattle  of  the 
Ohio  basin  and  other  Western  sections  showed  marked  gain  in 
weight  and  quality.     In  view  of  the  vast  pasturage  to  be  found 
west  of  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  Rivers,  in  the  buflalo  ranges, 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  our  cattle-interest  is  yet  capable  of 
great  extension  as  ihe  market  therefor  is  opened. 

Herewith  we  give  a  statement  of  the  number  of  cattle   in   the  United 
States  for  a  few  years  past :  — 


Improve- 
ment of  neat- 
catUe  in 
Texas  and 
other  Statea. 


1850. 

isej. 

1870. 

1876. 

Milch  cows      .... 
Oxcii  and  other  cattle 

6.385,094 
I ',393.289 

8,585.735 
17,034,284 

8,935.332 
14,885,276 

11,260,800 
17,956,100 

Total. 

17,778.383 

25,6.!C,c>t9 

23,820,608 

30,216,900 

\ 

ll 

\ , 

11 

!i 

li 

132 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


From  this  it  will  be  seen,  that,  between  i860  and  1870,  there  was  a  slight 
falling-off  in  the  total  number,  although  the  dairj'-interest  held  its  own.  The 
Increase  in  ^^'^'^  ^^  chiefly  in  the  States  where  the  civil  war  raged.  Mean- 
number  in  time,  in  the  other  sections,  there  was  a  slight  increase  in  the  aver- 
recent  years,  ^g^  weight.  Since  1870  there  has  been  a  marked  increase  in 
numbers,  the  proportion  bf.ing  rather  higher  in  milch  cows  than  in  other 
cattle.  At  the  present  time.  New  York  has  the  largest  number  of  cows,  — 
1,526,200;'  Pennsylvania  comes  next,  with  845,300;  Illinois,  724,900;  Ohio, 
700,000;  Iowa,  665,300;  and  Texas  just  above,  and  Wisconsin  just  below, 
500,000.  Of  other  cattle,  Texas  has  altogether  the  most,  —  3,390,500 ;  Illinois 
ranks  second,  with  1,287,000  ;  California,  which  has  rather  dropped  the  dairy- 
interest  she  took  up  twenty  years  ago,  and  gone  to  beef-raising,  comes  next, 
with  1,053,500;  Iowa  has  958,800;  Missouri,  846,300;  Ohio,  775,000; 
Indiana,  764,000;  Pennsylvania,  701,000;  and  New  York,  663,200.  Kansas 
is  the  only  other  having  over  500,000. 

As  they  stand,  our  cows  are  worth  ^27.32  apiece  on  the  average,  or  ^[307,- 
Vaiueof  743.211  in  all ;  the  other  neat-cattle  are  reckoned  at  %\i.\o  each, 
neat-cattle,  qj.  $307,105,386  :  making  a  total  capital,  invested  in  this  class  of 
live-stock,  of  $6 14,848,59 7.' 

As  will  be  seen  from  our  chapt-/  on  the  dairy-interest,  our  products  in 
that  department  amount  annually  to  $211,000,000.  It  is  estimated  that  the 
average  number  of  beeves  killed  between  1870  and  1875  in  this  country  was 
at  least  5,000,000  annually.  Butchers  estimate  that  beeves  average  1,000 
Value  of  dai-  pounds  live  Weight,  and  that  >i\\Qfivc  <iuarterF  (the  hide'  and  tallow 
ry  products,  count  for  a  quarter)  weigh  three-fifths  of  that,  or  600  pounds. 
This,  at  an  average  of  seven  cents  for  beef,  hide,  and  t How,  makes  a  yield  of 
^210,000,000.  Mr.  A.  A.  Kennard  of  Baltimore,  of  the  statistical  committee 
of  the  National  Dairy  Association,  estimates  the  fresh-milk  product  of  the 
country  to  be  worth  $250,000,000.  If  to  these  we  add,  at  a  venture,  $79- 
000,000  for  the  condensed  milk,  fertilizers,  and  lampblack  made  from  the 
blood  and  offal,  the  glue  and  bone  material  derived  from  the  refuse,  we  shall 
have  a  total  income  from  our  neat-cattle  of  $740,000,000. 

A  very  interesting  phase  of  our  cattle-raising  industry  is  the  new  export- 
trade  begun  in  fresh  beef.  Europe,  crowded  with  population  largely  engaged 
Export  of  in  manufacturing,  naturally  calls  on  us  for  agricultural  food- 
''**'•  products.     We  have  sent  her  cereals,  fruit<5.  dairy-products,  and 

smoked  and  cured  meats,  for  many  years.     In  1875  the  experiment  of  ship- 


•  Figures  of  1876. 

'  Thete  are  the  figures  of  the  commissioner  of  agriculture  in  his  report  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1876. 
Mr,  A,  A.  Kennard  of  Baltimore  estimated  the  milch  cows  of  the  country  to  be  worth  $480,000,000  in  March, 
1878;  and  a  like  increase  in  the  estimates  for  other  cattle  would  make  the  total  value  of  all  neat-cattle  in  the 
United  Stales  little  if  any  short  of  $1,000,000,000, 

'  The  extent  of  our  trade  in  hides  we  coiuider  under  the  head  of  Leather,  in  the  department  of  manufac- 
turers. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


123 


l)ing  fresh  beef  in  refrigerators  was  tried ;  and  so  marked  was  the  success 
attending  it,  that  a  rapid  building-up  of  this  particular  branch  of  business  has 
ensued. 

The  attempt  was  first  made  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  growers  and  shippers 
for  an  enlarged  market  and  higher  prices  for  fresh  beef.     Yankee   History  of 
ingenuity  and  t!ie  Yankee  spirit  of  adventure  soon  found  a  way  to  the  business, 
meet  this  demand. 

On  the  nth  of  February,  1875,  John  J.  Hate  of  New  York  shipped  twelve 
{[  u  a  r  t  e  r  s    of  beef, 


twelve  sheep,  and  six 
iiogs,  to  Liverpool  by 
the  steamer  "Baltic." 
The  meat  was  kept 
rool  and  fresh  by  fun- 
blowers  operated  by 
hand.  It  arrived  in 
good  condition  ;  and 
the  attempt  was  re- 
newed in  June  and 
August  on  a  larger 
scale,  the  fans  being 
operated  by  steam. 
Taking  the  business 
off  Mr.  Hate's  hands, 
Mr.  Timothy  C.  East- 
man undertook  the 
enterprise  systemati- 
cally in  October  of 
that  year,  when  he 
exported  forty  -  five 
cattle  and  fifty  sheep. 
In  December  he 
doubled  the  number  of  beeves,  and  since  then  has  steadily  increased  the 
(juantity,  and  made  weekly  shipments. 

Mr.  Eastman  ships  to  Queenstown,  Glasgow,  and  Liverpool,  where  arrange- 
ments have  been  made  for  sending  it  to  his  markets  in  Dublin,  London,  Man- 
chester, Sheffield,  Birmingham,  Leeds,  Newcastle,  Dundee,  and  Edinburgh. 
He  keeps  the  meat  fresh  by  a  process  invented  and  patented  by  Mode  of  ship- 
Mr.  Bate.  Special  refrigerators  are  constructed  between  the  pingbeef. 
decks  of  the  steamships  of  the  Williams  and  (luion,  White-Star,  and  Anchor 
Lines ;  and  a  fan-blower  run  by  steam  keeps  the  inside  air  in  constant 
circulation  around  the  meat.  The  quarters  are  neatly  wrapped  in  can- 
vas, and  kept  in  "  chilling-houses,"  or  large  refrigerators,  before   shipment  j 


CHICAGO    STOCK-VAKIl?;. 


Si'^  '■' 


ja||^««illiMMk 


124 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


eign  mar 
kets. 


and,  when  put  aboard  the  vessels,  the  temperature  is  kept  down  to  thirty- 
eight  degrees,  or  six  degrees  above  freezing.  The  cold  to  which  the  meat 
is  subjected  at  first  closes  the  pores,  or  sears  it,  so  that  it  is  not  as  susceptible 
to  heat  and  taint  as  freshly-killed  meat.  Not  a  single  quarter  of  the  many 
Mr.  Eastman  has  shipped  has  arrived  tainted.  It  also  looks  as  fresh  and  bright 
as  newly-killed  beef,  nor  does  it  lose  any  of  its  flavor. 

(]illett  &  Sherman,  another  large  New-York  shipping-firm,  prepare  their 
beef  on  the  New-Jersey  side  of  the  river,  and  use  a  diflerent  process.  They 
send  by  the  Cunard,  Inman,  and  National  Lines.  Samuels  &  Company  and 
Daniel  To(Tcy  &  Company  are  also  shipping  from  New  York  on  a  smaller 
scale.     Philadelpiua  and  Portland  are  following  New  York's  example. 

This  beef  sells  in  foreign  markets  at  sevenpence  and  eightpence  a  pound ; 
which  is  twopence,  threepence,  and  fourpence  below  the  price  of 
ized  in  for-  home-raised  beef  in  England.  Its  introduction,  therefore,  caused 
a  profound  sensation  ;  and  the  British  butchers  combined  to  stop 
the  importation,  but  without  success.  The  Queen,  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  the  Lord-Mayor  of  London,  the  Governor  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
and  the  leading  press,  have  tried  the  American  oeef,  and  declare  it  fully  equal 
to  that  raised  at  home. 

An  idea  of  the  sudden  growth  of  this  business  may  be  derived  from  the 
Amount  and  ^^'^^>  *'^^*  '"  October,  1875,  the  shipments  of  fresh  beef  amounted 
value  of  to  36,000  pounds;  the  next  October  they  aggregated  2,719,685 

.hipments.  po^^ds  .  ^hile  for  the  month  of  March,  1877,  they  were  6,707,855 
pounds.  For  the  year  ending  Dec.  31,  1877,  they  were  55,362,793  pounds, 
valued  at  $5,244,668.' 

Following  up  their  success  in  this  line,  stock-dealers  have  also  undertaken 
the  shipment  of  live  cattle  to  Europe  ;  and  it  is  thought  the  experiment  will 
Export  of  prove  a  success.  Prior  to  the  v.  inter  of  1877  beef-cattle  had  not 
live-stock.  \)Q^f^xi  shipped  to  foreign  countries  from  the  United  States  on 
account  of  the  expense,  the  risk  incurred,  and  the  monopoly  of  the  Eastern 
markets  by  European  stock-raisers.  Canada,  however,  has  been  exporting  live- 
stock to  the  mother-country  for  some  time,  and  with  such  success,  that  New- 
York  and  Philadelphia  merchants  are  now  trying  the  experiment.  The  ship- 
ment of  live-stock  across  the  ocean  has  made  necessary  the  construction  of 
apartments  on  vessels  c}uite  different  from  any  thing  heretofore  in  use.  Porta- 
ble stalls,  in  which  the  cattle  are  fastened,  have  been  specially  made,  so 
arranged  as  to  give  room  for  eating  and  drinking,  and  to  be  movable,  with  the 
cattle  in  them,  to  different  parts  of  the  vessel.  The  stock  is  thus  brought 
upon  deck  for  several  hours  each  day,  and  given  the  benefit  of  the  fresh  sea- 
air.    The  new  arrangement  is  strictly  an  American  invention,  and  its  friends 

I  If  to  these  figures  one  adds  $3,847,447,  the  value  of  salted  beef,  $4,S37>4Ss  for  butter,  $i3,ss9,V78  for 
cheese,  $133,343  for  condensed  milk,  $1,848,555  for  hides,  $6,513,569  for  tallow,  and  $19,356  for  glue,  he  will 
(nd  that  our  bovine  product  exports  amount  to  about  $35,000,000  annually.  -       -  ^ —    .  , 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


"5 


are  confident  that  its  introduction  will  open  Europe  and  every  part  of  the 
globe  as  a  market  for  the  stock-raisers  of  America. 

While  science  has  thus  triumphed  in  transporting  fresh  meats  for  a  long 
distance,  it  has  also  won  another  victory  in  preserving  them  for  a  very  long 
period,  and  in  so  compact  a  form  as  to  be  easily  transported  all  over  the  world, 
tliii;;  economizing  vastly  the  sources  of  supply  ;  inasmuch  as  thou-  compressed 
sands  of  cattle  were  formerly  slaughtered  in  South  America,  Aus-  ">"ts. 
tralia,  and  Texas,  for  their  horns,  hides,  and  tallow,  while  their  flesh  was  lost, 
because  no  way  was  known  of  preserving  it.  This  problem  of  keeping 
meat  for  a  long  time  is  an  old  one  among  scientists,  and  Professor  Liebig's 
"extract  of  beef"  has  been  followed  by  numerous  imitations.  The  chief 
objection  to  Liebig's  '"extract  of  beef"  and  its  imitations  has  been,  that  it 
could  be  used  only  in  liquid  form.  It  is  only  recently  that  the  preservation 
of  solid  meats  has  been  possible.  A  New- York  company  has  a  uniijue  process 
lor  this  purpose.  The  beef,  or  other  meat,  is  first  dried  by  a  patent  blowing 
and  steam-evaporating  process,  after  the  removal  of  all  bone,  and  fatty  or 
gristly  substances.  It  is  then  packed  in  extremely  thin  slices,  which  will  retain 
tlu-ir  good  (jualities  for  an  unlimited  period  in  any  climate.  In  fiict,  nothing 
remains  in  the  meats  that  can  decay,  h.  cjuarter  of  a  pound  of  it  is  equal  to 
a  pound  of  solid  meat. 

I'he  manufacture  of  compressed  cooked  meats  is  a  new  industry  in  this 
country.  It  began  two  years  ago,  and  has  now  assumed  almost  gigantic  pro- 
{jortions.  England  has  received  cooked  meats  from  .\ustralia  for  twenty  years ; 
but  the  process  there  differs  greatly  from  the  American  method,  m^f^^  ^f 
'I'he  American  meats,  however,  bring  better  prices  in  P^ngland  manuUc- 
to-day,  and  bid  fair  to  outstrip  all  foreign  articles.  .About  750,000  '"'"' 
cans  per  month  are  produced  by  the  two  .American  houses,  and  from  3,000  to 
4,000  cattle  per  weelc  are  slaughtered  in  Chicago  for  this  purpose.  For  the 
( anning  of  corned-beef  and  beef-tongues  only  the  best  materials  are  selected, 
tough  and  stringy  parts  being  discarded.  The  Western  States  naturally  lead 
tlie  way  in  this  industry,  as  they  are  nearer  the  main  sources  of  supply  and  the 
fertile  grazing-lands  of  the  North-West.  The  live  animals  are  brought  to 
Cliicago,  and,  after  inspection,  are  slaughtered  in  the  abattoirs  of  the  company. 
The  carcasses  are  cut  into  the  recpiired  weight,  and  the  bone,  sinew,  and 
gristle  eliminated.  After  another  inspection,  the  meats  are  ready  for  the  curing 
])rocess.  The  best  portions  of  the  meat  are  exposed  to  the  action  of  steam 
in  imiTiense  wooden  vats.  Metal  vats  would  be  very  undesirable,  on  account 
of  the  liability  to  mineral  poisoning.  The  beef  is  then  packed  in  strong  tin 
(ans  of  various  sizes,  containing  two,  four,  six,  and  fourteen  pounds  each. 
They  are  hermetically  sealed,  and  the  contents  will  keep  pure  and  fresh  in  any 
climate  for  many  years.  They  have  none  of  that  musty  flavor  which  was  for- 
merly inseparable  from  canned  meats,  and  retain  their  flavor  a  long  time  after 
being  removed  from  their  metallic  envelops.     The  Australian  method  of  can- 


126 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


ning  differs  from  the  American  in  this,  that  the  former  cooks  the  meat  whole 
in  cans,  while  the  latter  cooks  it  in  small  pieces  in  wooden  vats,  as  already 
described.  The  Australian  cans  often  present  a  peculiar  appearance  after 
the  cooling  process,  as  the  sides  are  sometimes  contracted,  and  look  as  if  they 
had  ueen  subjected  to  pressure.  The  extent  of  the  American  industry  is  also 
si  own  in  the  number  of  employees,  the  salaries,  &c.,  of  a  Chicago  firm.  In 
one  establishment  7,000  men  and  150  girls  are  employed,  and  the  pay-roll  is 
$30,000  a  month.  The  floor  of  the  packing-house  covers  four  acres.  The 
refrigerator  will  accommodate  3,330,000  pounds.  Five  boilers,  with  a  capacity 
of  80,000  pounds,  are  used  for  rendering  callow  from  marrow,  and  five  for 
furnishing  steam  for  cooking  and  the  elevators. 

Cooked  meats  by  the  Australian  method  have  been  known  in  America  for 
twenty  years ;  but  the  process  is  very  imperfect.  Owing  to  its  inferiority, 
the  sales  of  those  meats  have  been  poor.  The  demand  for  compressed  cooked 
Export  of  meats,  on  the  contraiy,  has  been  so  great,  that  there  is  a  prospec- 
compressed  tive  business  with  governments  in  supplying  them  with  this  article, 
meats.  j^  j^  hoped  that  something  may  be  accomplisiicd  in  the  way  of 

supplying  the  European  belligerents.  Large  invoices  are  now  sent  to  London, 
Liverpool,  Glasgow,  Iklfast,  \:c.  Clermany  and  France  do  not  buy  them  as 
readily  yet  as  Great  Britain  ;  but  the  promise  is  good  of  a  large  trade  eventu- 
ally in  those  countries.  "The  London  Grocer"  stated  recently,  that,  during 
one  week,  11,270  cases  of  packed  meat  were  received  at  Liverpool  from 
America.  F2ach  case  contained  twelve  cans,  making  a  total  of  135,240  cans. 
This,  however,  is  an  average  estimate,  as  one  house  in  this  country  has  fre- 
quently sent  out  20,000  cases  per  week. 


^-»f  .;-<•;■  ., 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


127 


CHAPTER    XI. 


BUTTER   AND   CHEESE. 


THE  history  of  American  dairying  was  a  comparatively  quiet  and  unevent- 
ful one  until  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  and  progress  was  com- 
paratively slow  in  its  development  until  about  that  time.     As  we  have  already 
remarked  in  discussing  neat-cattle,  our  stock  was  of  poor  quality  8,^^ 
iliiring  the  last  century,  and  its  improvement  not  fairly  inaugurated  resiinbe- 
until  1825-50.      The  earlier   efforts   at   improvement,  too,  were  *'""'"«• 
direct'^d  rather  to  the  perfection  of  our  beef  than  to  increase  the  quantity  and 
(juality  of  the  milk.     The  importations  of  foreign  breeds  were  mostly  of  short- 
horns until   1850.     A  little  before  t'l.it  time  the   importation    of  Ayrshires, 
jerseys,  and  Alderneys,  was  undertak    ..     During  the  next  decade  the  dairy- 
interest  was  confined  mostly  to  New  England  and  the  Middle  States,  with  a 
little  activity  in  the  North-West.      Not  until  the  conception  of  the  modern 
cheese-factory  system,  and  the  demonstration  of  its  marked  success,  did  the 
West  give  much  attention  to  the  subject. 

Cheese  is  altogether  the  older  of  the  two  sister-products  of  the  dairy ;  and 
its  first  manufacture,  more  or  less  crude,  began  away  back  in  the  obscure  past. 
It  was  a  recognized  article  of  food  with  the  Greeks  and  early 
Romans,  to  whom  butter  was  known  only  as  an  ointment  for  the 
toilet,  not  as  an  article  of  diet.  Even  yet,  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  butter  is 
sold  by  apothecaries  as  a  vegetable  oil  for  medicinal  preparations,  though  not 
used  exclusively  for  such  purposes  by  any  means.  Unsalted  butter,  too,  is 
used  to  a  great  extent  by  Europeans.  The  practice  of  salting  it  —  doubtless 
intended  originally  for  preservintr  it,  but  afterwards  resorted  to  for  the  taste  — 
seems  to  be  more  of  an  English  and  American  custom.  Partly  from  the 
nature  of  the  two  preparations,  ami  jiartly  because  of  the  greater  attention 
given  to  cheese-making,  this  article  is  found  in  far  greater  variety  in  Europe 
tlian  is  butter ;  and  many  of  the  delicate  and  peculiar  varieties  of  foreign 
cheese  have  been  unequalled  by  any  American  product  for  flavor,  whereas 
no  butter  in  the  world  surpasses  that  of  our  dairies. 

Until  about  1830  cheese  was  made  in  this  country  by  the  farmers  exclu- 


Cheese. 


128 


INDUSTRIAL    li  STOR'^ 


cheeie- 
making. 


sively,  and  generally  in  their  own  farmhouses,  in  small  quantities.  The 
Early  hiito-  cheeses  were  taken  to  the  neighboring  village  or  town,  and  cx- 
ry  of  cheeie-  changed  for  groceries  or  dry-goods,  without  any  thought  of  tiie 
mak  ng.  trade  with  large  cities,  or  the  export  business.     If,  in  the  course 

of  the  season,  the  housewife  made  more  than  a  dozen  cheeses  of  thirty  or 
forty  pounds  each,  she  thouglu  she  was  doing  unusually  well.  However,  the 
Firtt  expor-  demand  for  this  product  continually  increased  among  the  workinf;- 
tation.  classes  at  home  and  abroad ;  and  our  export  trade,  chiefly  witli 

England,  began  as  early  as  1 790. 

Along  toward  1830  the  i)rofits  to  be  realized  from  cheese-making,  whicli 
Proereiiin  "^^^  more  remunerative  than  any  other  branch  of  agriculture 
in  the  Middle  and  Kastern  States,  began  to  be  realized.  In 
Herkimer  County,  New  York,  a  change  began  to  take  place  in 
the  methods  of  manufacture  which  had  been  formerly  in  use.    The  herds  had 

been  milked  in  the  open 
yards,  the  curds  were  worked 
in  tubs,  the  cheeses  squeezed 
in  rude  log-presses,  and  laid 
away  to  cure  in  a  corner  of 
the  cellar  or  of  some  "  spare 
room."  Hut  now  more  sys- 
tem was  employed ;  and 
apartments,  antl  even  sepa- 
rate buildings,  were  con- 
structed on  the  farm  express- 
ly for  this  work.  \  contribu- 
tor to  "  Harpers'  Magazine  " 
says  of  this  stage  of  the  in- 
dustry's development,  — 
"The  face  of  the  county 

CHURN       ~ "  (Herkimer)   became   dotted 

with  dairy-houses  as  with 
corn-cribo.  These  were,  for  the  most  part,  simple,  unpretentious  one-story 
Herkimer  Structures,  distinguished  from  the  other  out-buildings  by  closely- 
County.  battened  cracks  and   protruding  stovepipe.     The  apparatus  was 

simple  and  rude,  and  the  system  of  unnfacture  a  family's  secret,  imparted 
with  vvise  looks  and  an  oracular  phras(  ,  Skill  was  vested  in  intuition  :  it  was 
the  maiden's  dower,  the  matron's  pride.  ...  It  was  during  this  period  of  severe 
application  and  large  rewards  that  Herkimer  County  achieved  that  reputation 
for  fancy  cheese  which  is  still  her  traditional  right." 

Cheese  prod-  •^"  '^^*  °f  ^^  distribution  of  the  cheese-production  at  the 
uct  prior  to  end  of  twenty  years  *f  this  experience  may  be  gathered  from  the 
'  ^'  following  statement   v.f  the  cheese  production,  in  pounds,  from 

the  census  of  1850  :  — 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


129 


New  York       . 

•        49.741.413 

Ohio        .... 

20,S|(;,S42 

Vermont . 

8,720,834 

Massachusetts 

7,088,142 

Connecticut     . 

S.3f'3.277 

New  Ilanipsliirc 

3,19c,  563 

Pennsylvania  . 

2,503,034 

Maine 

1.434.454 

Illinois    . 

1,278,225 

Michigan 

1,011,492 

Other  .States    . 

3,306,917 

Total 

•     '05.S35.f<93 

Y\\  tKi<  it  will  \\it*  t 

P(>n 

tlint 

M..V 

ir  Vo 

rlr  ni:i(li> 

ni'iirlv  li:ilf  nf  tlif    t'l 

juodiK  t  ;  anil  that,  except  Ohio,  the  New-Kngland  States  were  the  only  others 
tli.it  yielded  any  considerable  (juantity.  The  only  other  State  besides  the  above- 
11. lined  which  made  over  half  a  million  pounds  was  Indiana,  which  is  credited 
with  624,564  pounds. 


m 


II 


SHORT-HORN  BULL. 


It  was  just  at  this  time  that  the  factory  system  was  invented,  which, 
being  widely  imitated,  gave  so  great  a  stimulus  to  the  business.  Factory  sys- 
It  may  be  remarked  in  this  connection,  that  not  only  in  this  coun-  *^™  ^eviied. 
try,  but  also  in  Europe,  was  the  "  American  system  "  adopted.  The  cheese 
factory  is  the  gift  of  the  New- York  dairymen  to  the  world. 


f 


[\ 

lit 

wm.' 


Jeiae  Wil 

liamt. 


130  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

There  lived  in  Oneida  County,  New  York,  near  Rome,  a  gentleman  named 
Jesse  Williams,  who  had  achieved  a  great  reputation  for  his  cheeses  ;  and  at  that 
time  reputation  was  money,  for  it  brought  higher  prices  for  dairy 
products.  In  185 1  one  of  his  sons  was  married,  and  went  to  live  at 
an  adjacent  farm.  For  the  sale  of  his  son's  cheese  product,  Mr.  Williams  con- 
tracted with  the  marketmcn  at  the  prices  he  obtaincil  for  his  own.  IJut  the 
«|uestion  arose,  how  he  should  insure  its  (juality.  At  first  he  thought  of  going 
to  his  son's  house  every  day  to  superintend  the  "  make  ; "  but  this  was  imprac- 
ticable. Accordingly,  he  proposed  that  the  milk  be  brought  to  him.  It  is 
always  the  case,  in  enlarging  a  manufacturing  business,  that  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion is  proportionately  lessened  ;  antl,  if  the  price  of  tlie  goods  be  maintained, 
the  profits  are  augmented.  A  few  of  Mr.  Williams's  neighbors  brought  milk  to 
his  establishment  for  three  years,  and  realized  these  advantages  ;  and  then  tiic 
value  of  the  system  began  to  be  appreciated,  and  similar  factories  were  buiil 
elsewhere.  But  up  to  i860  there  were  not  more  than  twenty  of  dicm  in 
operation. 

The  influence  of  the  fixctory  system  was  not  j)erce[)tibly  felt  in  i860;  for 
the  total  product  of  that  year  was  a  trifle  less  than  that  of  1850.  Only  a  slight 
Firsteffectof  ^'^'fti'iS  ''^  'ts  tlistribution  was  discernible.  New  York  siiowed  the 
factory  sys-  most  trifling  falling-off  in  her  production  :  so,  too,  did  the  New- 
**""■  England  Slates.     While  there  was  a  corresponding  increase  in  tlu- 

Ohio  basin  and  the  North- West,  Wisconsin  and  California  showed  a  marked 
development,  but  one  of  promise  rather  than  attainment. 

During  the  next  decade  there  was  a  tremendous  springing-up  of  factories. 
Knowledge   of  the  system  had  then  been  well  disseminated.      linterprising 
Rapidin-        farmers  in  every  dairy  district  organized  for  tl)e  purpose  of  build 
crease  of  fac-  ing  a  factory.     The  economy  of  the  plan  was  apparent.     They 
*°'  "'■  would  bring  their  milk  in  large  cans  every  morning,  or  else  put 

them  where  the  factory  team  could  pick  them  up  on  its  rounds.  Contracts 
were  made  for  so  many  pounds  of  cheese  for  so  much  milk,  and  an  allowance 
Mode  of  ^^  ^°  many  cents  per  pound  for  the  season's  "  make."  A  strict 
operating  account  of  each  day's  milk-deliveries  was  kept,  and  suitable  tests 
*  ""■  and  regulations  resorted  to  in  order  to  prevent  watering,  or  other- 

wise impairing  the  (juality  of  the  milk.  The  prosperity  of  one  factory  beini,' 
noticed,  often  a  rival  establishment  would  be  erected  in  the  same  neighborhood. 
By  1866  New- York  State  had  more  than  500  factories,  and  in  1870  they  num- 
bered 1,313  in  the  whole  country.  While  the  total  product  had  increased,  in 
round  numbers,  from  105,000,000  to  163,000,000  pounds,  all  but  53,000,000 
of  it  was  made  in  factories,  and  the  rest  on  farms  as  of  old.  As  will  be  seen 
from  a  comparison  of  the  following  table  with  the  last,  the  increase  in  the 
aggregate  was  confined  almost  to  the  increase  in  New- York  State ;  and  the 
slight  gains  in  the  West  were  made  at  the  expense  of  New  England  mostly, 
Vermont  holding  her  own  better  than  her  sister  States. 


New  Vork 

Ohio 

\criii()nt  . 

niinois 

Mass.nchusett!! . 
Ciliforni,! 
Wisconsin 
J'ciiiisylv.ini;i    . 
.Micliijr.in  . 

<-'onnccticut 
low.i 

Maine 

Nfw  Hampshire 
Indiana     . 
Othf  States  and 

Total 


In  1877  the 
000  pounds,  or 
'lilt her  extensio 
our  export  dem 
iiually  is  now  ab 
Although  re 
exported  from  ti 
been  a  constant 
'•Europe  continua 
jToducing  more 
Our  cheese  goes 
with  bread  and 
In   1790  we 
amount  was  abno 
*vas  only  about  i 
1,000,000,  e.xcep 
'lie  export  was  i, 
kinier-county  pro 
tlie  figures  increa 
the  export  of  18. 
years  the  average 
L>een  as  follows  : 


OF    THE    UNITED    SiATES. 


131 


New  York        .        .        . 

Ohio         .... 

Vermont  .... 

Illinois      .... 

Massachusetts  . 

(aliforni.! 

Wisconsin 

I'cnnsylvania    . 

Michigan. 

Connecticut 

Iowa         .... 

Maine       .... 

New  Hampshire 

Iiuiiana     .... 

Othe-  States  and  Territories 

Total 


NO.   FAC- 
TOKIKS. 


818 

'95 

28 

69 

23 

54 
27 
30 
7 
14 


'7 
I. '9 


rnt'NDS  FACTORV 
MAUE. 


POIINDS  FAKM- 
MAUU. 


78,006,048 

I5.'>^4.390 
2,984,179 

4.07  2.30 ' 
1,885,436 

1,696,783 

1,647,467 

1,650,997 

27,400 

356,906 

-'J-:5«' 
107,680 

893.^7-: 


109,435,229 


22,769,964 
8,169,486 
4,830,700 
1,661,703 

2.245.873 

3.395-074 

1,591,798 

1,145,209 

670,804 

2,031,194 

1,087,741 

1,152,590 

849, 1 1 8 

283,807 

1,557,090 


53.492.153 


TOTAL  PRODUCT. 

100,776,013 

24.i53.S76 

7,814,879 

5,734,004 

4.'3'.309 

3.395.074 
3,288,581 
2,792,676 
2,321,801 
2,058,594 
1,344,647 
1,152,590 
872,368 

391.487 
2,450,362 

162,927,382 


In  1877  the  total  cheese  prochict  of  the  eoiintry  was  estimated  at  300,000,- 
000  pounds,  or  nearly  twice  that  of  1870.     'I'he  increase  is  largely  due  to  the 
further  extension  t)f  the  factory  system,  though,  in  a  measure,  to   Cheeieprod- 
uur  export  dem.ind.     The  total  value  of  our  cheese  product  an-   "•=* '"  ''77- 
uually  is  now  about  $36,000,000. 

Although  reliable  data  are  not  accessible,  it  is  i)robable  that  cheese  was 
cxjwrted  from  this  country  pre\  ions  to  the  Revolution.  Since  then  there  has 
been  a  constant  though  varying  export  trade  in  this  commodity.  Export  of 
luirope  continually  seeks  food  sujjplies  here  ;  and,  with  facilities  for  "=*^""' 
producing  more  than  we  need  at  home,  we  are  easily  enabled  to  sell  abroad. 
Our  cheese  goes  almost  altogether  to  (Ireat  Britain,  whose  working-men  use  it, 
with  bread  and  beer,  as  one  great  staple  of  •'leir  diet. 

In   1790  we  exported   144,734   pounds  of  cheese.     Five  years  later  the 
amount  was  abnormally  large,  —  2)343.093  ;  for  the  average  from  1795  to  1805 
was  only  about  1,400,000;  and  thereafter  the  figures  did  not  reach   sta,isticg 
1,000,000,  except  in  1819,  1825,  i83i,and  1833,  until  1841,  when   relating  to 
tlio  export  was  1,748,471  pounds.     This  was  at  the  time  the  Her-   ""P""*' 
kimer-county  product  was  becoming  so  famous.     During  the  next  eight  years 
tlie  figures  increased  very  rapidly ;  and  in  1849  they  were  17,433,682,  —  tenfold 
the  export  of  184 1.     A  slight  subsidence  ensued  in  the  trade,  and  for  eleven 
years  the  average  export  was  about  8,360,000  pounds.     Since  then  they  have 
been  as  follows  :  — 


■'iri! 


! 


I 


13a  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

POUNDt. 
1861 32,361,438 

"863 34,052,678 

"863 42,045,054 

1864 47.7S'..129 

1865 53,089,468 

1866 36,41 1,(;85 

"867 52.35=.i27 

1868 5i,o<)7,203 

1869 J9,<Jtx),307 

1870 57.-96.j27 

1S71 63,698,867 

1872 66,204,025 

1873 80,366,540 

1874 90,611,077 

1875 101,010,853 

1S76 97,676,264 

1877 112,430,384 

Our  i)rincipal  rivals  in  tiic  European  market  now  are  Canada  and  Aus- 
tralia. Yet  wc  arc  able  to  dispose  of  more  than  a  third  of  our  procUn  t 
yearly  at  good  figures,  and  have  little  occasion  to  worry  about  compe- 
tition. 

Hut  little  attempt  has  been  made  in  this  coimtry  to  manufacture  the  more 
delicate  and  richer  cheeses  for  which  the  Old  World  is  so  famous  ;  instead, 
Quality  of  there  is  a  great  temptation  to  rob  the  cheese  of  i)art  of  its  ri(  hness 
cheese.  fg^  butter.     Probablv  there  is  more  skim-milk  cheese  made  here 

tiian  cheese  from  the  unskimmed.  Within  a  few  years,  attempts  have  been 
made,  though  with  slight  succ  ess,  to  introduce  into  the  skim-milk  the  clean  fat 
from  which  an  imitation  of  butter  is  made  ;  namely,  oleo-margarine.  The 
object  is  to  restore  an  animal  oil  to  replace  that  of  the  cream.  It  is  found, 
however,  that  the  skim-milk  does  not  take  up  the  oleo-margarine  readily,  and 
very  little  such  cheese  is  made  or  marketed. 

The  history  of  American  butter-making  is  rather  less  eventful  than  that  of 
cheese-making.  In  (piantity,  we  produce,  perhaps,  three  times  as  much  butter 
American  ^'^  cheese,  although  provision-dealers  pretend  to  say  that  the  cen- 
sus returns  of  butter  making  fall  short  of  the  true  yield.  Butter  is 
consumed  in  much  larger  quantities,  but  probably  by  a  smaller 
number  of  people  in  the  country,  than  cheese.  Its  use  is  by  no  means  uni- 
versal. 

Among  the  several  reasons  why  this  particular  dairy-interest  has  had  so 

equable  and  quiet  a  growth  in  this  country,  the  most  conspicuous 

provement      are  the  want  of  any  marked  improvement  in  the  apparatus  for 

making  butter,  the  less  attention  given  to  the  foreign  market,  and 

the  greater  difficulties  of  insuring  excellence  in  the  quality  than 

in  the  manufacture  of  cheese. 


butter-mak 
ing. 


in  mode  of 
malcinK. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


•33 


From  pre- Revolutionary  times  until  to-day  the  churn  principally  used  in  the 
United  States  has  been  the  dash-chum,  oii^inally  small,  and  operated  l)y  hand, 
afterwards  nm  by  ilog-power  treadmill,  and,  in  regular  <:reameries 
of  the  modern  day,  by  steam,  yet  substantially  the  same  in  i)rin-   tngnota 
ciple.     American  butter,  in  lots,  has  proved  as  choice  as  any  made   •='•""="  ""♦" 

'  '  '  •  /  rtctntly. 

in  any  other  quarter  of  the  globe.  Hut  makers  have  not  studied 
uniformity  in  ([uality,  so  that  our  exports  could  have  a  fixed  standing.  This 
variability  is  strongly  complained  of  by  foreign  produce-buyers ;  and,  by  not 
remedying  the  evil,  American  dairymen  have  faileil  to  make  as  much  as  they 
might  of  the  foreign  market.  Finally,  butter-making,  which  involves  a  num- 
ber of  fine  points,  has  never  been  reduced  to  a  science  until  comparatively  a 
few  years  ago. 

In  the  first  place,  it  was  not  until  1830  or  1840  that  cattle  were  imported 
or  bred  with  a  special  view  to  dairy-purposes  to  any  great  extent.  Since  then 
there  has  been  much  done  in  this  direction.     Probably  it  has  not   , 

'  Improve- 

been  fairly  realized,  until  a  la*  r  date,  that  the  character  of  the   mentinani- 
fodder  which  cattle  receive  makes  a  difference  with  the  flavor  and   •"•'»'" 
IK  liness  of  their  milk,  as  does  also  their  health.     It  is  a  matter  of  butter,  and 
« oinparatively  recent  discovery  that  the  milk  of  different   cows  »"<«••  <>' 
varies  not  only  in  richness,  but  in  (juickness  with  which  its  butter  them, 
iomes  in  churning,  and  that  great  care  should  be  exercised  in 
mixing  milk,  lest  the  fullest  product  be  not  obtained.     The  importance  of 
ventilation  in  apartments  where  milk  is  set,  and  of  keeping  the  contents  of  the 
churn  at  just  the  right  temperature,  have  not  been  understood  until   cjuite 
recently.     Still,  now  that  the  factory  system  —  originally  devised  for  cheese- 
making,  and  employed  to  a  far  less  extent  for  butter  —  has  become  fairly 
established,  w^:  may  look  to  see  a  more  wide-spread  application  of  scientific 
principles  to  the  industry. 

In  the  earlier  part  of  the  present  century  butter  and  cheese  making  were 
principally  conducted  in  the  New- England  and  Middle  States,  although  the 
South  and  West  engaged  in  it  a  little.     Ohio  was  among   the 
earliest  to  attain  prominence  in  the  latter  section.     At  first  the   ^y  ?he  Eait 
Western  breeders   aimed  solely  at  beef.    Toward  the  middle  of  and  We«i  in 
this  century  they  gave  more  attention  to  dairy  products,  to  the  *|"« '"••"»• 
good  quality  of  which  the  nutritious  and  delicious  grasses  of  that 
section  were  peculiarly  adapted.     Consequently  there   has  been   a  marked 
<ievelopment  in  the  business  of  making  butter  in  the  West  and  North- West 
for  twenty  or  thirty  years  past ;  while,  with  the  exception  of  New  York,  Peni\- 
sylvania,  and  Vermont,  there  has  been  no  particular  gain  in  the  East.     Indeed, 
New  England  has  lost  ground,  on  the  whole,  as  have  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 
The  distribution  and  movement  of  the  industry  will  appear  from  the  following 
table:  — 


1 


134 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


1? 


11 


STATES. 

1850. 

i860. 

1870. 

New  York     . 

79,766,094 

103,097,280 

107,147,526 

Pennsylvania 

39,878,418 

58.653.5" 

60,834,644 

Ohio       . 

34.449.379 

48,543,162 

50,266,372 

Illinois  . 

12,526,543 

28,052,551 

36,083,405 

Iowa 

2,171,188 

11,953,666 

27,512,179 

Michigan 

7.065,878 

15,503,482 

24,400,185 

Indiana  . 

12,881,535 

18,306,651 

22,915.385 

Wisconsin 

3.633.750 

13,611,328 

22,473.036 

Vermont 

12,137,980 

15.900.359 

17,844,396 

Missouri 

7.834,359 

12,704,837 

14.455.825 

The  Virg-ivj-, 

11,089,359 

13,404,722 

12,023,744 

Kentucky 

9.947.523 

11,716,609 

11,879,978 

Maine     . 

9,243,811 

11,687,781 

1, 336,482 

Tennessee 

8,139,585 

10,017,787 

9.571.069 

Minnesota 

1,100 

2,957.673 

9,522,010 

New  Jersey    . 

9,487,210 

10,714,447 

0,266,023 

California 

70s 

3.095.035 

7.969.744 

Connecticut    . 

6,498,119 

7,620,912 

6,716,007 

Massachusetts 

8,071,370 

8,297.936 

6,559,161 

Other  States  . 

38,531,280 

53,761,623 

45.9'3.5i2 

Total 

313.345.306 

459.681,372 

514,092,683 

It  is  believed,  that,  within  the  past  few  years,  our  annual  product  of  butter 
has  been  raised  to  900,000,000  pounds,  but  not  by  any  sudden  leap.  It  is 
Value  of  believed,  rather,  that  the  figures  of  1870  should  be  larger  than  in 
product.  jj^ig  table.  The  estimated  value  of  the  total  product  annually  is 
now  about  $175,000,000. 

Butter  varies  greatly  in  quality,  according  to  the  season  and  locality  in 
which  it  is  made  ;  and,  as  some  of  the  poor  winter  butter  is  often  adulterated 
Quality  of  with  lard,  the  inferior  grades  generally  called  cooking-butter  are 
butter.  sometimes  little  better  than  soap-grease.     The  choicer  makes  of 

grass-butter,  on  the  other  hand,  are  rather  rare,  and  much  sought  after.  Some 
dairying  States  that  produce  small  ijuantities  have  excelled  in  quality.  New- 
England  butter  has  always  had  a  high  rank,  especially  that  made  in  Vermont. 
In  New- York  State,  Orange  County  long  held  the  palm ;  but  the  other  large 
producing  counties  —  St.  Lawrence,  Delaware,  Jefferson,  Chatauqua,  Chenango, 
and  Otsego  —  have  also  good  reputation  1.  Pennsylvania  butter,  especially  that 
made  near  Philadelphia,  has  generally  stood  high.  Even  after  the  Western 
States  became  large  producers,  their  product  did  not  bring  as  good  a  price ; 
but  of  late  yeau^  the  quality  has  very  decidedly  improved. 

Our  butter  exports  have  not  amounted  to  much  until  within 
a  few  years.     In  1872  they  amounted  to  but  7,746,261  pounds:  in  1877  they 


Export. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


135 


Origin  of  it. 


aggregated  23,150,614,  and  were  worth  $4,527,452.    This,  added  to  the  value 
ot  the  cheese  export,  makes  $18,057,430. 

Within  the  past  five  years  the  manufacture  of  an  imitation  of  butter,  called 
oko-margarine,  has  attained  sufficient  prominence  to  deserve  mention  in  this 
connection.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  attempts  to  replace  oieo-marKa- 
the  natural  oil  of  cream  with  other  animal  fat  in  making  cheese  ''""• 
from  skim-milk.  That  practice  is  resorted  to  only  to  a  limited  extent,  and 
in  such  cases  the  suct-fat  introduced  constitutes  only  a  small  proportion  of 
the  article  produced.  The  substitution,  however,  is  complete  in  the  manu- 
facture of  artificial  butter,  inasmuch  as  this  substance  is  all  fat,  and  not 
( ascine.  Moreover,  the  business  is  earned  on  to  a  much  greater  extent  than 
the  production  of  olco-margarine  cheese. 

The  itlea  seems  to  have  originated  in  England  over  thirty  years  ago.  In 
1846  one  William  Palmer  took  out  a  patent  for  "treating  fat  or  fatty  matters 
tVom  beef,  mutton,  veal,  and  lamb  :  "  but  the  product  obtained 
was  quite  unlike  butter  in  color  and  taste ;  it  looked  more  like 
lard.  The  first  patent  taken  out  in  this  country  was  issued  in  1871  to  H.  W. 
Ihadley,  and  the  second  to  one  Peyrouso  in  the  following  November.  These 
lioiii  employed  beef-suet  chiefly,  anil  were  intended  rather  for  cooking  than 
tor  use  on  the  table.  The  next  improvement  was  that  embraced  by  the  Paraf 
[latent,  in  .\pril,  1873. 

riic  product  of  this  process  is  called  oleo-margarine,  from  the  supposition 
tliat  its  two  elements  are  oleine  and  margarine.  The  so-called  margarine, 
liowever,  is  resolvable  into  stearine  and  palmitine ;  and,  besides  constituent* 
tliese,  the  new  i)roduct  contains  butyrine,  one  of  the  oils  of  true  of  oieo-mar- 
Initter,  in  a  small  degree.  The  manufacture  is  conducted  *'""'• 
secretly,  but  is  said  to  be  exceedingly  cleanly.  Its  prominent  features  are 
the  extraction  of  clear  fat  from  clean  beef-suet,  and  churning  it  with  milk. 
No  coloring-matter  is  used,  inasmuch  as  the  substance  is  already  orange- 
hued.  It  is,  of  course,  salted  like  ortlinary  butter.  In  appearance  it  differs 
from  real  butter  only  in  being  less  waxy,  and  in  taste  chiefly  in  the  absence 
of  flavor.  Indeed,  the  resemblance  is  so  strong,  that  only  experts  can  dis- 
tinguish between  the  two  compounds. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  olco-margarine.  The  first  may  be  called  the 
"original  and  genuine."  In  making  it  the  oil  is  adulterated  with  just  enough 
cream  to  allow  of  its  being  churned,  the  proportion  of  cream  to  oil  being 
about  one  to  twenty.  Tiie  "original  and  genuine  "  is  made  in  two  kinds  of 
large  factories  operating  under  the  Mege  patent.  Butter-dealers  oieo-marg«- 
( iaim  to  l)e  able  to  distinguisji  i\m  article  from  dairy  butter  quite  '  "*" 
readily,  lacking  as  it  does  the  " texture  '  of  the  latter.  The  second  kind  is 
that  in  which  the  oil  has  been  largely  adulterated  with  cream,  —  perhaps  with 
fifty  or  sixty  per  cent  of  cream.  This  kind  is  made  by  country  dairymen, 
and,  it  is  believed,  in  considerable  (juantities ;  and  to  detect  its  composition 
baffles  the  skill  of  any  except  the  most  experienced  dealer. 


H 


136 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


in  Philadel 
phia. 


A   Philadelphia   correspondent   of   one   of   the  New- York  newspapers  ' 

describes  seeing  half  a  ton  of  "  ole  "  in  the  Quaker  City,  fresh  from  New  York, 

„,   .  and  labelled  "PhiladaBest  l^rint."     He  say.    it  looked  exactly 

r  int  appear-  ^  ^ 

•nee  of  "ole"   like  the  best  butter  coming  to  that  market;  but  it  was  made  of 
any  thing  except  pure  cream.     It  tasted  a  little  like  butter ;  but 
when  one  tliinks  of  fat  and  stearine  and  suet,  and  a  shade  of 
tallow,  what  would  be  his  thoughts  when  spreading  it  on  a  piece  of  bread? 

It  is  prepared  in  long  flat  rolls  of  a  pound  each,  a  shape  so  well  known 
by  the  lovers  of  butter  made  in  the  counties  of  Pennsylvania.  The  Produce 
Exchange  are  frightened  about  this  new-comer,  and  have  taken  up  arms 
against  it.  While  they  fight,  an  agent  has  been  appointed,  and  it  will  be 
sold  in  spite  of  all  opposition.  What  the  proportions  of  grease  exactly  are 
the  correspondent  did  not  know :  but  there  is  at  least  a  candle  of  tallow  in 
every  pound ;  so  that,  when  one  eats  his  penny-dip,  he  may  expect  a  double 
portion  of  the  Quaker's  "  light  within."  The  New- York  stockholders  in  the 
new  company  say  they  can,  with  their  present  facilities,  turn  out  seventy  thou- 
sand pounds  per  day.  It  is  intended  for  the  European  market ;  but  the 
first  batch  turned  up  there,  perhaps  for  the  sake  of  getting  references.  In 
appearance  it  cannot  be  distinguished  from  the  very  highest-priced  butter ; 
and,  thouf.h  this  is  sold  for  about  ten  cents  per  pound  less  than  the  best  and 
genuine,  it  certainly  cannot  cost  more  than  twelve  cents  per  pound. 

The  success  of  this  latest  experiment  has  led  to  the  manufacture  of  oleo- 
margarine in  New- York  City  on  .t  large  scale,  and  the  institution  of  lesser 
Success  of  factories  under  the  same  patent  in  other  cities.  Inasmuch  as  the 
the  industry,  article  can  be  produced  so  much  more  cheaply  than  butter,  it 
proves  a  formidable  rival  to  the  real  dairy  product ;  and  the  dairymen  have 
secured  the  enactment  of  laws  in  New  York  and  Connecticut,  as  they  doubt- 
less will  in  other  States  before  long,  requiring  oleo-m  irgarine  to  be  sold  as 
such,  and  not  as  butter.  Upon  the  first  announcement  of  this  industry,  popu 
lar  prejudice  rose  high  against  it ;  but  the  new  compound  is  already  manufac- 
tured and  consumed  to  a  very  great  extent,  —  probably  not  short  of  two  million 
pounds  annually. 

'  Journal  of  Commerce. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATE!*. 


m 


CHAFFER    XII. 

THE    HORSE. 


NOWHERE  in  the  world  is  the  horse  prized  so  highly  as  in  Arabia,  ar»d 
nothing  expresses  an  Arabian's  admiration  for  the  animal  more  clearly 
tlian  the  story  told  by  an  Arab  concerning  his  origin.     When  Abd-el-Kader 
was  questioned   on    this  point   by  the    French  Government,  he   Hcneof 
replied,  "  When  (lod  wished  to  create  the  horse,  he  said  to  the  Arabian 
^uiith  wind,  '  I  wish  to  form  a  creature  out  of  thee  :  be  thou  con-  °''''*"' 
(Icnsed.*    Afterward  came  the  angel  Gabriel,  and  took  a  handful  of  that  matter, 
and  presented  it  to  God,  whd  formed  of  it  a  light-brown  or  sorrel  horse,  saying, 
'  I  have  called  thee  Horse.     I  have  created  thee  an  Arab,  and  I  have  given 
thee  the  color  rouenenita  (red  mixed  with  black).      I  have  bound   fortune 
upon  the  mane  which  falls  over  thine  eyes.    Thou  shalt  be  the  lord  of  all 
other  animals.     Men  shall  follow  thee  whithersoever  thou  goest.     Good  for 
the  pursuit  as  for  flight.     Thou  shalt  fly  without  wings.     Riches  shall  repose 
in  thy  loins,  and  wealth  shall  be  made  by  thine  intercession.'  " 

Fossil  remains  prove  the  existence  of  the  horse  in  the  New  as  well  as  in 
the  Old  World  before  the  flood.     H<?  traversed  our  soil  as  the  con-   oeoiogicBi 
temporary  of   the  mastodon.     While  his  race   here  became  ex-  ■«' "'  hor»o. 
tinct,  and  he  was  unrepresented  in  the  Western  Continent  at  the  time  of  its  dis- 
covery by  Columbus,  in  the  Old  World  he  was  fortunately  preserved. 

When  Columbus  made  his  second  jou'ney  to  the  New  World,  in  1493,  ^^ 
took  horses  along  with  him ;  but  Cabega  de  Vaca  first  introduced  them  into 
the  United  States  in  1527.  Forty-two  were  imported;  but  all  perished  soon 
after  their  arrival  in  Florida.  The  wild  horses  found  on  the  plains  importation 
of  Texas  r»nd  the  Western  prairies  sprang  from  a  Spanish  ancestry,  of  horsei  by 
and  probably  descended  from  those  brought  over  by  De  Soto,  ** """  "*' 
which  were  abandoned  when  that  ill-starred  expedition  came  to  an  end.  In 
1 604  a  French  lawyer,  M.  Lescarbot,  brought  over  horses  to  Acadia ;  and 
from  these  the  French,  who  extended  their  settlements  into  Canada  in  1608, 
took  the  horses  which  probably  laid  the  foundation  of  what  are  now  known  as 
Canadian  ponies,  having,  no  doubt,  lost  much  of  their  original  size  in  conse* 


m 


m 


\u\yi>;  •■ 


i,  .   i'-^ 


»38 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


% 


^i>i 


■•if« 


i^  i  I:  I 


W\ 


que.ice  of  the  severity  of  the  climate  and  scanty  forage.  Though  degenerated 
in  size,  they  still  show  traces  of  Norman  blood,  from  which  they  probably 
sprang. 

Many  improvements  have  occurred  in  tiie  horse  since  his  re-appearance  in 
this  country.  The  changes  wrought,  especially  during  the  last  fifty  years,  have 
been  marvellous ;  yet  may  they  not  be  regarded  as  indications  only  of  otlur 
Improve-  ^"*^  ^^''^  niorc  important  improvements,  when  a  still  higher  degree 
mentsinthe  of  knowledge  is  actiuircd  respecting  the  rearing  and  training  of 
""'■  them?    It  is  a  striking  proof  of  what  may  happen  to  animals  under 

domestication  ;  and,  however  great  or  small  may  be  the  (luantity  of  truth  con- 
tained in  Darwin's  famous  lAw  concerning  the  origin  of  animals,  no  one  will 
deny  the  magnitude  of  the  ciianges  wrought  in  the  horse  in  respect  to  his  si/c, 
speed,  strength,  and  other  ([ualities,  since  special  attention  was  paid  to  these 
matters,  nor  (juestion  the  agency  by  which  these  results  have  been  produced. 
Great  attention  has  been  given  to  this  subject  during  the  last  fifty  years,  which 
we  shall  now  proceed  brietly  to  sketch. 

Tin;     IKOrilNcMIOKSE. 

The  trotting-horse  is  very  largely  the  product  of  .American  thought  and 
cultivation.  Trotting,  in  most  cases,  is  an  ac(iuiivd  gait  ;  nor  has  much  atten- 
tion been  paid  to  it  until  within  sixty-five  years.  The  ancestry  of  the  trotting 
hor.'>,  however,  goes  farther  bac  k.  Messenger,  tVom  wlii(  h  many 
of  the  fast  horses  in  this  country  have  descended,  was  imported 
into  Philadelphia  from  IJigland  in  .May,  lySS.  Messenger  was  thorougli-brcd. 
and,  i)rior  to  his  importation,  ran  races  on  the  luiglisii  turf  wiiti  moderate 
.success;  and  without  doubt  it  was  the  intention  of  those  who  bnjught  hrm  to 
this  country  to  make  him  the  sire  of  horsds  that  should  gallop  rather  thati 
trot.  His  father,  Mambrino,  evincecl  a  natural  dis])osition  to  trot  ;  and  this 
trait  was  inherited  by  many  of  his  jjrogeny.  Messenger  was  trained  for  the 
running  turf  in  ICngland  ;  and  in  17S8  the  running  horse  was  jwpular  in 
certain  sections  of  .America,  and  hence  the  inference  is  clear  that  he  was 
imported.  His  color  was  gray,  and  he  was  fifteen  hands  aid  three  inches 
high,  and  the  colts  which  were  sired  by  him  showed  fine  form.  In  Pennsyl- 
vania, however,  —  into  which  State  he  was  first  imported,  —  the  legislature 
passed  a  law  prohibiting  racing  ;  and  so  the  progeny  of  this  famous  stallion 
was  trained  for  the  road  instead  of  the  track.  In  the  autunm  of  1793  Mes 
senger  left  Pennsylvania  for  New  York,  where  he  remained  until  iSoS,  when 
he  died  of  the  colic  at  Oyster  Hay,  L.I.  .As  he  had  long  been  famous  and 
])opular,  he  was  buried  with  milit.ary  honors,  a  volley  of  musketry  being  fired 
over  his  grave. 

As  the  trotting-horse  was  not  fashionable  at  that  period,  the  record  is  not 
veiy  perfect  concerning  the  descendants  of  this  famous  horse.     "  Many  of  the 


Messenger. 


H 


i^ 


ImkL 


^^KiHlil^ 


;j^'" 


(^^■^•^^^urr  \ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


»39 


i 

ihil 

UVKii 

m 

•l 

*l!iHI 

■  'SjlKfll 

i.  'A 

i4J 

i 

i.ll.i 


lIlNI'.sliK.A    ll.MC-F. 


14° 


INDUSTRIAL    UISIORY 


earlier  horses  which  won  (hstinclioii  on  the  track  —  such  as  Top-Gallant, 
Early  trot-  I'aul  I'ry,  and  \\'halcl)()ne  —  are  known  to  have  ilescended  from  him. 
ting-horses.  Alxlallah,  the  son  of  Mamhrino,  and  the  grandson  of  Messenger, 
proved  to  be  one  of  the  liest  trotling-sires  that  the  country  has  produced. 
The  horse,  however,  was  not  much  ajjpreciated  in  his  time.  His  best  daugh- 
ter, probably,  was  Lady  Hlanche,  a  mare  that  ''luired  celebrity  on  the  road 
and  turf,  and  which  lived  to  a  green  old  age,  and  literally  died  in  the  harness. 
It  is  claimed,  that,  witii  proper  care,  she  would  have  trotted  very  fast.  Thirty 
and  forty  years  ago  the  art  of  training  and  driving  had  not  been  reduced  to  a 
science  as  now.  Abdallah's  best  son  was  the  horse  now  so  widely  known  as 
Rysdyk's  Hambletonian.  Through  sire  and  dam,  Hambletonian  has  four 
direct  courses  of  Messenger  blood.  .As  he  is  a  leading  progenitor,  perhaps 
a  tabulated  pedigree  will  interest  the  reader.  Tiiis  one  pedigree  will  illustrate 
the  manner  in  which  the  record  of  eijuine  genealogy  is  kept." 


Rysdyk's 
Hambletonian 


L  Mcssent;cr. 
Maniliiino  \  i  S,uii.rl<rnut. 

fAbdallah^  M)ani;  I  Wliiiiigig. 


.\nia/onia. 


\  Dai 


Mr.  ndl-fdundci. 


r  Miss  Slanicrkin. 


pi. 
Charles  Kent  Marc  ]  I 

(  <  )nc  i;yc  ] 


ll.inihlctonian. 
'  i  Messenger, 

f  Dam  l)y  Messenger  ; 


(  I  )ani  hy  Messenger.' 


By  many  it  is  claimed  thai  H.imbletonian  owes  his  success  as  a  trotting- 
sire  from  his  strong  infusion  of  Messenger  blood.  He  was  foaled  .May  5, 
Hambieto-  1S49.  on  the  farm  of  Jonas  .Seeley.  jun.,  near  Chester,  Orange 
"'ai'  County,  N.Y.     When  five  weeks  old,   Mr.  William  Rysdyk  pur- 

<hased  him  with  his  dam  for  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars.  Mr.  Rysdyk 
was  a  poor  man  tiien.  The  horse  ])roved  a  mine  of  wealth.  Of  late  years 
the  extravagant  jjrice  of  five  hundred  dollars  the  season  has  been  ])ai(l  for  his 
ser\ices  ;  and  at  this  figure  his  list  has  always  been  more  than  full.  His  colts 
have  usually  commanded  large  pric  es  ;  and  by  him  was  sired  the  celebrated 
Dexter,  wiiose  record  is  world-wide. 

In  New  I'-ngland  the  Morgan  horse  has  a  fine  reputation,  and  his  history 
is  worth  giving  to  our  readers.  During  the  last  century  a  good  many  English 
or  thorough-bred  horses  were  brought  from  Virginia  into  Connecti- 
cut, and  were  ke])t  in  the  vicinity  of  Hartford  :  among  them  were 
Highlander,  King  William,  and  another,  called  Heautiful  Hoy,  or  True  Hriton. 
He  was  probably  thorough-bred,  and  was  stolen,  so  it  is  said,  from  (len. 
I)e  Lancey  at  King's  IJridge.  I''or  several  years  he  was  kept  at  Springfield, 
Mass.,  and  became  the  sire  of  Justin  Morgan,  which  was  foaled  in  West  Sjjring- 
field  in  i  793,  and  which,  as  another  writer  has  truthfully  said,  "  has  had  a  post- 


Morgan. 


'   H.iriK:rs'  M.ig.izinc,  vul.  xKJi.  p.  603. 


OF    77/ fi    UX/TED    STATES. 


141 


m 


\m 


if 


f  i 


I4» 


/\D  US  TKIA  I.    HIS  TONY 


Hii  history. 


Description. 


Vk. 


humous  fame  surpassed  by  that  of  no  other  animal  that  over  stood  in  New 
t^ngland." 

When  two  years  old,  he  was  taken  to  Randolph,  Vt.  Like  most  of  the 
stock  horses  of  his  time,  especially  in  the  more  remote  sections,  he  had  to 
work  hard  in  clearing  up  new  land  ;  and  in  this  laborious  kind  of 
work  he  exhibited  tiie  most  wonderful  strength  and  willingness  at 
a  pull,  and  the  most  remarkable  patience  t  a  dead  lift,  —  a  characteristic,  one 
would  suppose,  strongly  in  contrast  with  his  nervv  's  playfulness  at  the  end  of 
a  halter  or  under  the  saddle.  He  would  "  out-draw,  out-walk,  out-trot,  and 
out-run"  any  and  every  horse  that  was  ever  matched  against  him  ;  and  that, 
too,  notwithstanding  the  f;ict  that  many  of  them  were  much  larger  and  heavier 
animals.  Strength  and  speed,  as  compared  with  the  horses  of  his  time,  and 
endurance,  were  characteristics  in  which  he  especially  excelled.  He  survived 
the  hai^.iiips  to  which  he  was  almost  constantly  subjected  for  twenty-nine 
yearr,  anil  then  received  a  kick  from  hjrses  in  the  same  yard  which  resulted 
in  his  death  in  the  year  182 1, 

He  impressed  his  fine  (pialities  upon  his  offspring  to  an  unusual  degree,  as 
they  still  appear  untpiestionably  in  his  descendants.  He  is  described  as  a 
small  liorse,  only  about  fourteen  hands  high,  and  his  weight,  by 
estimation,  about  nine  huntlred  and  fifty  pounds.  He  was  a  beau- 
tiful dark  bay,  with  scarcely  a  white  hair  on  his  body.  His  legs  were  black. 
His  mane  and  tail  were  black,  coarse,  and  tliick,  with  long,  straight  hair  free 
from  curls.  He  is  descriljcd  as  having  a  good  head  of  medium  size,  lean  and 
long,  with  a  straight  face,  broad  and  good  forehead,  and  fine,  small  ears  sit 
wide  apart.  He  had  a  very  short  back,  and  wide  and  muscular  loins,  but 
rather  a  long  body,  round,  and  close  ribbed  up.  He  was  compact,  or,  as 
many  would  say,  he  was  very  snug'y  built ;  with  a  deep,  wide  chest,  and  pro- 
jecting breast-bone  ;  short,  close-jointed  legs,  wide  and  thin,  but  remarkably 
muscular,  and  with  some  long  hair  about  and  above  the  fetlocks,  —  a  pecul- 
iarity whic:h  he  imparted  to  many  of  his  offspring. 

The  old  Justin  Morgan  was  said  to  have  been  a  very  fast  walker  ;  but  in 
trotting  he  had  a  short,  nervous  step,  a  low  smooth  gait,  scjuare  and  fine.  IK 
His  speed,  was  not  remarkably  fnst  as  a  trotter,  though  his  speed  was  never 
style,  &c.  developed  as  it  has  been  with  the  greatest  assiduity  in  many  of  iiis 
descendants.  In  travelling  he  raised  his  feet  but  slightly,  —  only  enough  to 
clear  the  inequalities  of  the  ground ;  but,  notwithstanding  this,  he  had  tlu' 
reputation  of  being  very  sure-footed.  His  style  of  movement  was  lofty,  bold, 
and  energetic,  fiill  of  life  and  spirit ;  but  he  was  managed  with  great  ease,  and 
it  was  said  that  a  lady  could  drive  him  with  ,)erfect  safety.  He  was  mucli 
admired  as  a  parade  horse. 

Could  run  Though  not  what  would  now  be  called  a  very  fast  trotter,  the 

"""•  old  Justin  Morgan  could  run  at  short   distances  with  any  other 

horse  of  his  time  not  thorough-bred ;  and  many  an  eighty  rods  accomi)lishe(l 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


M3 

.'I' 

-    • 


.>'.'<!  i'; 


5 


my. 


144 


INDUSTRIAL    H/HTORY 


BUck  Hawk. 


Uctcription. 


b>'  hint  wt)n  nis  keeper  th"  .Uakes,  payable  at  the  tavern  where  the  scratch  was 
made  in  tne  uirr  across  the  road  .■"•.  the  point  from  which  to  start.  Eadi 
horse  nad  to  "  cunic  «ip  to  the  scratch,"  and,  when  the  hat  fell,  to  be  off  as 
fast  3  his  legs  could  cdr«y  him.  In  all  such  trials,  the  "  littlf  horse  "  was 
always  sure  to  win.  It  is  from  him  that  Bulrush  Morgan  and  the  Morrill 
horses  have  descended. 

Another  family  of  horses,  tOv/  well  kn</»vn  to  be  wholly  omitted  from  this 
description,  is  the  Black  Ha.vk.  The  first  one  bearii.g  that  name  was  foaled 
near  Portsmou.h,  N.H.,  1833.  At  the  age  of  fo»  r  years  he  was 
sold  ^s  a  roadster  for  the  s>um  of  $150.  In  1842  he  won  a  match 
of  a  thousand  ('  liars,  trotting  five  miltj  over  the  Cambridge  track  in  sixteen 
minutos.  In  the  year  1844  Mr.  Hill  bou'^ht  and  kept  him  as  a  stallion  at 
Bridport,  Vt.,  till  the  time  of  hi"  death  in  1856.  His  skeleton  is  preserved  in 
the  ofncc  of  the  secretary  of  the  State  Board  jf  Agriculture,  at  the  State  House 
in  Boston. 

Black  Hawk  was  not  quite  fifteen  hands  high,  and  weighed  about  a  thou- 
sand pounds.  He  was  remarkably  symn  etrijal  and  muscular,  graced  with  a 
beautiful  head,  neck,  and  limbs,  and  A'hen  in  action,  whether  in 
harnjss  or  out,  of  a  spirited,  nervous,  and  elegant  bearing,  which 
could  not  fail  to  command  universal  adminition  wherever  he  appeared.  He 
could  easily  trot  his  mile  in  two  minutes  and  forty  seconds,  even  without  much 
training ;  and  he  combined  with  great  speed  the  perfection  of  form,  the  intel- 
ligence, courage,  and  e-  durance  sufficient  to  make  him  a  complete  model  of 
a  roadster.  He  possessed  the  power  of  transmitting  his  characteristics  to  iiis 
very  numerous  oflsprirg  in  a  degree  surpassed  by  nc  other  horse  in  the  country. 
In  the  carriage  or  under  the  saddle,  in  the  cpiiet  of  a  country  road  or  on  tlie 
parade-ground,  under  whatever  circumstances  the  descendants  of  Black 
Hawk  appear,  the  eye  accustomed  to  observe  the  characteristics  of  the  horse 
could  hardly  fnil  to  detect  the  relationship.  The  Black  Hawks  are  much 
sought  after  as  light  carriage  and  saddle  horses. 

As  an  evidence  of  their  qualities,  as  well  as  the  celebrity  they  have  obtained 
in  other  parts  of  the  country,  it  may  be  stated,  that  during  the  fair  at  St.  Louis, 
_  ,  .  ,      ,     in  1 8^0,  five  out  of  six  of  the  best  Gtallions  exhibited  in  the  class 

Celebrity  of  •''" 

Black  of  roadsters  were  Black  Hawks ,  and  the  prizes,  of  one  thousand 

dollars  that  year  and  of  fifteen  hundred  dollars  at  the  fair  there 
in  i860,  were  awarded  for  the  best  stallions  in  this  class  to  sons 
of  old  Black  Hawk.  At  the  various  fairs  held  in  New  England  —  at  Springfielil, 
Boston,  and  elsewhere  —  the  Black  Hawks  have  been  very  largely  represented, 
and  have  generally  carried  off  a  full  proportion  of  the  prizes  offered.  More 
than  one  hundred  horses  of  this  stock  were  entered  at  the  Springfield  Horse 
Show  in  i860,  and  nearly  half  of  all  successful  competitors  were  Black  Hawks. 
^!any  sons  of  the  old  horse  are  now  standing  in  various  parts  of  New  England 
as  stock-getters ;  and,  judging  from  the  reports  of  State  fairs  in  other  parts  of 


Hawk**  de- 
■cendants. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


145 


cratch  was 
irt.  Eacli 
be  off  as 
lorae  "  was 
he  Morrill 

I  from  this 
was  foalcil 
;ars  he  was 
on  a  match 
k  in  sixteen 
,  stallion  at 
preserved  in 
State  House 

out  a  thou- 
aced  with  a 
,  whether  in 
aring,  which 
peared.     He 
nthout  mu<  h 
m,  the  intcl- 
te  model  of 
ristics  to  his 
the  country, 
id  or  on  the 
Is    of    Black 
|of  the  horse 
,s  are  mucli 

jave  obtained 
at  St.  Louis, 
in  the  class 
)ne  thousand 
^he  fair  there 
:lass  to  sons 
[t  Springfield, 
represented, 
Ifered.     More 
[gfield  Horse 
Mack  Hawks, 
[ew  England 
ther  parts  of 


A 


the  country,  it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  they  are  exerting  a  widely-c  x^ended  influence 
on  the  stock  of  the  United  States. 

We  must  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  turf.  The  first  public  race  ever 
trotted  in  America  was  in  1818,  —  a  match  against  time,  for  a  thousand  dollars. 
Puring  a  jockey-club  dinner  held  in  that  year  in  New  York,  it  wn:i  pint  public 
asserted  that  no  horse  could  be  found  able  to  trot  a  mile  in  three  '•"• 
minutes.  Two  of  the  members,  however,  —  Major  William  Jones  of  Long 
Island,  and  Col.  Bond  of  Maryland,  —  agreed  to  produce  siich  a  horse.  They 
were  as  good  as  their  word  ;  and,  when  the  horse  had  accom[)lished  the  feat, 
his  tame  was  established.     He  went  by  the  name  of  "  Boston  Blue." 

Within  ten  years  after  this  race,  trotting-courses  and  horse-clubs  were  formed 
in  the  principal  cities  of  our  country ;  and  among  the  hcrses  which  competed 
at  that  early  day  were  Top-Clallant,  Screw-Driver,  Betsey  Baker, 
W  halebone,  Paul  Pry,  Lady  Washington,  and  Sally  Miller.     The  trotting 
first  of  these  perhaps  the  most  easily  won  distinction  at  the  Hunt-  =<»"•"•'«• 

ctubi. 

ing-park  Course  in  Philadelphia.  While  being  employed  as  a  cart- 
horse his  merits  were  recognized,  and  his  trotting-speed  was  developed.  Screw- 
Driver  won  as  fine  a  reputation  ;  for  when  he  died,  in  October,  1828,  a  Phila- 
delphia newspaper  announced  that  "  the  emperor  of  horses  is  no  more."  At 
that  time,  a  horse  which  could  trot  a  mile  in  two  minutes  and  thirty  seconds 
was  regarded  as  a  marvel.  In  1836  two  remarkable  animals  made  their  appear- 
ance on  the  turf,  —  Dutchman  and  Awful.  The  former  was  a  coarse  brown 
lioise  of  great  endurance.  At  one  time  he  was  employed  in  tramping  clay  in 
a  Pennsylvania  brickyard.  Awful  was  just  the  opposite  of  Dutchman  in 
ajipearance.  He  was  a  tall,  dashing,  blood-looking  bay,  with  high,  sprawling 
action.  He  was  a  bad-tempered  animal,  and  did  not  live  up  to  his  early 
promise.  Both  Dutchman  and  Awful  figure  prominently  in  trotting  histor)'. 
Dutchman's  greatest  performance  was  trotting  three  miles  on  the  Beacon  Course, 
under  saddle,  in  seven  minutes  thirty-two  seconds  and  a  half.  It  was  a  match 
against  time,  and  the  horse  was  ridden  by  Hiram  Woodruff.  This  was  in 
.\ugiist,  1839. 

Lady  Suffolk  comes  next  :n  the  list  of  famous  horses.  Hamilton  Busby 
thus  describes  her  career:  "She  made  her  first  public  appearance  in  1838, 
trotting  three  heats,  and  winning  eleven  dollars.  Verily,  hard  LadySuf- 
work  and  poor  pay  I  Lady  Suffolk  was  a  beautiful  gray,  with  an  '»"'• 
Arab  neck,  and  standing-  fifteen  hands  and  a  half.  She  remained  on  the  turf 
neatly  sixteen  years,  during  which  time  she  trotted  in  161  races,  winning  88 
and  1^35,011,  and  losing  73.  Her  speed  was  shown  and  her  powers  tested  in 
ten  different  States  of  the  Union.  Her  best  mile-heat  race —  2.26^,  2.27,  2.27 
—  was  made  under  saddle,  July  12,  1843,  on  the  Beacon  Course,  New  Jersey. 
Her  fastest  mile  (2.26)  was  done  at  Boston,  under  saddle.  I^dy  Suffolk  was 
withdrawn  from  the  turf  in  1853  ;  and  she  died  at  Bridport,  Vt.,  March  17, 
1855,  aged  twenty-two  years.     Her  skin  was  prepared  and  mounted  by  a  taxi- 


146 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\A\ 


Taeony. 


dermist,  and  it  now  does  duty  as  an  advertisement  in  a  Broadway  harness-store. 
Those  who  knew  the  handsome  gray  mare  in  her  prime  claim  that  her  speed 
was  never  (!eveloped.  Among  Lady  Suffolk's  competitors  on  the  turf  were 
Washington,  Confidence,  Kipton,  Cayuga  Chief,  Independence,  Beppo,  Oneida 
Chief,  Lady  Moscow,  Americas,  aud  other  horses  dear  to  the  memory  of  the 
sportsman  whose  hair  is  now  silvered,  and  who  loves  to  dwell  upon  the  scencn 
of  the  "  olden  time." 

In  October,  1848,  occurred  the  famous  twenty-mile  race  by  Tnistee,  the 
son  of  a  thorough-bred  imported  horse  bearing  a  similar  name.  His  driver 
weighed  a  hundred  and  forty-five  pounds,  and  his  sulky  a  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds ;  and  the  twenty  miles  were  trotted  in  fifty-nine 
minutes  thirty- five  seconds  and  a  half.  It  was  a  race  which  thoroughly  tested 
the  endurance  of  the  horse,  and  was  denounced  at  the  time  as  cruel ;  but  it 
is  affirmed  that  Trustee  was  not  injured  in  the  least  by  the  performance. 

In  185 1  appeared  a  new  horse  (Taeony,  from  Maine),  which  won  many 
victories,  scoring  twelve  the  second  year  of  his  public  ai)pearance  ;  at  whi«  h 
time  Flora  Temple  began  her  wonderful  career ;  also  PUhan  Allen, 
the  worthy  descendant  of  Morgan.  The  following  season  was 
rendered  exciting  by  a  series  of  races  between  Flora  Temple  and  Taeony,  in 
Flora  which  the   former  beat  the   latter  seven    limes   at  different  dis- 

Tempic.  tances.  Concerning  her  breeding  nothing  is  known.  While  younj;, 
she  changed  hands  several  times ;  and,  when  first  put  in  the  harness,  she  did 
work  in  a  livery-stable  in  I^aton,  N.Y.  In  June,  1850,  she  was  broight  with 
a  drove  of  cattle  to  Dutchess  County,  where  she  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Velie 
for  $175.  Shortly  after  this  she  was  sold  to  Mr,  George  !•"..  I'errin  of  New- 
York  City,  who  used  her  as  a  road-mare.  In  1850  she  trotted  a  match  race  ; 
but  she  did  not  make  her  regular  appearance  on  the  course  until  two  years 
later.  She  made  her  last  turf-performance  Sept.  5,  1861,  on  the  Fashion 
Course,  Long  Island.  During  the  eleven  years  in  which  she  was  prominently 
before  the  public  she  trotted  a  hundred  and  eleven  races,  ninety-three  of 
which  she  won.  Her  winnings  netted  $1 13,000.  Prominent  among  her  com- 
petitors were  Princess,  Ethan  Allen,  George  M.  Patchcn,  lancet,  Taeony,  and 
Highland  Maid.  Her  best  wagon-time,  2.24^,  was  made  Sept.  2,  1856,  on 
the  Union  Course,  Long  Island.  Her  fastest  mile  in  harness,  which  for  a 
long  while  stood  at  the  head  of  the  record,  was  done  at  Kalamazoo,  Mich.. 
Oct.  15,  1859.  Flora  Temple's  turf-career  was  marvellous.  She  was  a  mare 
of  obscure  breeding,  small  in  stature,  being  fourteen  hands  two  inches  high  ; 
and  yet  she  rose  to  supremacy,  and  reigned  for  a  number  of  years  queen  of 
the  course. 

It  would  be  impossible  for  us  in  our  short  space  to  recount  the  glories  of 
all  the  famous  trotters  in  the  United  States,  or  even  to  mention 

Bthan  Allen.      ,     .  „     .  ,  ,  , 

their  names.     Besides,  as  we  approach  nearer  to  the  present  time, 
there  is  less  need  of  presenting  such  a  history,  as  many  are  familiar  with  it. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


^ 


D«at«r. 


Who  has  not  heard  of  the  exploits  of  Ethan  Allen,  which  trotted  with  a  run* 
ning  mate  against  Dexter,  ori  the  Fashion  Course,  three  heats,  of 
one  mile  each,  in  the  astonishing  time  of  a. 15,  a. 16,  a. 19?  We 
must  stop,  however,  to  say  a  word  concerning  one  of  the  most  noted  descend- 
ants of  Ethan  Allen.  This  is  Pocahontas,  whose  mother  also  bore  the  same 
name,  and  whose  career  will  be  given  presently.  Pocahontas  is 
the  pet  of  Robert  Bonner's  stable,  and  cost  him  135,000.  She  is 
said  to  be  "  one  of  the  best  road-mares  in  the  world."  Then  there  is  I^dy 
'I'liorne,  bred  in  the  lovely  blue-grass  regions  of  Kentucky,  sired  by  Mam- 
brino  Chief.  Her  winnings,  from  the  beginning  of  her  career  in  1859  to  1870, 
amounted  to  161,125.  Her  last  race  was  at  Prospect  Park,  L.I.,  July  22,  1870, 
in  which  she  trotted  three  heats,  of  one  mile  each,  in  the  wonderful  time 
uf  2.19^,  a. 20^,  a.i9h  Of  Dexter  and  Goldsmith  Maid  their  record  is  too 
familiar  to  require  repetition. 


THE    PACtNG-HORSE. 


During  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century  a  class  of  horses  became  widely 
known  in  the  more  thickly-settled  portions  of  New  England,  especially  in 
Rhode  Island,  as  the  "  Narragansett  pacers."  They  were  very  popular  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  last  century,  and  continued  to  be  the  favorite  Narragan- 
horses  for  light  travel  under  the  saddle  for  many  years.  Upon  •'"  ?■«•"• 
good  authority  it  may  be  affirmed  that  they  probably  were  the  easiest,  fleetest, 
most  sure-footed,  and  toughest  saddle-horses  ever  known  in  this  country,  if 
not  in  this  world.  They  could  not  trot.  The  pace  was  their  natural  gait,  the 
only  one  in  which  they  excelled  ;  and  for  this  they  were  especially  esteemed. 

The  origin  of  this  famous  breed,  which  was  kept  distinct  for  many  years, 
was  probably  a  stallion  imported  from  Andalusia,  in  Spain ;  though  there  are 
several  theories,  founded  on  tradition,  in  regard  to  him.  But,  from  origin  of 
whatever  source  he  came,  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  his  laying  the  ••'•""• 
foundation  of  a  class  of  horses  exceedingly  well  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the 
times,  —  one  that  served  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  raised  more  completely 
than  any  other  at  that  time,  or  ever  since,  known  in  New  England.  Many  of 
the  Narragansett  pacers  could  go  a  mile  easily  in  less  than  three  minutes,  or 
carry  a  rider  forty  or  fifty  miles  a  day,  and  follow  it  up  for  days  in  succession, 
without  apparent  fatigue.  It  is  said  that  their  gait  was  far  easier  and  more 
agreeable  than  that  of  the  rocker  or  pacer  of  the  present  day,  with  whom  the 
pace  is  an  accident,  or  the  result  of  training,  rather  than  the  natural  gait. 

The  Narragansett  pacers  became  so  popular,  that  they  were  largely  exported 
to  the  West  Indies,  and  the  business  of  breeding  them  for  that  market  became 
very  profitable.     At  length,  however,  the  demand  there  became  so  Their  popu- 
great,  that  an  agent  was  sent  to  buy  up  all  the  best  he  could  find  in  ••^♦y- 
the  locality  where  they  were  bred  in  the  highest  purity  and  perfection ;  and  he 


143 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Ki  11 


was  so  faithful  to  his  trust  as  to  allow  few  very  superior  animals  to  escape  him. 
This  circumstance,  together  with  the  improvement  of  the  roads,  and  the  fact 
that  the  genuine  Narragansett  pacer  was  comparatively  useless  as  a  draught- 
horse,  anH  really  good  only  under  the  saddle,  led  to  a  decline  in  the  interest 
in  breeding  this  class  of  horses,  especially  during  and  after  the  war  of  the 
Revolution,  when  larg  i  numbers  of  horses  were  wanted  for  teaming  aiid  trans- 
portation. The  pace;,  as  a  breed,  was  wholly  neglected,  till,  in  the  year  1800, 
it  was  said  there  was  only  one  animal  of  the  real  Narragansett  stock  to  be 
found  in  Rhode  Island. 

In  1854,  however,  the  pacer  found  a  splendid  representative  in  Pocahontas, 
Pocahontas  the  mother  of  another  mare  bearing  the  same  name,  which  we 
•  pacer.  j^ave  previously  described.     Notwithstanding  her  dam  was  a  natu- 

ral trotter,  she  performed  very  striking  feats  as  a  pacer,  her  best  time  being 
made  in  1855,  when  she  paced  one  nile,  to  wagon,  in;:. 17^. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


t49 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


SHEEP. 


Merinoes. 


SHEEP  are  among  ^he  very  oldest  domestic  animals  known,  though  they 
are  foimd  wild  in  nearly  every  mountainous  country  of  the  world.  By 
some  authorities  they  are  thought  to  be  related  to  the  goat,  but  Early  history 
are  far  more  timid  than  that  animal,  from  which  they  differ,  also,  in  •*'  *''"  «""'• 
other  respects.  They  are  intimately  associated  with  ancient  religious  rites,  and 
were  the  symbol  of  gentleness  and  innocence.  The  great  wealtli  of  the 
Israelites  and  other  pastoral  nations  was  in  sheep,  which  were  originally  raised 
for  their  milk  and  skins,  as  well  as  for  sacrifice  ;  but  they  have  been  prized  in 
modern  times  for  their  wool,  flesh,  and  fat,  in  which  regards  the  improvements 
of  breeding  have  been  very  marked  for  the  past  century  and  a  half. 

The  best  breed  of  these  animals  for  fine  wool  is  the  merino,  which  origi- 
nated in  Spain,  and  is  supposed  to  have  descended  from  the  stock  of  the 
patriarchs.  They  are  devoid  of  wool  on  the  head  and  necks,  and 
are  less  fleshy  and  symmetrical  tiian  the  choice  English  breeds. 
From  the  Spanish  merinoes  are  derived  the  famous  Saxon,  Silesian,  and  Flem- 
ish breeds.  The  widely-known  establishment  for  raising  sheep,  owned  by 
Louis  XVI.  of  France,  at  Rambouillet,  was  devoted  to  the  propagation  of 
merinoes  principally.  The  prevailing  breed  in  the  United  States  is  a  more  or 
less  pure  merino.  The  Asiatic  and  African  varieties  of  this  animal  are  of  little 
value.  Probably  Great  Britain  gives  more  attention  to  the  raising  _. 
of  sheep  for  wool  and  mutton  than  any  other  civilized  country,  breeding  in 
Her  breeds  are  mostly  producers  of  coarse  wools,  notably  the 
Leicester  or  Dishley,  the  Cheviot,  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and  Dorset 
varieties.  The  South- Downs  have  a  shorter,  finer  fleece,  and  yield  good 
mutton. 

Sheep  were  first  introduced  into  this  country  at  Jamestown,  o(*^hee"i'nto 
Va.,  in  1609.      In   forty  years   they  had   increased  in  numbers  the  United 
nearly  to   3,000.      The   first   importation   to   Massachusetts  was  S'""- 
in  1633  ;    and  for  a  time  they  were  kept  on  the  islands  in  Boston  Bay,  to 
protect  them  from  wolves  and  bears.     In  1652  Charlestown  had  as  many 


Great 
Britain. 


ISO 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


n 


as  400  sheep  ;  and  Lynn  had  several  flocks,  which  were  watched  and  kept  l)y 
a  common  shepherd.  Sheep  were  introduced  into  the  New  Netherlands  in 
1625,  and  again  in  1630 ;  but  such  were  the  depredations  of  wild  beasts,  that 
in  1643  there  were  not  more  than  sixteen  in  that  colony.  The  Swedes  of  New- 
Jersey  were  encouraged  to  breed  sheep,  and  raise  wool  to  send  home,  but  in 
1663  had  no  more  than  eighty  sheep. 


LEICBSTER  RAH. 


The  sheep  in  this  country,  in  those  days,  were  raw-boned,  coarse-woolled 
animals ;  but  inasmuch  as  the  mother-country  discouraged  the  exportation  of 
_    ,  them  hither,  and  as  the  colonists  felt  the  need  of  producing  their 

Early  meas-  '  '  ° 

ure»  for  en-  own  woollcn  clothing,  the  colonial  governments,  by  addresses  to 
"""^'"^  the  people,  bounties  for  killing  wolves,  and  by  other  measures, 
encouraged  the  importation  and  raising  of  sheep.  Massachusetts, 
in  1645,  ordered  the  appointment  of  agents  in  every  town  to  ascertain  wiio 
would  buy  sheep,  and  to  urge  the  people  to  write  their  friends  across  the  At- 
lantic to  br'iig  sheep  with  them  on  emigrating.  In  1648  it  was  ordered  that 
sheep  be  pastured  on  the  common  j  and  later  the  selectmen  of  every  town 
were  authorized  to  superintend  the  putting  of  rams  to  the  flocks.  In  1654 
the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  prohibited  the  exportation  of  sheep,  and  in 


w 

1675  of  wool 

Virginia  enacted  similar  laws. 

'ft 

i 

•, 

'w'*!^:"  T 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


151 


Gradually,  but  slowly,  sheep  multiplied  in  numbers.     A  report  on  American 
industries,  made  to  the  British  House  of  Commons  in  1731-32  by  the  Board  of 
Trade,  shows,  that,  at  that  time,  nearly  all  American  farmers  had   .j,,,,„, 
;i  few  sheep,  whose  wool  was  spun  at  home  for  domestic  use.   British  farm- 
'I'liere  was  no  export,  however.     (Ireat  jealousy  was  felt  by  the  "•'ow"'''' 

.  .  ,     ,  ,       ,  ,  .  ,       ,  .  ,  ,        .  Americant. 

lintish,  lest  we  should  compete  with  them  m  wool-production ; 
and  obstacles  were  put  in  the  way  of  our  obtaining  sheep.  Jared  Eliot,  writ- 
ing in  1747,  says,  "A  better  breed  of  sheep  is  what  we  want.  The  English 
breed  of  Cotswold  sheep  cannot  be  obtained,  or  at  least  with  great  difficulty ; 
lor  wool  and  live  animals  are  contraband  goods,  which  all  strangers  are  pro- 
hibited from  carrying  out  on  pain  of  having  the  right  hand  cut  off." 


:!' 


SOUTH-DOWN  KAM. 


On  tlic  brcaking-out  of  the  Revolution,  the  colonists  immediately  recog- 
nized the  importance  of  ])rescrving  their  siieep  for  propagation,     '''he  Colo- 
nial Congress  of  1775  voted  to  discourage  killing,  and  encourage   Mea»ure»to 
the  breeding,  of  sheep.     The  Pennsylvania  Assembly  did  likewise,   foster  theep- 

...,        .  •     •  <-  1.        1  1  1  Ml     1  1  •  ,     raising  dur- 

ihe  Association  of  Butchers  vote<l  not  to  kill  sheep,  and  in   1776   jng  Ameri- 
it  is   said  twenty  thousand  less   sheep  were   slaughtered  than  in   can  Revoiu- 
1774.     During  the  siege  of  Boston,  however,  in   1 775-76,  large 
supplies  of  live-stock,  including  sheep,  were  sent  froiu  all  j)arts  of  the  colonies 


•Hi 


I 


»52 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


for  the  soldiers'  food.  There  must  have  been  more  than  a  million  of  these 
animi.ls  in  the  country  at  that  time. 

Little  was  done  in  the  way  of  importing  choice  breeds  of  sheep  into  this 
country  until  the  close  of  the  last  century  and  the  early  part  of  this.  Men- 
tion is  made  by  Custis  of  two  Leicester  ewes  on  the  estate  of  Washington, 
First  impor-  from  which,  by  a  Persian  ram,  were  derived  the  famous  Arlington 
tations.  long-wooUcd  shcep.     Kentucky  gave  preference  to  this  and  other 

English  breeds,  which  were  imported  into  and  still  survive  in  small  numbers 
in  the  Middle  States  and  those  of  tlie  Ohio  Valley.  'I'iie  merino  sheep  had  a 
greater  rage,  and  now  constitute  a  larger  proportion  of  our  stock. 


ANGORA  GOAT. 

In  1 793  William  Foster  of  Boston  biought  home  from  Cadiz,  Spain,  where 
he  had  been  staying  several  years,  tliree  full-blooded  merino-sheep,  two  ewes, 
William  ^"'^  ^  "^MVt.  He  was  seventy-five  days  on  the  passage  ;  and  the 
Foater'i  animals  were  taken  sick,  and  nearly  perished  .  but  a  French  shep- 

°'  *'  herd  on  board  the  vessel  cured  them  by  i'ljtc  tions.     Mr.  Foster 

says,  "  Being  about  to  leave  tliis  country  for  Fran  v ,  shortly  after  my  arrival 
in  Boston  I  presented  these  sheep  to  .Andrew  Cragic  of  Cambridge,  who,  no! 


year.      In   1808, 
Jarvis,  our  consu 
Jiome  in  Wethers 
Just  prior  to 

•  Choice  animiils  ha\ 


-r^'  TP^ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


IS3 


South-Caro- 
lina Society. 


knowing  their  value  at  that  time,  '  simply  ate  them,'  as  he  told  me  years  after 
when  I  met  him  at  an  auction  buying  a  merino  ram  for  a  thousand  do/ars."  * 

As  early  as  1785  the  newly-organized  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Agri- 
( ulture,  in  South  Carolina,  offered  a  medal  to  the  first  person  who  p^.  ^.^^ 
sliould  keep   a   flock  of  merino-sheep   in  that  State ;   but  there  offered  by 
.seems  to  be  no  record  of  the  prize  being  taken. 

Four  young  merino-rams  were  sent  to  this  country  from  Paris 
ill  1801  ;  but  not  more  than  one  survived,  and  that  went  to  Rosendale  Farm, 
Kingston,  N.Y.     French  mcrinoes  were  also  imported  by  William 
lanitor   of  Hartford   in    1846.      The  Hon.   David  Humphreys,  !i37rom 
American  minister  at  Madrid,  brought  home  to  his  farm  in  Derby,  France  and 
(onn.,  ninety-one  Spanish  merinoes  in   1802.     Seth  Adams   of  °**'"'<=°""- 

'  •'  '  tries. 

Zanesville,  O.,  imported  two  Spanish  ewes  in  1801  ;   and  Chan- 

<:cllor  Livingston  of  New  York  sent  home  two  pairs  from  abroad  the  samt 


tit  J 

'  ■■■  % 


m 


SOUTH-DOWN  EWES. 


year.  In  1808,  and  later,  his  sheep  attained  a  wide  reputation.  William 
Jarvis,  our  consul  at  Lisbon,  Portugal,  sent  a  number  of  Spanish  sheep  to  his 
home  in  Wethersfield,  Vt.,  in  1809 -11. 

Just  prior  to  the  war  of  181 2-14,  sheep-raising  took  a  great  start  in  this 

*  Choice  animals  have  sold  as  high  as  ten  thousand  and  fourteen  thousand  dollars  apiece  in  this  couctry. 


!,  i 


i*  s-l 


I 

m 


m 


1: 


4   1^'  ■'' ' 

m 


:"''Yt''-r, 


»54 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


m:. 


country,  as  4id  also  woollen  manufactures.  After  the  war  there  was  a  brief 
Sheep-  set-back,  in  consequence  of  competition  witli  the  English  markets, 

raiting  prior  In  1 824  a  protective  tariff  was  laid  on  foreign  wools,  and  sheep- 
to  i8n.  raising  in   America  quickly  revived.      The    importation   of  the 

Saxon,  the,  Merino,  Leicester,  South-Down,  Cheviot,  and  Cotswold  breeds, 
Effect  of  t«r-  soon  followed,  and  the  business  rapidly  developed.  The  Saxon 
iff  of  1824,  sheep  were  highly  prized  for  their  fine  wool,  but  proved  unhardy, 
and  yielded  light  fleeces ;  and  most  breeders  in  New  England,  after  a  thor- 
ough trial,  voted  them  unremuuerative. 

Sheep  are  subject  to  many  maladies,  such  as  foot-rot,  scab,  sore  throat, 
and  grubs  in  the  Iicad  ;  and  they  suffer  to  a  great  extent  from  the  depredations 
Diseases  of  of  dogs.  The  commissioner  of  agriculture,  in  his  report  for 
•heep.  1866,  says  that  returns  from  one-fourth   of  the  counties  in    the 

country  for  that  year  showed  that  about  a  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  sliecp 
had  succumbed  to  this  single  destroying  influence ;  and  he  estimated  thtj 
number  for  the  whole  country  to  be  half  a  million  annually. 


thaer's  electoral-escurial  ram  op  1845. 


Ipa-f 


Sheep-rais- 
ing increas- 
ing in  the 
West. 

raising. 


Owing  to  these  causes  to  a  slight  extent,  but  more  particulady 
to  the  better  pasturage  afforded  in  the  West,  there  has  been  for 
nearly  forty  years  a  westward  movement  m  the  centre  of  sheep- 
Prior  to  1840,  when  there  were  about  eighteen  million  sheep  in  this 


■j|-    i;     4      «•     ' 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


'55 


country,  the  greater  number  were  owned  in  the  Atlantic  States,  from  Virginia 
northward,  arfl  in  the  Ohio  bashi.  Since  then  the  business  of  raising  sheep 
for  any  thing  .  jore  than  the  butcher's  demand  has  sensibly  declined  in  the 
East ;  and  the  pastures  of  the  Western  States  are  our  great  wool-producing 
region.  The  general  tendency  of  the  movement  in  sheep-culture  will  appear 
from  the  following  table,  showing  the  distribution  in  the  principal  wool-growing 
States  for  thirty  years  past.  It  may  be  remarked,  however,  that  some  of  the 
Southern  States,  notably  Virginia,  suffered  from  the  war  severely ;  and  that  the 
resources  of  California,  now  the  great  wool  State  of  the  country,  were  not 
developed  until  some  time  after  the  acquisition  of  that  State  from  Mexico. 


STATES. 

1850. 

i860. 
1,088,003 

1870. 

1875. 

California 

■7.328 

2.768,187 

7,290,000 

Ohio 

3.942,929 

3.546.767 

4.928,63s 

3,900,000 

Texas      . 

■00,530 

753.363 

7^4.35' 

2,826,700 

Michigan 

746.43s 

■.271.743 

1,985,906 

2,100,000 

New  York 

3.453.24« 

2,617,855 

2,181,578 

1,897,700 

I'cnnsylvania 

1,822,357 

1,631,540 

1,794,301 

1,607,600 

Iowa 

149,960 

259,941 

855.493 

1,680,500 

Wisconsin 

124,896 

332,954 

1,069,282 

1,151,100 

Illinois    . 

894,643 

769,138 

1,568,286 

1,258,500 

Indiana  . 

1,122,493 

999.«7S 

i,6i2,()8o 

1,175,000 

Virginia  . 

1,310,004 

1,043,269 

922,472  1 

1,011,500 

Kentucky 

1,102,091 

938,990 

936,765 

690,400 

Tennessee 

811,591 

773.3'7 

826,783 

345,100 

Vermont 

1,014,122 

752.201 

580,347 

475.700" 

New  Mexico 

377.27' 

830,116 

619,438 

800,000* 

Other  States 

4.733.929 

5,862,903 

5.  ■■3.447 

7,594,400 

Total 

21,723,220 

22,471,275 

28,477.95^ 

35,804,200 

m 


\k. 


Statistics. 


The  average  value  of  American  sheep  in  1876  was  two  dollars  and  twenty- 
seven  cents,  and  the  aggregate  value  was  estimated  at  $80,892,683,  While 
some  few  coarse-woolled  fleeces,  especially  in  England,  have  been 
known  to  weigh  twelve  or  fifteen  pounds,  the  avei  \ge  fleece  in 
this  country,  in  1850,  weighed  2.42  pounds.  Improvement  in  stock,  or  else 
giving  greater  attention  to  weight  than  to  fineness  of  wool  in  sheep-raising, 
increased  the  average  in  i860  to  nearly  three  pounds,  and  in  1870  to  nearly 
four.  Besides  the  wool  from  our  36,000,000  live  sheep,  enough  more  from 
the  slaughtered  animals  is  obtained  to  make  our  annual  wool  product  about 
185,000,000  pounds.  This,  at  thirty-five  cents  a  pound,  would  amount  to 
164,750,000.     Nearly  10,000,000  sheep  are  butchered  annually,  yielding  the 


•  The  two  Virginiat, 


*  Estimated. 


156 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


farmers  a  revenue  of  not  far  from  125,000,000.  Our  wool  product  does  not 
yet  meet  the  demand  of  home  manufactures ;  and  we  are  obliged  to  import 
over  50,000,000  pounds  of  raw  wool  annually,  and,  in  addition  to  our  home 
manufactures,  import  nearly  $50,000,000  worth  of  woollen  goods,  although  the 
average      Kradv "    deceasing. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


»57 


;  does  not 
to  import 
our  home 

though  the 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


SWINE. 


THE  hog-raising  and  pork-producing  industry  of  the  Unitcu  S. '♦•'■  is  one 
of  the  most  important  of  our  agricultural  interests,  /^t  ho.iie,  pork 
forms  a  larger  proportion  of  our  food  than  any  other  art-  ■>{  -"rovision, 
brcadstuffs  excepted  ;  while  it  is  also  the  article  of  most  extenh  .  e  importance 
export  [r  uie  line  of  food,  except  wheat.  This  grows  out  of  two  "'  hog-crop. 
facts,  —  the  hog  is  altogether  the  most  prolific  breeder  of  our  domestic-food 
animals,  matures  soonest,  and  is  the  most  cheaply  fattened ;  and  we  have 
peculiar  facilities  for  raising  the  food  which  produces  altogether  the  best  pork ; 
namely,  Indian-corn. 

Swine  were  introduced  into  Hispaniola  by  Columbus  in  1493,  and  De 
Soto  brought  them  from  the  West  Indies  to  Florida  in  1538.  The  Portuguese 
had  left  swine  ashore  in  Nova  Scotia  and  Newfoundland  as  early  introduction 
as  1553.  At  Jamestown,  Va.,  we  hear  of  them  first  in  1609  ;  but  <>' »wine. 
they  multiplied  so  fast,  that  the  people  were  obliged  to  build  palisades  to  keep 
tliem  out  of  the  town.  Plymouth  Colony  imported  swine  in  1624,  and  New 
Netherlands  (now  New  York)  the  following  year.  In  the  early  days  the  hogs 
were  allowed  to  run  almost  wild  in  the  fields  and  woods,  feeding  upon  beech 
and  hickory  nuts,  acorns,  roots,  and  other  such  vegetation.  The  Indians,  in 
those  days,  fed  extensively  on  hogs  that  had  grown  wild.  This  wandering,  free 
life  tended  to  make  the  early  stock  of  this  country,  especially  in  the  South 
and  West,  lean,  large-boned,  fierce,  and  swift-footed,  —  a  sort  of  degeneration 
toward  the  wild-boar  life  from  which  swine  were  taken  for  domestication. 

Among  the  choicer  breeds  that  have  been  known  to  stock-raisers  for  the 
past  century  are  the  Chinese,  which  are  small,  have  slender  bones,  fatten 
easily,  but  are  too  fat  themselves,  and  are  therefore  crossed  with  chineie 
otlicr  species;   the  Neapolitan,  descended  from  the  best  Italian  '"««''• 
breeds  of  two  thousand  years ;  the  Berkshire,  which  yield  much  lean  meat, 
are  prized  for  hams  and  bacon,  and,  crossed  with  the  Chinese, 
make  splendid  hogs ;  the  short-bodied  Essex,  which  have  taken 
more  prizes  in  England  at  stock  exhibitions  than  any  other  porcine  breed ; 


i\ 


i.hw  'hf 


158 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


'\\ 


M*-^ 


Suffolk. 


■wine- 
braeding. 


the  Middlesex,  long-bodied,  heavy  growers,  often  reaching  eight  or  nine  hun- 
dred pounds  in  eighteen  months ;  and  the  SufTolk,  very  symmetri- 
cal in  shape,  small  and  compact,  light  feeders,  and  with  great 
tendency  to  fat.  All  of  these  varieties  have  been  popular  in  this  country; 
and  our  best  swine  are  mostly  from  this  parentage,  more  or  less  crossed. 

Little  attention  was  given  to  swine-breeding,  with  a  view  to  improving  our 
stock  in  this  country,  until  after  the  Revolution.  Interest  was  first  excited  in 
im  rove-  ^^'^  subject  .by  the  presentation  to  Gen.  Washington  of  a  pair  of 
mentt  in  hogs  by  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  They  were  of  a  new  breed  of  his 
own  raising,  and  called  "Wobums"  after  Woburn  Abbey.  Parkin- 
son, the  Englishman  to  whom  they  were  intrusted  for  conveyance, 
was  dishonest  enough  to  sell  them  on  his  arrival  in  this  country.  They  appear 
to  have  been  a  cross  between  the  Chinese  and  the  large  English  native  stock, 
and  were  fine  animals.  The  breed  soon  became  common  in  Virginia  and  the 
neighboring  States ;  but  of  late  years  it  has  quite  run  out.  A  breed  known  as 
the  "  Byfield,"  originated  from  Chinese  and  English  stock  by  Gorham  Parsons 
of  Byfield,  Mass.,  afterwards  had  a  great  popularity,  and  became  great  favor- 
ites in  Ohio.  Later  the  other  breeds  above  mentioned  weie  imported  into 
this  country,  and  widely  disseminated.  Comparatively  little  improvement  was 
effected,  therefore,  in  American  stock,  until  about  fifty  years  ago. 

The  value  of  the  pig  for  utilizing  domestic  table-refuse,  and  the  facility 
with  which  he  fattened  on  such  food,  and  at  almost  no  expense,  led  to  his  very 
Increase  of  general  keeping  by  all  farmers,  and  many  towns-people  and  small 
hog-raiting,  tenants.  The  cheapness  of  bacon  created  a  great  demand  for  it 
in  the  old  slave  States  likewise,  and  the  business  of  furnishing  wholesale  sup- 
plies to  that  market  naturally  grew  with  the  development  of  that  section  of  the 
country.  Inasmuch  as  the  Southern  planters  gave  themselves  almost  exclu- 
sively to  cotton,  tobacco,  and  sugar  culture,  and  did  not  raise  food  for  their 
families  and  help,  the  labor  and  profit  of  providing  for  them  naturally  fell  to 
another  section  of  the  country ;  and  the  remarkable  facilities  enjoyed  by  the 
West  for  hog-raising  gave  those  States  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  valuable 
Southern  market,  a  conquest  which  they  followed  up  by  extensions  of  their 
trade  in  other  directions. 

The  one  great  cause  to  which  the  development  of  the  pork-industry  in  the 
West  is  due  is  the  remarkable  production  of  corn  in  that  quarter,  and  the  dis- 
=  .  .i      <      covery  that  corn-fed  pork  is  sweeter  than  mast-fed  or  swill-fed 

Relation  of  ''  ' 

corn  product  pork.     There  have  been  times  when  corn  was  so  plenty  in  the 
to  hog-rai»-     \q^^<^  that  it  was  used  for  fuel,  and  when,  for  lack  of  transporta- 

ing. 

tion,  it  was  sold  for  six  cents  a  bushel,  and  that  only  twenty-five 
miles  from  the  Ohio  River  in  Illinois.  The  farmers  soon  found,  that,  with 
such  abundant  food,  it  was  cheaper  to  pen  their  hogs,  instead  of  letting  them 
run  loose,  and  to  fatten  them  quickly  for  market.  Thus  hog-raising  rapidly 
increased  between  fifty  and  twenty-five  years  ago  in  Kentucky  and  the  three 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


'59 


States  next  north  of  the  Ohio  River.  Thence  it  spread  westward  across  the 
Mississippi.  The  rapid  and  extensive  construction  of  railroads  in  those  States, 
about  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  of  course  afforded  an  outlet  for  the 
grain  ;  but  it  did  likewise  for  the  pork,  live  and  packed  ;  and  so  the  business 
staiil  there.  Of  the  seven  or  eight  million  hogs  killed  every  year  in  this  coun- 
try, about  five  or  six  million  are  killed  in  the  West,  and  are  mostly  packed : 
those  killed  in  the  East  are  mostly  for  immediate  consumption.  The  pork- 
packing  business  of  the  West  is  chiefly  confined  to  six  cities,  which  rank  in  the 
order  named ;  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  Indianapolis,  Milwaukee,  and 
Louisville.  Inasmuch  as  Chicago's  grain-business  is  her  chief  industry,  and 
pork-packing  is  Cincinnati's  leading  interest,  the  latter  city  is  generally  reck- 
oned the  great  pork-producing  centre  of  the  United  States  :  indeed,  it  was  so 
for  a  long  time.  The  great  bulk  of  the  business  is  done  in  the  winter-time  ; 
the  season  opening  about  Nov.  i,  and  closing  early  in  March. 

The  following  interesting  description  of  the  Cincinnati  slaughter-houses, 
from  the  pen  of  Charles  Cist,  first  appeared  in  one  of  the  newspapers  published 
in  that  city  :  — 

"  The  slaughter-houses  are  in  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  fifty  by  a  hundred 
and  thirty  feet  each  in  extent,  the  frames  boarded  up  with  mova-  oetcription 
ble  lattice-work  at  the  sides,  ordinarily  kept  open  to  admit  the  o(  tiaughtar- 
air,  but  shut  during  intense  cold,  so  that  the  hogs  may  not  be     ""**' 
frozen  so  stiff  as  not  to  be  cut  up  to  advantage,     tlach  establishment  employs 
as  many  as  one  hundred  hands,  selected  for  their  strength  and  activity. 

"  The  hogs,  being  confined  in  adjoining  pens,  are  driven,  about  twenty  at 
a  time,  up  an  inclined  bridge  opening  into  a  square  room  at  the  top,  just 
large  enough  to  hold  them.     As  soon  as  the  door  is  closed  a  man   pro<.„,  „( 
enters  from  an  inside  door,  and  with  a  hammer  weighing  about  »i»ughter. 
two  pounds,  fixed  to  a  long  handle,  knocks  each  hog  down  by  a    "*' 
single  blow  between  the  eyes.     In  the  mean  time  a  second  apartment  is  being 
filled  with  as  many  more.     A  couple  of  men  seize  the  stunned  hogs,  and  drag 
them  through  the  inside  door  to  the  bleeding-platform.     Here  each  gets  a 
cut  in  the  throat  with  a  sharp-pointed  knife,  and  the  blood  falls  through  the 
lattice  floor. 

"  After  bleeding  a  minute  or  two,  they  are  slid  off  this  platform  into  a 
scalding-vat,  —  about  twenty  feet  long,  six  feet  wide,  and  three  feet  deep,  — 
kept  full  of  water  heated  by  steam,  the  temperature  being  easily  regulated.  As 
the  hogs  are  slid  into  one  end  of  this  vat,  they  are  pushed  along  slowly  by 
men  standing  on  each  side  with  small  poles,  turning  them  over  so  as  to  get  a 
uniform  scalding,  and  moving  them  onward  ;  so  that  each  will  reach  the  other 
end  of  the  vat  in  about  two  minutes  from  the  time  it  entered.  Ten  hogs  are 
usually  passing  through  this  scalding  process  at  the  same  time,  being  con- 
stantly received  at  one  end,  and  taken  out  at  the  other,  where  there  is  a  con- 
trivance for  lifting  them  out  of  the  water,  two  at  the  same  time,  by  one  man 


i 


■1 

M 


% 


i6o 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


operating  a  lever,  which  raises  them  to  the  scraping-table,  five  feet  wide  and 
twenty-five  feet  long,  with  eight  or  nine  men  on  each  side,  and  usually  as 
(  ;  many  hogs  on  it  at  the  same  time  ;  each  pair  of  men  performing  a  separate 

part  of  the  work  of  removing  the  hair  and  bristles,  'i'he  first  two  take  off 
only  those  bristles  which  are  worth  saving  for  the  brush-makers,  taking  only  a 
double  handful  from  the  back  of  each  hog,  which  are  deposited  in  a  box  or 
barrel  close  at  hand.  The  hog  slides  on  to  tlie  next  two,  who,  with  scrajjcrs, 
remove  the  hair  from  one  side,  then  turn  it  over  to  the  next  two,  who  scrape 
the  other  side  ;  the  next  scrape  head  and  legs  ;  the  next  shave  one  side  with 
sharp  knives;  the  next  shave  the  other;  the  next  do  the  same  to  head  and 
legs.  To  each  pair  of  men  are  given  twelve  seconds  to  do  their  part  of  the 
work,  or  five  hogs  a  minute,  for  three  or  four  hours  at  a  time. 

"  When  the  hog  arrives  at  the  end  of  this  table,  all  shaved  smooth,  another 
pair  of  men  put  in  a  gambrel-stick,  and  swing  the  hog  off  on  a  wheel,  whic  h 
is  about  ten  feet  in  diameter,  revolving  on  a  perpendicular  shaft  extending 
from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling,  the  height  of  the  wheel  being  about  six  feet  from 
the  floor.  Around  its  outer  edge  are  i)laced  eight  large  hooks,  about  four  feet 
apart,  on  which  the  hogs  are  hung  to  be  dressed. 

"  As  soon  as  the  hog  is  swung  from  the  table  to  one  of  these  hooks,  the 
wheel  turns  one-eighth  of  its  circuit,  and  brings  the  next  hook  to  the  table,  and 
carries  the  hog  a  distance  of  four  feet,  where  a  couple  of  men  dash  it  with 
clean  cold  water,  and  scrape  it  down  with  knives,  to  remove  any  loose  hair  or 
dirt  that  it  may  have  brought  along  off  the  table.  Then  it  moves  again,  and 
carries  the  hog  four  feet  farther,  where  another  man  cuts  it  open  in  a  single 
second,  and  removes  the  larger  intestines,  or  such  as  have  no  fat  on  them  worth 
saving,  and  throws  them  out  an  open  doorway  at  his  side.  Another  move  of 
four  feet  carries  it  to  another  man,  who  lifts  out  the  rest  of  the  intestines,  —  the 
heart,  liver,  &c.,  —  and  throws  them  on  a  table  behind  him,  where  four  or  five 
men  are  engaged  in  separating  the  fat  and  other  valuable  parts.  Another 
move,  and  a  man  dashes  a  bucket  of  clean  water  inside,  and  washes  off  all  the 
filth  and  blood.  This  completes  the  cleaning ;  and  each  man  has  to  do  his 
part  of  the  work  in  just  twelve  seconds,  as  there  are  only  five  hogs  hanging  on 
the  wheel  at  the  same  time  ;  and  this  number  are  removed,  and  as  many  more 
added,  every  minute.  The  number  of  men,  not  counting  the  drivers  out- 
side, is  fifty ;  so  that  each  man,  in  effect,  kills  and  dresses  a  hog  every  ten 
minutes  of  working-time,  or  forty  in  a  day. 

"  At  the  last  move  of  the  wheel  a  strong  fellow  shoulders  the  hog ;  and 
anothev  removes  the  gambrel-stick,  and  backs  it  off  to  the  other  part  of  the 
house,  where  it  is  hung  up  for  twenty-four  hours  to  cool,  on  hooks,  in  rows  on 
each  side  of  the  beams,  just  over  a  man's  head,  where  there  are  space  and 
hooks  for  two  thousand  hogs,  or  a  full  day's  work  at  killing.  The  next  day 
they  are  taken  off  by  teams  to  the  packing-houses." 

The  proUucts  of  pork  are  the  hams  and  shoulders ;  sides  for  bacon,  or  pack- 


OF    TtlE    UNI  TED    STATES. 


l6l 


ing  in  barrels ;  rumps  and  jowls,  which  go  to  the  barrel  with  sides ;  and  lard, 
sdinc  of  which  is  (onverted  into  oil  for  lubricating  and  illiiminating  Productior 
]iur|)oscs,  and  for  adulterating  sperm  and  olive  oils  in  the  market,  p*'"*- 
Stcarine,  from  which  candles  arc  made,  is  a  product  of  lard.  Some  of  the 
coarser  grease  from  the  ofTal  is  used  for  making  soap.  The  refuse  is  employed  as 
.T  fertilizer.  The  bristles  go  to  make  brushes,  the  hoofs  for  glue,  and  the  blood 
is  manufactured  into  the  chemical  called  "  Prussian  blue."  llesides  these 
iiuluslries  depeiuli.nt  upon  hog-raising,  there  is  an  immense  cooperage  business 
ntcessary  to  sujjply  the  recpiisite  kegs  and  barrels. 

The  number  of  hogs  in  the  country  has  not  materially  varied  for  the  past 
few  years.     The  census  of  1850  gave  the  number  as  30,354,213  ;  that  of  i860, 
•T'  33-5".867;    that  of  1870,  as  25,134,569.     The  Agricultural   g^^  ,^„^^ 
bureau  says,  that  in  January,  1876,  it  was  25,726,800  :  at  the  same 
(late  in  1877  it  was  28,077,100. 

The  report  of  the  New-York  Produce  Kxchangc  gives  a  table   Diitribution 
which  shows  the  distribution  of  swine  in  ,the  country  as  follows  :  —  **'  iwine. 


tTATBS. 


New  England    .... 
Middle  .States    .... 
Western  (east  of  the  Mississippi) 
Western  (west  of  the  Mississippi) 

r.iciric 

.Southern 


Total 


1875. 


279.700 
1 ,643,400 
7,372.600 
5,833,000 

544,Soo 
10,035,300 


1S76. 


306,000 

1,679,300 

7,948,600 

6,649  500 

606,400 

10345.900 


25,726,800      I      28,035,700 


>n,  or  pack- 


Cincinnati  was  a  great  pork-packing  centre  as  early  as  1835,  and  long 
held  pre-eminence  in  that  business.  During  the  war  there  was  an  extra 
demand  for  pork  for  army  use  ;  and  the  number  of  hogs  slaughtered  tempo- 
rarily increased,  but  fell  off  again.  For  the  twelve  years  immediately  after, 
there  was  a  steaa  increase  again  in  the  whole  West,  as  will  be  seen  from  the 
following  statemcni ;  — 

>865-66  .  1.785.955 

1866-67 2,490,791 

1867-68 2,781,084 

1868-69 2.499.873 

•869-70 2,635,312 

1870-71 3.695,251 

'87«-73 4.83>.55* 

•872-73 S.4'0,394 

1873-74  •        • 5,466,200 

1874-75 5.566,226 

1875-76 4.880,135 

1876-77 S.072,339 

• 


m| 

m 

m^. 

M^^PI 

ppgr^ 

w' 

.-■if. 

i 

f: 

1  iii- 

ppHii^ 

li'kK" 

1 

m' 

IC2 


/iVZ?  f/5  rAVy4  /.    ///S  TO  A'  Y 


In  the  season  of  1876-77  there  were  slaughtered  1,618,084  hogs  in  Chicago, 
523,576  in  Cincinnati,  414,747  in  St.  Louis,  294,198  in  Indianapohs,  225. 59S 
Number  in  Milwaukee,  214,862   in   Louisville,   1,781,274  at  all  other  kss 

slaughtered,  important  points  South  and  West,  and  2,336,835  in  the  Middle  and 
ICastern  States;  in  all,  7,409,174.  These  cost  the  packers,  first-hand,  al)out 
fifteen  dollars  apiece ;  which  makes  the  total  yield  worth  to  the  producers  iint 
far  from  $1 10,000,000,  less  expense  of  transportation.  Killed,  dressed,  smoked, 
tried,  or  packed,  one-cjuarter  was  added  to  the  market  value  of  the  product. 

Tiie  marked  dcNclopment  of  tiie  Western  pork  raising  and  packing  businLss 
Export-  is  largely  due  to  the  steady  increase  of  our  export-traile  in  Img 

trade.  products  for  tlie  past  few  years.     During  the  fiscal  year  ending 

June  30,  1876,  we  exported, — 


I^.icon  and  h.ims 
Harrcllcd  pork  . 
Lard .        .        . 


Total 


327,730,172 

54,105,118 

168,405,839 


*39/'64,456 

5,744,0:2 

22,429,485 


550.33 '.'29    !     )?67 ,837,96  3 


This  was  ten  and  a  half  per  rent  of  our  total  exports  ;  and  it  ranks  next 
after  cotton,  petroleum,  and  wiieat.  The  great  hulk  of  the  lard  and  bacon  gn 
to  lingland  and  Ireland,  wliich  take  a  small  proportion  cf  tlie  barrelled  i)ork. 
Germany,  France,  and  Belgium  are  our  next  best  foreign  customers. 


;' 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


163 


W. 


1 64 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


iffiH 


CHAPTER  XV. 

HORTICULTURE,   NURSERIES,  AND   FRUIT-RAISING. 

THAT  branch  of  the  agricultural  industry  which  most  closely  approaches 
to  fine  art  is  horticulture  ;  under  which  term  we  include  ordinary  market- 
Horticulture  gardening,  landscape-gardening,  flower  and  fruit  culture.  Fruits 
•  recent  and  flowers  are  mostly  luxuries,  rather  than  necessities,  and  in  the 

pursuit.         g^j.jy  ^^yg  ^^  ^yj.  j^jgtQry  ^gjg  scarcely  thought  of  by  the  mass  of 

colonists.  Only  a  few  gentlemen  of  social  position,  culture,  and  wealth,  gave 
attention  thereto  ;  and  fruits  and  flowers  were  introduced  more  for  the  gratifi- 
cation of  individual  taste  and  pride  than  for  the  general  good.  Like  tlie 
development  of  the  taste  and  pursuit  of  literature  and  painting,  horticulture  is. 
one  of  those  civilized  avocations  to  which  the  human  mind  turns  only  after 
the  necessities  of  life  are  well  provided  for :  consequently  horticulture  is  of 
comparatively  recent  birth  and  development  in  this  country. 

To  market-gardening  it  is  unnecessary  to  give  especial  attention  here.  The 
raising  of  a  few  kitchen  vegetables  for  domestic  use  began  on  a  limited  scale 
Market-  in  early  colonial  days ;    and,  with  the  growth  of  our  large  cities^ 

gardenitiK.  since  th*"  Revolution,  the  business  of  purveying  to  the  needs  of 
the  people  has  gradually  grown  up  to  be  a  respectable-sized  trade  all  over  tlie 
country,  in  many  cases  the  cultivation  of  plants  for  seed  being  a  branch  of  the 
business. 

Landscape-gardening,  or  the  improvement  of  lands  by  trees,  flowers, 
shrubbery,  paths,  and  architecture,  has  beer,  practised  to  a  marked  degree  for 
Landscape-  about  a  century  only  in  England  and  other  foreign  countries, 
eardening.  Little  attention,  therefore,  was  given  to  it  here  until  after  the 
Revolution.  Taste  was  then  manifested  in  the  laying  out  of  the  grounds  of  a 
few  prominent  gentlemen  in  and  about  our  large  cities.  Downing  speaks 
particularly  of  the  elepant  arrangement  and  excellent  keeping  of  the  celebrated 
seats  of  the  Hamilton  family,  near  Philadelphia,  which  was  famed  for  its  beauty, 
in  1805;  Judge  Peters,  near  Philadelphia,  a  little  later;  Chancellor  Living- 
ston, at  Clermf^nt,  on  the  Hudson  ;  the  Hon.  Theodore  L.  Lyman,  nine  miles 
out  of  Boston  j  Beaverwyck,  a  little  north  of  Albany,  the  home  of  William  P. 


THE    UNITED   STATES. 


165 


Van  Rensselaer,  and  the  manor-house  of  the  "  patroon  "  of  that  name  in  the 
suburbs  of  that  city ;  the  cottage-residences  of  William  H.  Aspinwall  on  Staten 
Island,  Daniel  Wadsworth  of  Hartford,  and  James  Hillhouse  of  New  Haven ; 
Col.  S.  G.  Perkins  at  Brookline,  near  Boston ;  and  J.  P.  Cushing's  place,  in 
the  same  vicinage. 


m 


HEDGE-TRIMMER. 


Downing. 


In  1824  M.  Andr^  Parmentier  of  Enghien,  Holland,  came  to  this  country, 
and  started  horticultural  nurseries  near  Brooklyn,  N.Y.,  and  laid  out  HorUcuitu- 
his  grounds  with  especial  regard  to  illustrating  the  principles  of  raiiitera- 
landscape-gardening.      About   that  time    Bernard   McMahon   of  *""* 
Philadelphia  wrote  a  book   called   "The   American   (iardener's    Calendar." 
About  1840  Andrew  J.  Downing,  a  man  whose  writings  have  given 
a  wonderful  impetus  to  horticulture  in  this  country,  published  a 
work  on  "  Landscape-Gardening,"  which  also  gave  to  the  art  a  great  impetus. 

Within  the  next  few  years  much  attention  was  given  to  the  subject  by  all 
persons  building  large  manor-houses,  and  laying  out  large  estates  all  over  the 
country,  but  especially  in  the  neighborhood  of  large  cities.    'I'he  Growth  of 
grounds  adjoining  colleges  .nd  public  buildings  began  to  be  laid  interest  in 
out  with  greater  taste,  those  at  the  Smithsonian  Institute  in  Wash-  *  ""  J"*^** 
ington  having  been  designed  by  Downing.     Agricultural  societies  began  to  give 
.1  little  more  encouragement  to  ornamental  tree-i)lanting  and  flower-culture, 
'i'lie  nurseries  springing  up  here  and  there  furnished  young  shade-trees  as  well 
as  fruit-trees.     Young  towns  studied  the  art  of  making  their  .streets  graceful, 
with  trees  on  either  side,  and  flower-patches  near  their  town-halls  or  county 
<  ourt-houses. 

Then  the  idea  of  adorning  public  cemeteries  by  the  arts  of  tree-planting, 
winding  and  straight  paths,  adaptation  of  shrubbery,  flowers,  and  walks  to  the 


1 66 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


l«i| 


Public  parks. 


undulations  and  other  characteristics  of  the  ground's  surface,  and  so  on,  took 
Public  possession  of  a  few  cultured  minds,  and  spread  rapidly.     The  first 

cemeteries,  prominent  city  of  the  dead  so  laid  out  was  Laurel  Hill,  near  Phila- 
delphia, the  enterprise  being  successful  largely  through  the  taste  and  perievir- 
ance  of  John  Jay  Smith  of  that  city.  Other  burial-places  about  that  tiniij  — 
the  middle  of  the  present  century-  -became  famous  from  an  application  of 
the  same  idea.  Almost  every  one  has  heard  of  Mount  Auburn,  near  Boston ; 
Greenwood,  just  out  of  Brooklyn,  N.Y. ;  Spring  Grove,  Cincinnati ;  and  the 
beautiful  cemeteries  near  Baltimore  and  New  Haven.  Within  the  past  frenty- 
five  years  the  newly-laid-out  cemeteries  of  the  country  have  ncis'.y  all  been 
greatly  beautified. 

Still  another  manifestation  of  the  same  taste  and  culture  is  the  laying  out 
of  parks  in  and  about  our  cities,  which  shall  be  more  than  the  old  "  common  ' 
of  a  New-P2ngland  town.  Ff^rhaps  the  most  important  work  of  this 
sort  undertaken  in  -\\\t  country  is  Central  Park,  in  thi;  upper  i)art 
of  New-York  City.  It  is  half  a  mile  wide,  and  two  miles  aaJ  a  hi'  long,  and 
includes  what  was  originally  very  wild  and  beautiful  scenery.    T'.e  land  was 

appropiiatt,:d  to  this  use  by 
the  New-i'n'h;  legislature  in 
1857,  larg.l;  rough  the  in- 
flu.'  \'\:  jf  Downi'  ;g's  writings. 
The  next  year,  in  pursuance 
of  plan-i  submitted  by  Fred- 
erick \.o\s  Olmstead  and  Cal- 
vert Vau>,  the  improvement 
of  this  froe  pari:  was  begun, 
and  has  been  continued  at 
enormous  expense  even  until 
the  present  time.  By  a  ju- 
dicious preservation,  altera- 
tion, or  utilization  of  the 
characteristic  features  of  the 
land,  and  by  extensive  and 
costly  work,  an  arrangement 
of  lakes,  lawns,  flower-beds, 
groves,  rocks,  glens,  caverns, 
footpaths,  driveways,  terraces, 
bridges,  chSlets,  and  other  ar- 
chitectural devices,  has  been 
jierfected,  which  makes  tiie 
pLici.  OIM*  of  the  most  delightful  public  resorts  in  the  world.  Llewellyn  Park, 
near  OrangC;  N.J.,  laid  out  by  Bauman,  a  famous  Philadelphia  botanic  gar- 
dener, Faim.ount  Park  near  Philadelphia,  and  I'rospect  Park  near  Brooklyn, 


SNUWUALU 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


167 


are  among  the  more  recent  and  more  famous  of  such  institutions  in  this 
country. 

Of  all  departments  of  horticulture  or  gardening,  the  propagation  and  cul- 
tivation of  flowers  most  closely  approaches  a  fine  art.  Only  in  a  limited  sense 
is  it  an  industry.  Those  who  engage  in  it  professionally  are  few  Cultivation 
111  number :  the  great  mass  of  devotees  to  this  pursuit,  mostly  "'  Howen. 
iatlics,  are  incited  thereto  by  the  same  aesthetic  instinct  which  leads  them  to" 
ijiudy  and  practise  music.  That  delightful  writer,  Ruskin,  has  said,  "  Flowers 
seem  intended  for  the  solace  of  ordinary  humanity.  Children  love  them ; 
([iiiet,  tender,  contented,  ordinary  people  love  them  as  they  grow ;  luxurious 
and  disorderly  people  rejoice  in  them  gathered.  They  are  *he  cottager's 
treasure,  and  in  the  crowded  town  mark,  as  with  a  little  broken  fragment  of 
rainbow,  the  windows  of  the  workers  in  whose  heart  rests  the  covenant  of 
peace."    Truly  the  production  and  care  of  flowers  is  the  poetry  of  agriculture. 

It  has  been  noticed  in  connection  with  the  development  of  certain  arts 
(architecture,  for  instance)  that  the  tendency  in  their  earlier  stages  is  toward 
massive  proportion  and  general  effect,  and  aftenvards  to  refine-  Architecture 
ment  of  organization,  and  beauty  of  detail.  Something  of  the  andfloricui- 
same  characteristics  is  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  floriculture.  *""" 
At  first,  flowers  were  thought  of  and  used  chiefly  as  elements  of  landscapis- 
gardening ;  afterwards  prized  for  themselves,  improved  and  cared  for  accord- 
ingly. 

Prior  to  and  during  the  Revolution  it  may  be  said,  that  virtually  no  atten- 
tion was  given  lo  flowers  in  this  coimtry.  Now  and  then  persons  had  a 
solitary  rose-bush,  or,  to  gratify  some  odd  fancy,  grew  some  curi- 
ous plant,  such  as  cotton  was  then,  upon  their  grounds.  Toward 
the  close  of  the  last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this,  flowering- 
planls,  generally  shrubs,  were  grown  as  borders  to  paths  on  the 
beautified  suburban  estates  of  a  few  wealthy  gentlemen ;  then  n 
beds,  either  made  in  the  turf  or  in  clean  soil,  with  box-tree  horde 
rated  by  paths,  began  to  appear. 

The  iivitation  of  these  means  of  beautifying  a  home  came  to  he  practised 
in  time  by  persons  of  lesser  means,  and  on  a  small  scale ;  '  it  was  not 
until  a  quarter  of  this  century  had  passed  away  that  the  little  (  nicstic  flower- 
bed came  to  be  at  all  common. 

It  was  not  uniil  about  this  period,  therefore,  that  professional  gardeners 
gave  much  attention  to  importing,  propagating,  and  selling  to  the  general 
pul)lic,  flowering-plants,  seeds,  and  bulbs.  At  first  this  business  saieoi 
was  conducted  by  persons  engaged  in  growing  vegetables  and  ?'■"*••  *<=• 
fruits  for  the  market  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia ; 
but  in  a  short  time  the  increased  patronage  warranted  the  stimni,!^  of  inde- 
pendent nurseries  and  flower-gardens.  The  rapid  development  of  popular 
taste  and  interest  since  about  1825,  and  the  growing  demand  for  flowers  in 


No  attention 
to  subject 
'      ire  the 
olution. 

r  flower- 
and  sepa- 


.Vv*V..:, 


■\% 


z68 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


i-  'i:^':i^rv, 


the  larger  cities  for  festal  occasions,  funerals,  and  sentimental  remembrances, 
led  to  the  extension  of  the  professional  florist's  trade  all  over  the  country ;  so 
that  now  scarcely  a  city  or  town  of  fifteen  thousand  inhabitants  is  without  an 
establishment  of  this  sort. 

When  the  gentlemen  of  the  earlier  days  began  to  •  introduce  the  choicer 
and  more  tender  plants  to  their  estates,  the  greenhouse,  for  shelter  and  for 
Oreen-  forcing  plants,  was  here  and  there  erected,  the  idea  being  taken 

houiet.  ffQnj  the  foreign  forcing-houses  for  fruits.     Of  necessity,  the  pro- 

fessional florist  requires  a  greenhouse  at  the  very  outset  of  his  business.  Be- 
tween 1825  and  1850,  when  landscape-gardening  and  domestic  architecture 
took  such  a  stride  in  this  country,  the  erection  of  conservatories  as  ornaments 
to  a  lawn,  as  well  as  permanent  shelters  for  choice  plants,  came  into  vogue, 
both  as  independent  edifices,  and  as  additions  to  the  proprietor's  mansion. 

It  was  during  this  period,  too,  that  a  literature  devoted  to  flower-culture 
began  to  make  its  appearance.  In  1832  Robert  Buist  of  Philadelphia,  pro- 
Literature  prietor  of  the  Roseland  Nurseries,  published  a  book  on  this  sub- 
&u  the  tub-  ject,  which  was  among  the  earliest  and  best  publications  of  the 
'**'  sort.     It  reached  several  editions.     During  the  next  decade  A.  J. 

Downing  adapted  to  American  use  Mrs.  Loudon's  "  Ladies'  Companion  to  the 

Flower-Garden  ; "  and,  still  later,  Hen- 
ry Carey  Baird  got  out  an  American 
edition  of  "  Fruit,  Flower,  and  Kitchen 
Gardening,"  written  by  Dr.  Niell,  sec- 
retary of  the  Royal  Caledonian  Horti- 
cultural Society.  These  and  other 
American  works  were  widely  dissemi- 
nated. Agricultural  and  horticultural 
journals  gave  more  attention  to  flow- 
ers, and  the  ordinary  newspapers  re- 
published extracts  bearing  upon  flori- 
culture. Within  a  few  years  leading 
florists  have  got  into  the  way  of  pub- 
lishing descriptive  catalogues  of  their 
seeds,  bulbs,  and  plants,  together  with 
valuable  hints  and  suggestions  con- 
cerning their  cultivation,  for  gratuitous 
distribution,  like  the  almanacs  of 
pptent-medicine  makers. 

During  all  this  time  there  has  been  a  (}uict.  steady  improvement  —  though 
not  very  great  or  startling  in  the  aggregate  —  m  the  nwthods  of  prcpagation 
and  care  of  flowers.  There  has  been  a  oerceptibie  improvement 
m  the  charac  ter  of  varieties,  and  a  niuh«j>hcation  of  spe<!es  by 
hybridization  and  other  scientific  processes     and,  m  addition  to  the  increase 


SPIII«A   LANCROI.ATA. 


Progreas. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


169 


Pomology. 


in  numbers  and  beauty  brought  about  by  the  efforts  of  American  florists, 
there  has  been  an  extensive  importation  of  foreign  flower  plants  and  seeds. 
The  tendency  to  greater  discrimination  and  taste  in  the  selection  of  species 
and  varieties  has  been  very  marked  within  the  past  twenty  years. 

Perhaps  the  most  recent  development  in  this  uneventful  though  interest- 
ing history  is  the  popular  devotion  to  window-gardening  by  people  in 
moderate  and  humble  circumstances,  —  a  natural  outgrowth  of  a  maturing 
and  refining  taste,  and  an  instinct  to  keep  one's  flowers  thrifty  the  year  round. 
.Scarcely  a  home  is  now  to  be  found  in  the  country,  where  some  attempt  is 
not  made  in  this  direction  ;  if  not  with  bay-windows  filled  with  jars,  flower- 
stands,  and  costly  jardiniferes  of  rustic-work,  shells,  or  quaint  and  lovely  tiles, 
<ombined,  perhaps,  with  bird-cages  and  aquariumsj  at  least  a  simple  hang- 
ing-basket or  undecoraled  window-box. 

As  will  appear  presently,  from  our  consideration  of  the  history  of  individual 
fruits,  the  first  of  these  luxuries  wc  ha<l  in  tliis  country  was  the  product  of 
trees  or  seed  or  vines  brought  here  by  individual  enterprise  and 
for  individual  use.  Half  a  century  ago,  organized  n>''-°ments 
were  set  afoot  for  'ruit-culture.  The  ideas  of  fort  ji  fruit  raisers  and 
breeders  began  to  attract  attention.  Nurseries  were  started  to  attempt  the 
improvement  of  stock  and  the  dissemination  of  choice  varieties.  Individual 
cultivators  awoke  enough  public  enthusiasm  to  lead  to  the  organization  of 
pomological  societies.  The  first  of  these  was  formed  in  1829,  and  in  1848 
a  national  pomological  society  was  organized.  The  .Agricultural  Bureau  at 
Washington  soon  after  began  devoting  attention  to  fruits,  imparting  a  vast 
deal  of  information  with  regard  to  all  kinds  and  varieties,  the  projjer  modes 
of  culture,  and  the  soils  and  climates  to  which  each  was  best  adapted. 
Downing's  book  on  "Fruits  and  Fruit-Trees  of  .■\merica,"  and  horticultural 
writings,  did  a  great  deal  to  disseminate  information,  arouse  interest,  and 
stimulate  culture. 

Among  the  first  nurseries  we  hear  of  in  this  country  was  that  of  Gov. 
Endicott  of  Salem,  Mass.,  who  in  1640  had  (]uite  a  grove  of  young  seedling 
apple-trees;  but  until  1835  there  were  scarcely  more  than  two  Early nurse- 
or  three  institutions  for  supplying  the  public  generally.  Among  "■'"• 
the  earliest  mentioned  are  those  of  James  Bloodgood  on  Long  Island,  and 
William  Reid  on  Murray  Hill,  a  part  of  New-York  City,  now  covered  with 
residences.  These  were  weli  saown  between  1830  and  1835.  Since  that 
time  nurseries  have  rapidly  increased  in  numbers  in  the  Central  and  Western 
States,  but  notably  m  Central  and  Western  New  York.  Probably  one-tenth 
oi  -Jie  fruit-trees  sold  come  from  Monroe  County  in  that  State,  the  county- 
s"ai  l)eing  Rochester.  The  enviroraa  of  Cieneva  and  Syracuse  and  Long 
Island  are  also  great  producers  of  young  fruit  and  shatle  trees,  shrubbery, 
and  berry-plants.  ITiere  are  now  something  over  a  thousand  nurseries  in  this 
country,  from  which  are  sokl  five  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  trees 
annually. 


:  '51 


lyo 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


The  grape  is  one  of  the  oldest  known  fniits  of  the  world,  though  it  has 
had  comparatively  little  prominence  in  this  country  until  within  a  generation. 
There  are  many  varieties  native  that  have  proved  valuable  and 
popular  besides  the  many  choice  imported  varieties.  The  Isabcll.i 
and  Catawba  both  originated  in  North  Carolina ;  the  Muscatel,  long  known 
as  the  "  Cape,"  and  incorrectly  imagined  to  be  an  importation  from  Soiitli 
Africa,  was  indigenous  to  Pennsylvania ;  the  Scuppcrnong,  at  one  time  thouglu 
to  promise  well  for  wine-making,  is  a  Carolina  grape  ;  the  Sweetwater,  wiii<  li 
with  the  Catawba  is  widely  cultivated  in  California  for  wine,  and  also  in  the 
Eastern  States,  is  a  native.  Texas  products  a  grape  widely  known  as  tlie 
Mustang  ;  and  there  are  other  varieties  almost  too  numerous  to  mention. 

Long  after  the  Revolution,  grapes  were  raised  in  this  country,  principally 
to  be  eaten  fresh,  as  a  dessert  fniit.  Hardy  varieties  were  grown  principally, 
Recent  cui-  though  a  few  choice  foreign  kinds  were  raised  under  glass.  Alxint 
tureofgrape.  jg^^Q  Qp  igjo  thc  growing  interest  in  fruit-culture  led  to  a  larger 
cultivation  of  hothouse  grapes  by  fanciers  and  wealthy  gentlemen.  Downing 
mentions,  that,  at  about  this  time,  thousands  of  bushels  of  grapes  were  raised 
near  New  York  and  Philadelphia  for  the  market,  and  that  large  quantities  of 
the  fniit  were  packed  in  cotton  for  preservation  during  the  winter. 

But  it  is  for  wine-making  purposes  that  the  grape  is  to  be  principally 
regarded.  The  Gothic  seamen  who  touched  our  shores  before  Columbus's 
W!ne-mak-  day  called  America  "  Wineland  the  Good,"  because  of  its  grapes 
'"«■  and  their  dreams  of  its  possibilities.     Very  early  in  our  colonial 

h  story,  high  expectations  were  entertained  by  emigrants  of  the  wine-making 
possibilities  of  this  country  j  and  numerous  experiments  were  made  in  that 
direction.  Vines  were  imported  to  Virginia  in  1610,  and  wine  thus  produced 
was  sent  to  England  in  161 2.  Gov.  VVinthroj)  gave  attention  to  the  subject 
in  Massachusetts  before  1630,  at  which  time  he  owned  a  tine  vineyard  ;  and 
in  1634  Governor's  Island,  in  Boston  harbor,  was  rented  on  condition  that  the 
lessee  should  plant  a  vineyarfl  or  orchard,  and  pay  a  hogshead  of  wine  yearly, 
—  a  condition  that  i)robabIy  was  not  fulfilkd.  .Attempts  were  made  to  intro 
duce  wine-grapes  into  the  New  Netherlands  in  1642  ;  but  the  frost  killed  them. 
Grape-culture  was  especially  contemplated  by  the  grantees  of  the  Carolinas ; 
but  it  took  a  poor  hold  at  first.  Delaware  gave  some  little  attention  to  wine- 
making  in  early  days,  and  in  1753  a  wealthy  citizen  offered  a  prize  of  forty 
shillings  for  the  best  arti(  le  produ<eil.  Maryland  in  1715  protected  her  homo 
industry  by  imposing  a  tax  on  imported  wine.  But  all  these  movements 
proved  virtual  failures,  except  in  North  Carolina,  where,  in  1750,  wine-making 
was  quite  a  prosperous  though  small  iuflustry. 

We  hear  little  further  until  1845,  when  Downing  mentions  that  the  attempts 
Switiadven-  of  Swiss  adventurers  at  Vevay,  Ind.,  to  raise  grapes  and  make 
tureri.  ^yj^j^,  q^  ^  large  scale,  had  failed ;  and  that  Mr.  N.  Longworth  of 

Cincinnati,  after  experimenting  for  thirty  years  with  foreign  vines  from   the 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


171 


cold  Jcra-mountain  sides  and  warm  Madeira,  had  decided  that  the  native 
gnipc  was  our  great  American  reliance.     In  1849  300  acres  of  vineyards  were 
to  be  found  within  twelve  miles  of  Cincinnati,  which  yielded  over  vineyard* 
50,000  gallons  of  wine  that  year.     We  also  hear  of  some  small   ne«r  Cincin- 
\  ineyards  in  Missouri,  at  this  time,  that  yielded  250  gallons  to  the   "** ' 
a>TC ;    and  in  1858  an  instance  is  mentioned,  as  rare,  of  400  gallons  being 
jiroduccd  in  Alabama  from  an  acre. 

Other  instances  are  mentioned,  which  show,  that,  by  about  1850,  grape- 
f  ulture  for  wine  had  taken  a  new  start  in  this  country,  especially  in  the  Central 
and  Western  States.     The  census  shows  the  total  product  of  wine   win* 
for  the  country  that  year  to  have  been  221,249  gallon  ,  of  which   P'o^uct. 
California   yielded    58,055  ;    Ohio,   48,207  ;    Pennsylvania,   25,590 ;    Indiana, 
14,055  ;  North  Carolina,  11,058  ;  Missouri,  10,563  ;  and  New  York,  9,172. 

During  the  next  decade  wine-making  rapidly  increased.     The  art  seemed 
to  have  been  mastered  at  last :  American  champagne,  sherry,  claret,  and  port, 
had  achieved  a  new  and  enviable  reputation.     The  Department  of  winemmk- 
Agriculture  year  after  year  aflbrded  valuable  information  concern-   ing  between 
ing  grape-culture,  avoiding  blights  and  pests,  and  methods  of  wine-   '  *°"^' 
making ;  and  California,  already  known  to  be  a  perfect  Kden  for  fruits  of  all 
kinds,  multiplied  her  vineyards,  and  yielded  so  abundantly,  that  a  thousand 
gallons  an  acre  was  frecpiently  obtained.     The  vine  flourished  in  all  parts  of 
that  State  :  but  the  principal  vineyards  wore  in  three  coiinties ;  namely,  Los 
Angeles,  San  Bernardino,  and  S;m  Diego.     In  i860  the  wine-product  of  the 
(ountry  had  increased  eigiitfold  from  that  of  ten  years  before,  being  returned 
at   1,627,192  gallons,  of  which    Ohio   produced    fully  one-third,  or  568,617 
gallons;   California,   246,518;    Kentucky,    179,948;    Indiana,  102,895;   and 
New  York,  North  Carolina,  Illinois,  and  Connecticut,  not  far  from  50,000 
each. 

In  the  next  decade  California  took  the  lead  again,  her  wines  receiving  high 
conmiendation  at  the  Paris  Kxposition  of  1867,  her  fame  becoming  world- 
wide, and  the  development  of  her  product  being  nearly  eightfold,   wine-mak- 
Missouri's  progress,  too,  was  starding,  her  yield   in   1870   being  ing  since 
twelve  times  what  it  had  been  in  i860.     The  last  national  census 
returned  3,092,330  gallons,  of  which  California  is  credited  with  nearly  two- 
thirds,  or    1,814,656   gallons;    Missouri,  326,173;   Ohio,   212,912;    Illinois, 
111,882;  Pennsylvania,  97,165  ;  and  New  York,  82,607.     North  Carolina  had 
scarcely  advanced,  while  Indiana  had  fallen  off  to  only  a  quarter  of  her  yield 
in  i860. 

Without  doubt  the  wine-product  of  this  country  now  amounts  to  over  five 
million  gallons  annually;   and  there  is  every  likelihood  that  we  Present  wine 
shall  not  only  fully  supply  our  demands  for  domestic  consumption   product  o( 
before  very  long,  but  shall  soon  be  exporting  wine  to  foreign  coun-   *  *  =<»"ntfy- 
tries.      This    is    now  one  of  the  most    promising  of  American   agricultural 
industries. 


173 


INDUSTKIAL    HISTORY 


Passing  now  to  the  fruits  grown  in  our  country,  the  apple  ranks  first  among 
them,  because  it  is  the  most  common  of  all  in  this  country,  and  the  most  use- 
Early  hii-  '  fill.  It  is  not  the  oldest  in  development  and  culture,  however  :  the 
toryofappie.  grape,  the  fig,  and  the  pomegranate  flourished  in  Palestine  long 
before  the  apple  was  mentioned  in  Scripture.  And  even  then,  as  also  in  the 
Greek  (iibles  which  tell  of  the  golden  apples  of  the  gardens  of  Hesperides  and 
of  the  apple  of  discord,  it  is  probable  that  the  word  "api)le"  was  used  in  a 
generic  sense,  meaning  fruit  rather  than  this  particular  variety.  In  the  early 
days  of  Rome  the  apple  was  well  known  ;  and  Pliny  states,  that,  in  his  day,  no 
less  than  twenty-nine  varieties  were  cultivated  in  various  parts  of  Italy.  At 
the  present  time  there  are  about  two  inmdred  distinct  varieties  of  this  delicious 
fruit  recognized,  of  which,  however,  about  thirty  constitute  the  staple  product 
of  the  United  States. 

The  parent  stock  of  all  our  apples  is  the  wild  crab  of  Europe.     Doubtless 

the  first  great  step  taken  in  its  culture  and  its  utilization  was  the  invention  of 

grafting  by  the  Romans.     It  will  be  remembered,  that,  after  the  establishment 

of  the  Roman  empire  ujjon  the  wreck  of  the  republic  by  Augustus  Caisar, 

the  poet  Virgil  was  employed  by  the  emperor  to  write  a  series  of  poetical 

treatises  on  agriculture,  intended  to  educate  the  nation  in  the  foremost  of  all 

the  arts  of  peace.     In  the  course  of  his  suggestions,  that  never-to-be-forgotten 

writer  says,  — 

"  Graft  the  tender  shoot : 

Thy  children's  children  shall  enjoy  the  fruit." 

In  the  luxurious  days  of  later  Rome,  fruit-culture  was  extensively  indulged 
in  by  wealthy  gentlemen  ;  and  nearly  every  person  of  means  had  a  walled  fruit- 
Progrestin  garden  immediately  connected  with  his  dwelling-house.  In  the 
middle  ages,  too,  the  monks  of  Europe,  from  Southern  Italy  to 
the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  gave  great  attention  to  fruit-culture; 
the  practice  of  pruning,  setting  large  flat  stones  underneath  the  young  trees, 
and  some  other  devices,  coming  into  more  or  less  permanent  use.  Yet  the 
fact  that  a  generation  of  time,  or  more,  must  elapse  before  the  setting  out  of  a 
young  orchard  yielded  its  full  reward,  discouraged  even  those  who  grew  apples 
for  luxury,  much  more  the  poor  nistic  who  lived  from  hand  to  mouth.  The 
modern  inventions  of  budding  and  dwarfing  have  enabled  the  horticulturist  to 
get  a  quicker  return  for  his  labor,  and  they  have  therefore  given  a  remarkable 
stimulus  to  apple-culture. 

The  first  record  we  have  of  the  cultivated  apple  in  England  was  the  announce- 
ment that  pippin-seed,  brought  from  France  in  1524,  was  planted  in  Sussex. 
Early  cuiti-  ^  ^"'^'^  \i^'^t,  the  golden  pippin  was  developed  from  this  stock,  and 
vation  of  ap-  soon  became  famous  in  England.  The  early  colonists  found  it 
almost  impracticable  to  bring  young  trees  or  even  scions  to  America , 
and,  as  we  had  no  native  apples,  they  were  compelled  to  rely  pretty 
much  on  seeds  for  our  first  stock.     Naturally  enough,  therefore,  the  introduction 


culture  of 
apple. 


pie  in  New 
Engiand. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


173 


of  the  fruit  was  rare  and  slow.     Nevertheless,  it  is  asserted,  that,  so  early  as 

1639,  "ten  fair  pippins"  were  brought  tc   Boston  from  trees  that  had  been 

j)l;inted     on     Governor's 

Inland,   in    the    adjacent 

iiarbor.       The    following 

year  Gov.  Endicott  had  a 

nursery   of   young    fruit- 

trccb  in  what  is  now  Dan- 

vers,  Mass.,  and  sold  five 

hundred  young  apple-trees 

for  two  hundred  and  fifty 

acres  of  land. 

For  more  than  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half,  however, 
a|)|)lcs  were  cultivated  al- 
most exclusively  for  cider, 
the  trees  for  fruit  to  be 
eaten  being  as  rare  for  a 
long  time  as  orange  and 
other  tropical  plants  are 
now  in  the  North.  Indeed, 

not  until  1830  did  the  United-States  Government  begin  to  collect  statistics  of 
our  orchard  products.  Probably  the  applc-trces  of  this  country,  cultivation 
in  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century,  were  mostly  con-  of  apple*  for 
fnied  to  New  England  and  Long  Island.  New  Jersey  hail  a  few,  *  "" 
and  so  had  Eastern  and  South-eastern  New  York.  Western  New  York,  Ohio, 
and  Michigan  had  not  yet  felt  the  impetus  soon  to  be  given  to  this  branch  of 
horticulture. 

Sieveral  influences,  however,  began  to   stimulate  apple-culture  thirty  and 
forty  years  ago  very  perceptibly.     One  was  the  attention  given  thereto  by  the 
Federal  Government,  which  had  established  a  Hurcau  of  Agricul-   Effort!  of 
ture  in  the  Patent  Office.    The  report  of  the  commissioner  for  the  Downing 
year  1849   indicates   that  a  wide-spread  interest  was  being  felt  *"  *■'  *'* 
throughout  the  land,  especially  in  New  England.    Horticultural  societies  began 
to  be  formed,  and  the  general  agricultural  societies  offered  more  premiums  for 
choice  apples.     The  first  horticultural  society  in  this  country  was  founded  in 
1829,  and  the  American  Pomological  Society  was  established  in  1848.     Nurse- 
ries came  to  be  more  numerous ;  Rochester,  N.Y.,  beginning  to  show  great 
I)rominence  in  this  sphere,  as  also  Onondaga  County  in  that  State.     Books 
and  periodicals  devoted   more   attention   to  the  subject.      Andrew  Jackson 
Downing,  long  the  editor  of  the  monthly  "  Horticulturist,"  and  author  of 
"  Fruits  and  Fmit-Trees  of  America,"  undoubtedly  did  much  to   stimulate 
enthusiasm  on  the  subject.    Attention  was  given  especially  to  winter  apples. 


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INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


about  this  time,  and  some  slight  experiments  in  connection  with  trans-Atlantic 
steam  navigation  suggested  to  far-sighted  men  the  possibility  of  our  doing 
quite  an  export  business  in  apples.  Even  then  the  American  apple  was  begin- 
ning to  assert  its  superiority  over  the  English;  and  in  the  winter  of  1858-59 
no  less  than  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  barrels  of  apples,  mostly  Bald- 
wins, were  exported  from  Boston  alone.  Scientific  discovery  regarding  the 
culture  of  the  apple  seemed,  moreover,  to  take  a  stride  about  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago.  Growers  began  to  recognize  that  varieties  which  thrived  well  on 
the  granite-bedded  soil  of  New  England  did  not  do  so  well  in  the  soft  loam 
of  New  Jersey  and  the  Western  States,  and  that  the  limestone  ledges  of  Cen- 
tral and  Western  New  York  called  for  still  different  varieties.  Adaptability  to 
place  and  climate  was  more  carefully  studied.  Moreover,  it  began  to  be 
imderstood  how  to  improve  varieties.  Seeds  from  good  fruit  had  almost  inva- 
riably yielded  poor  fruit  when  the  new  trees  got  to  bearing ;  and  this  j)oor 
return,  after  many  years'  waiting,  was  eminently  discouraging.  But  growers 
not  only  found  that  by  crossing  old  varieties,  as  the  Netherlanders  did,  could 
be  produced  new  ones  even  superior  to  the  parent  stock,  but  also  that  by 
taking  seed  from  young  seedlings,  and  replanting,  permanent  varieties  could 
be  established  in  four  generations.  These  trees  too,  as  also  the  dwarfed 
trees,  could  be  made  to  yield  early  in  life  ;  and  thus  labor  and  money  returned 
interest  upon  investment  far  (|uicker  than  of  yore. 

These  various  influences,  with  the  consecjuent  popularity  of  our  fruit 
abroad  and  the  establishment  of  fruit-stores  and  apple-stands  in  our  cities, 
have  of  late  years  rapidly  developed  our  apple-culture,  and  given  our  country 
pre-eminence  in  the  whole  world  for  the  superiority  of  this  fruit. 

It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to  give  in  detail  the  ilis- 
tribution  of  the  varieties  of  apples  in  this  country.  It  may  not  be  out  of 
place,  however,  to  say,  that  the  Rhode- Island  greening,  the  Rox- 
bury  russet,  the  Baldwin,  the  gillyflower,  and  the  Hubbardston 
nonesuch,  are  the  best-known  winter  apples,  and  the  early  harvest,  sweet- 
bough,  the  Porter,  and  the  Coggswell  pearmain,  among  fall  apples,  in  New 
England.  New  Jersey  is  noted  for  its  sound,  tart  Swaar  ;  New  York  for  the 
NRvtown  pippin,  king,  greening,  russet,  Spitzenberg,  and  seek-no-farther ;  and 
Michigan  for  her  seek-no-farthers,  Northern  spys,  pippins,  and  pound  sweet- 
ings. It  is  generally  admitted,  that,  for  flavor,  the  fruit  of  New  York  is  the 
richest ;  but  the  light  soils  of  Michigan  and  Ohio  yield  the  largest  specimens. 
Owing  to  the  backward  state  of  apple-culture,  little  had  been  done  in  the 
South  previous  to  the  war ;  although  it  is  well  established,  that,  were  adaptation 
of  varieties  to  soil  ar^d  climate  studied  more,  the  Gulf  States  might  produce 
apples  abundantly.  Since  the  dapression  of  the  war,  little  activity  has  been 
manifested  in  that  section.  California  is  almost  the  only  State  west  of  the 
Upper-Mississippi  and  Lower-Missouri  Valleys  that  has  gone  much  into  fruit- 
culture  as  yet;  and,  in  that  unusually  fertile  soil  and  balmy  climate,  the 
apple,  like  all  other  ftuits  of  the  temperate  zone,  flourishes  exuberantly. 


Varieties. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


175 


According  to  the  census  of  1870  our  orchard  products  that  year  amounted 
in  value  to  $47,335,189,  or  two  and  a  half  times  what  they  did  in  i860,  and 
six  times  those  of  1850;  and,  inasmuch  as  our  agricultural  and  Quantity 
iiorticultural  industries  have  developed  more  than  any  other  since  "°^  raised. 
then,  it  would  be  safe  to  reckon  the  same  products  for  1877  —  though  an 
(ilf-year  in  some  localities  —  at  not  far  from  $60,000,000.  Now,  as  berries 
and  grai)es  are  not  included  in  this  estimate,  and  as  pears,  peaches,  plums, 
( lierries,  and  oranges  are  our  only  other  leading  orchard  products,  it  would 
be  reasonable  to  say  that  the  total  annual  apple-crop  of  the  country  to-day  is 
worth  $40,000,000. 

The  name  of  the  quince  clearly  indicates  tiiat  it  grew  naturally  in  the 
Island  of  Crete,  though  it  probably  did  not  originate  tiiere.     It  has  been  found 
growing  wild  along  the  Danube  and  in  France.    It  was  also  known 
at  an  early  day  in  England  and  Portugal.     When  first  known,  it 
was  more  nearly  shaped  like  a  pear  tiian  now  :    indeed,  it  is  distantly  related 
to  both  pear  and  ai)ple.     The 
ancients  were  wont  to  regard 
it  as  a  symbol  of  love  and 
liappiness ;   and  in  the  rab- 
binical writings  it  is  referred 
to  as  the  forbidden  fruit.    The 
fruit  has  never  had  a  very  ex- 
tensive culture  in  this  country, 
although  highly  prized  for  jel- 
lies and  preserves ;  but  the 
stock  has  been  quite  gener- 
ally used   for  grafting  dwarf 
trees,  especially  pears. 

Probably  no  fruit  has  been 
so  greatly  improved  by  the 
horticulturist,  nor  been  the 
subject  of  so  much  study 
and  experiment,  as  the  pear. 
Though  not  a  native  of  this 
country,    it    was 

,         '        .  ,    Pear. 

early     cultivated 

here,  not  only  for  the  fresh  fruit,  but  also  for  its  juice,  which  is  called  "  perry," 
and  was  often  more  highly  esteemed  than  cider.  There  were  no  less  than  442 
varieties  of  this  fruit,  according  to  the  catalogue  of  the  London  Horticultural 
Society,  in  1842 ;  but,  during  the  fifty  or  si^cty  years  prior  to  that  date,  much 
liad  been  done  to  improve  and  develop  the  fruit,  and  form  new  varieties. 
Probably  more  attention  was  givcu  to  this  matter  by  Van  Mons,  the  Belgian 
fruit-culturist,  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  than  has  been  given  it  by  any 


IIYUKANOKA    OIASKA. 


i 
11 


176 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Seckel. 


Other  one  man  ;  and  he  did  much  to  start  new  kinds  of  pears  himself,  and  to 
stimulate  others  to  do  so,  by  hybridizing,  and  experiments  with  seedlings. 

Thus  it  will  be  readily  seen  that  but  few  pears  raised  in  this  country  prior 
to  the  Revolution  were  particularly  choice.  There  was  one  tree,  however, 
stuyvesant  planted  in  New- York  City,  in  the  dooryard  of  Peter  Stuyvesant, 
pear-tree.  when  govemor  of  the  old  Dutch  Colony  of  New  Netherlands, 
more  than  two  centuries  ago,  which  remained  growing,  or  at  least  alive,  until 
about  1875  J  when,  having  died,  and  become  not  only  unsightly,  but  an  ob- 
stacle to  building,  it  was  cut  down,  the  wood  being  preserved  as  relics  of  an 
interesting  historic  age.  The  fruit  was  a  bon-chr^tien,  and  of  good  quality ; 
and  grafts  were  obtained  for  much  other  stock. 

Even  more  valuable  than  the  fruit  of  this  tree  was  that  of  the  famous 
Seckel  pear-tree.  The  late  Bishop  White  of  Pennsylvania  narrates,  that,  when 
he  was  a  boy,  —  about  1 760,  —  there  was  a  German  cattle-dealer 
who  used  to  sell  to  Philadelphians  some  small  but  particularly 
delicious  pears ;  but  from  what  source  he  obtained  them  he  wo'>ld  not  tell. 
Not  long  after,  the  tract  of  land  belonging  to  the  Holland  Land  Company,  on 
the  Delaware  River,  just  south  of  Philadelphia,  was  sold  in  parcels ;  and 
"  Dutch  Jacob,"  as  he  was  called,  bought  a  section  on  which  stood  the  tree 
from  which  he  had  procured  this  fruit.  Soon  after,  the  farm  was  sold  to  a  Mr. 
Seckel ;  and  ultimately  the  property  became  part  of  Stejjhen  Cirard's  estate. 
The  tree  itself  lived  until  quite  recently.  From  that  tree  have  come  the 
Seckel  pears  so  widely  known  and  prized.  DoubUess  the  tree  was  a  seedling 
raised  by  early  German  settlers ;  but,  while  the  Seckel  somewhat  resembles 
certain  known  German  varieties,  it  is  distinct  from  them,  and  is  a  strictly 
American  fruit. 

A  less  generally  known  but  excellent  pear,  the  Petre  so  called,  was  a 
seedling  raised  by  John  Bartram,  a  well-known  Philadelphia  horti- 
culturist, in  1735,  fro*"  'h^  '^^^^  of  ^  butter  pear  obtained  from 
Lord  Petre  of  England. 

•Another  tree  famous  for  productiveness,  and  size  of  its  fruit  than  for  the 
qi^ity  of  it,  was  planted  by  Mrs.  Ochiltree,  ten  miles  north  of  Vincennes,  in 
dXitree  Illinois,  somewhere  about  1800.  It  bore  no  less  than  184  bush- 
PMT-trea.  g|g  Qf  fjujt  j^  1834,  and  140  bushels  in  1840 ;  at  which  latter  time 
its  trunk  was  ten  feet  in  circumference,  —  a  remarkable  growth  for  a  pear- 
tree. 

Among  other  American  seedling  pears,  the  Bloodgood,  an  early,  high- 
flavored  fall  fruit,  raised  by  James  Bloodgood,  on  Long  Island,  about  1820  or 
1830;  the  Dearborn,  originated  by  the  Hon.  H.  A.  S.  Dearborn  of  Boston  in 
1818  ;  and  the  Buffam  pear  of  Rhode  Island,  — are  the  most  prominent. 

Van  Mons  produced  many  kinds  of  the  beurrd  or  butter  pears.  The 
Beurrd  Anjou  was  introduced  to  this  country  about  1840  by  Mr.  Wilder,  presi- 
dent of  the  Massachusetts  Horticultural  Society.    The  Bartlett,  identical  with 


Pctra. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


«n 


the  Williams  bon-chr^tien  of  England,  was  introduced  to  this  country  by  Enoch 
Bartlett  of  Dorchester,  Mass.  This  has  proved  one  of  the  most  B«rtiett  and 
popular  of  dessert  pears  in  the  United  States.  The  doyenne —  other  varie- 
known  as  the  vlrgaloo  (or  bungalow)  in  New  York,  butter  pear  ***'' 
in  Pennsylvania,  and  St.  Michel's  near  Boston  —  is  an  old  French  variety,  and 
was  brought  here  quite  early  in  the  century.  Within  the  past  twenty-five 
years  the  importations  have  been  almost  innumerable,  the  beurr^s,  Duchesse 
D'Angouleme,  Flemish  beauty,  and  Vicar  of  Winkfield,  being  most  prominent. 

The  culture  of  pears,  to  be  successful,  requires  careful  adaptation  to  soil 
and  climate.  These  points,  as  well  as  the  improvement  of  varieties,  have 
been  closely  studied  by  the  nurserymen  and  horticultural  societies ;  culture  of 
and  since  1830  or  1840  the  fruit  has  been  very  widely  grown.  '•"• 
California  has  been  particularly  productive  of  choice  pears,  and  at  certain 
seasons  the  Eastern  markets  depend  almost  entirely  on  that  section  for  their 
supplies. 

Besides  being  sold  from  the  street-stands  in  cities,  to  be  eaten  out  of  hand 
and  for  dessert,  large  quantities  of  pears  are  dried  or  canned  for  the  market. 
'I'lie  business  is  regarded  as  highly  profitable,  many  trees  yielding 
fifty  or  sixty  dollars'  worth  of  fruit  a  year,  and  one  tree  in  New 
York  having  a  record  of  an  aggregate  product  worth  153,750. 

In  quantity,  and  perhaps  in  value,  the  fruit-crop  which  ranks  next  to  the 
appie  in  this  country  is  the  peach.  It  is  also  one  of  our  oldest  fruits.  Peaches 
originated  in  Persia,  and  grow  wild  in  Asiatic  Turkey.  They  have 
been  long  and  widely  cultivated  in  Europe  in  sheltered  spots,  and 
their  improvement  has  received  considerable  attention ;  not,  however,  so  much 
as  tlie  pear,  than  which  the  peach  has  much  fewer  varieties. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  when  the  peach  was  first  brought  to  this  country ; 
but  it  was  pretty  generally  known  in  all  the  Atlantic  colonies  before  the  Revo- 
lution. Northern  winters,  however,  have  been  rather  too  much  for  History  of 
it ;  and  the  principal  peach-orchards  of  the  country  are  now  con-  *•"  pe*eh. 
fined  to  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Pennsylvania,  and  Maryland.  It  is  generally 
conceded  that  American  peaches,  on  the  whole,  are  rather  better  than  Eng)||h 
ones. 

There  were  several  varieties  known  in  this  country  previous  to  the  Revo- 
lution, and  there  is  a  record  of  the  yellow  clingstone  having  been  taken  to 
New  York  bom  South  Carolina  before  the  war  for  independence,  varietie* 
Most  of  our  best-known  varieties  have  been  developed  since.    The  before  and 
large  white  clingstone,  long  popular  in  New  England,  was  raised  in  p"",„'l?  „ 
1805  by  David  Williamson  of  New  York.     The  Morris  red  and 
Morris  white  varieties  were  produced  by  Robert  Morris  of  Philadelphia  nearly 
a  century  ago.    William  Crawford  of  New  Jersey  originated  the  yellow-pulped 
peach  that  bears  his  name,  about  1820.    Two  kinds  of  nectarine,  raised  from 
peach-stones  by  H.  Bloomfield  of  Harvard,  Mass.,  in  1810,  and  by  T.  Lewis 


Peach. 


<  M, 


.78 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Peach- 
culture  at 
cloM  of  last 
Century. 


of  Boston  about  1815,  were  cultivated  and  disseminated  by  Col.  S.  G.  Perkins 
of  Brookline.  This  gentleman  sent  specimens  of  the  former  to  London  in 
1 8a I,  which  attracted  great  attention.  The  peach  is  really  the  choicest  dessert 
fruit  known.  In  the  early  part  of  the  century  it  was  very  extensively  dried  for 
pies  and  sauce. 

Downing  says  that  peach-culture  in  this  country  reached  a  climax  about  the 
year  1800.  At  that  period  the  insidious  disease  called  the  "yellows  "  began 
to  destroy  the  trees  gradually.  It  first  manifested  fiself  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. The  fruit  was  carried  north,  and  widely  scattered.  It  was 
then  customary  for  seedsmen  to  plant  the  stones  of  peaches  indis- 
criminately, and  without  regard  to  the  quality  or  health  of  the  trees 
from  which  they  came.    Thus  by  degrees  the  malady  became  constitutional  in 

the  young  peach-orchards  of  the  North- 
ern and  Eastern  States.  The  difPculty 
and  its  cause  were  not  understood  ;  and 
the  evil  operated  slowly  for  twenty  or 
thirty  years,  all  remedies  having  been 
tried  in  vain.  This  difficulty,  and  the 
severity  of  the  Northern  winters,  had 
pretty  much  exterminated  the  New- 
England  and  many  of  the  New- York 
peach -orchards  by  1850;  since  which 
time  little  effort  has  been  made  to  re- 
store them. 

In  the  region  above  referred  to, 
now  forming  the  chief  centre  of  pro 
duction,  there  has  been  a  marked  dc  ■ 
Marked  velopment  of  peach-culture 

development  within  twenty  years,  largely 
tur^e'witiiin  ^uc  to  the  development  of 
twenty  the  Canning  industry,  and 

yean.  ^^   greatly  improved  and 

special  facilities  for  transportation  by 
rail  and  steamer  for  this  class  of  freight. 
From  that  comparatively  limited  region 
peaches  are  now  sent  all  over  the 
country  in  immense  quantities  at  a 
trifling  cost,  and  in  a  good  state  of 
preservation  ;  and  in  the  height  of  the 
season  the  carrying  trade  forms  a  big  item  in  the  business  of  certain  freight- 
lines. 

Plums  are  a  much  less  prominent  crop  in  this  country.    The   fhiit  is 
derived  from  the  bullace,  which,  in  turn,  is  the  offspring  of  the  wild  sloe,  and 


ROSE-COLORED  WIQBLIA. 


M 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


179 


S.  G.  Perkins 
0  London  in 
oicest  dessert 
vely  dried  for 

T\ax  about  the 
;llows  "  began 
elf  in  Pennsyl- 
tered.  It  was 
peaches  indis- 
1th  of  the  trees 
)nstitutional  in 
Is  of  the  North- 

The  difficulty 
iderstood ;  and 
^  for  twenty  or 
es  having  been 
ficulty,  and  the 
rn  winters,  had 
ated   the   New- 

the  New- York 
b ;  since  which 
sen  made  to  re- 


,ve   referred  to, 
centre  of  pro 
n  a  marked  di 
of  peach-culture 
ity  years,  largely 
development  ot 
g  industry,  and 
r  improved  and 
ansportation  by 
5  class  of  freight. 
y  limited  region 
t   all   over    the 
quantities   at  a 
good  state  of 
le  height  of  the 
certain  freight- 

The   fruit  is 
le  wild  sloe,  and 


it 


is  said  to  have  originated  in  the  Caucasus,  near  the  Volga  River.  It  has 
spread  all  over  Europe  from  Norway  south,  and  extended  even  into  Barbary. 
iMiglish  catalogues  enumerated  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  seventy-four 
varieties  a  few  years  since. 

Plums  were  known  and  grown  slightly  in  this  country  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, though  not  much  is  heard  of  them  until  the  dawn  of  the  present  century. 
The  venerable  Chancellor  Livingston  was  the  first  to  bring  to  this 
country  the  greengage,  which  was  known  in  France  as  the  Reine 
Clauile,  having  been  named  after  the  wife  of  Francis  I.  From  that  stock  a 
seedling  was  developed  by  Judge  Buel  of  Albany,  which  was  called  the 
"  Jefferson."  It  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  delicious,  and  widely-known 
l)lums  in  this  country.  Its  birth  was  probably  not  far  from 
contemporaneous  with  that  of  the  Washington  plum,  another 
spontaneous  American  product,  derived  from  the  greengage.  Concerning 
the  Washington  plum,  it  is  recorded  that  the  parent-tree  grew  on  Delancey's 
farm,  on  the  east  side  of  what  is  now  the  Bowery,  in  New- York  City.  A  sucker 
from  it  was  bought  from  a  market-woman  by  Mr.  Bolmar,  a  Chatham-street 
merchant,  in  1818;  and  from  this  came  the  new  variety.  The  Washington 
plum  was  soon  introduced  into  Europe,  where  it  has  never  been  equalled. 
The  Lawrence  favorite  and  Columbia  plums  were  also  seedlings  of  green- 
gage extraction,  raised  by  L.  U.  Lawrence  of  Hudson,  N.Y.  Other  less 
important  varieties  have  been  developed  in  this  country;  and  numerous 
foreign  varieties,  including  the  common  blue  plum,  the  damson,  and  the 
apricot,  have  been  imported.  We  have  also,  in  this  country,  several  wild 
native  varieties.  Among  them  are  the  Chickasaw,  peculiar  to  Mississippi,  a 
wild  yellow  and  red  plum  to  be  found  along  river-sides  from  Canada  to 
deorgia  and  Texas,  and  a  beach-plum  that  grows  on  sandy  coasts  from 
Massachusetts  to  New  Jersey,  and  occasionally  farther  south. 

Plums  have  never  been  cultivated  extensively  for  the  market  in  this 
country,  but  generally  by  farmers  and  city  residents  for  domestic  cuitiv«ion 
use,   and  by  fruit-fanciers  as  a  special  luxury.    The  common  "«"•»«<•• 
varieties  are  often  pitted  and  dried,  and  the  choicer  ones  pickled  and  pie- 
served.    The  fruit  is  also  used  fresh  for  dessert  to  some  extent. 

The  cherry  is  a  fruit  of  Asiatic  origin,  and  was  introduced  into  Italy  from 
Pontus  during  the  Mithridatic  war,  70  B.C.    Thence  it  spread  all 
over  Europe.     Within  the  past  century  or  two  its  varieties  have 
multiplied  and  improved  remarkably.    There  are  now  over  three  hundred 
varieties  cultivated. 

The  blackheart  variety  was  early  introduced  to  this  country,  and  seedlings 
were  raised  from  it  without  number.     The  Black  Tartarian,  one  of  its  Russian 
descendants,  was  brought  here  in  1825,  and  has  proved  a  great 
favorite.    The  early  whiteheart  was  brought  here  from  France 
by  R.  Arden,  who  lived  on  the  Hudson,  opposite  West  Point.     It  has  been 


'It'-^r. 


I  So 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Strawberry. 


widely  cultivated.  The  bigarreau  cherry  was  brought  to  the  United  States  by 
Other  varia-  William  Prince  of  Long  Island  in  1800.  Chancellor  Livingstuii 
*'•••  introduced  a  white  bigarreau,  and  about  1825  Andrew  Parmeniicr 

of  Brooklyn  brought  the  Napoleon  bigarreau  from  Holland.  Daniel  Blood- 
good  of  Flushing,  L.I.,  M.  P.  Wilder  of  Boston,  A.  J.  Downing  of  Newburyh, 
N.Y.,  and  Robert  Manning  of  Salem,  Mass.,  brought  several  new  varieties 
here  between  1830  and  1850.  The  mayduke,  supposed  to  be  the  niedoc  of 
France,  was  among  the  earliest,  most  valuable,  and  most  widely-diffused 
varieties  in  this  country,  and  many  new  varieties  have  been  deduced  from  it. 
The  morello,  or  Kentish  sour  red  cherry,  used  chiefly  for  pies,  was  raiscil 
chiefly  in  New  York  along  the  Hudson,  and  in  New  Jersey.  The  fruit  has 
never  been  cultivated  largely  for  the  market,  but  chiefly  for  local  and  family 
consumption.  Besides  being  eaten  fresh,  the  cherry  is  canned,  dried,  made 
into  pies,  and  macerated  with  brandy  or  rum  for  medicinal  purposes.  Tiie 
wood  is  also  highly  prized  by  cabinet-makers. 

Strawberries  tpke  their  ramc  trom  the  old  custom  of  putting  straw  under- 
neath the  plants  to  keep  the  fruit  from  touching  the  ground.  The  Romans 
called  them  "  fragraria,"  on  account  of  their  delicious  fragrance. 
They  grow  wild  almost  the  world  over.  Little  attention  was 
given  to  their  improvement  in  foreign  countries  until  this  centurj',  and  not 
much  was  done  by  American  horticulturists  until  about  1830.  Hovey'.s 
seedling,  produced  by  a  famous  Boston  seedsman  in  1834,  was  among  the 
very  first  and  most  popular  of  choice  American  varieties.  In  1837  Alex- 
ander Ross  of  Hudson,  N.Y ,  developed  an  improved  variety  from  the  Keen 
(English)  strawberry.  Thereafter  varieties  and  plants  rapidly  multiplied,  and 
the  culture  of  this  delicious  fruit  rapidly  increased.  Within  the  past  ten  or 
fifteen  years  strawberries  have  been  grown  in  small  garden-plats  rather  less 
than  formerly,  inasmuch  as  the  immense  quantities  raised  by  market- 
gardeners  in  the  Central  States,  especially  on  Long  Island  and  in  New 
Jersey  and  Delaware,  and  the  improved  facilities  for  transportation,  have 
cheapened  and  made  very  plenty  this  delicious  early  summer  fruit  in  all 
parts  of  the  country. 

Raspberries  (which  are  said  to  have  originated  on  Mount  Ida,  in  the  Island 
of  Crete)  and  blackberries  grow  wild  all  over  the  northern  and  eastern  part 
of  this  country.  Most  of  our  cultivated  berries  were  introduced 
from  Europe.  They  have  not  been  very  extensively  grown  in  the 
United  States,  however,  the  market  being  supplied  quite  as  much  by  the  wild 
fruit  as  by  the  improved.  Horticulturists  have  given  these  berries  compara- 
tively little  attention. 

Oranges  grow  to  a  very  limited  extent  in  this  country,  and  chiefly  in 
Florida.      The  fruit  is  essentially  a  tropical  one,  and  has  been 
known  there  from  time  immemorial.    The  principal  planting  and 
conduct  of  orange-groves  for  mercantile  purposes  is  of  recent  date,  undet 


Raspberry. 


Orangea. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


I8l 


Figi,  fte. 


the  auspices  of  Northerners  who  went  to  Florida  after  the  war.  Labor  and 
society  are  as  yet  so  demoralized,  that  the  industry  is  still  in  its  infancy, 
Morida  oranges  are  large  and  sweet,  and  are  highly  and  justly  prized ;  and 
there  would  seem  to  be  a  deal  of  wealth  in  store  for  those  who  shall  systemati- 
cally supply  Northern  markets  therewith. 

Some  idea  of  the  growth  of  the  fruit-producing  business  in  this  country 
within  the  past  few  years  may  be  formed  from  the  census  returns  of  orchard 
products,  which  exclude  grapes  and  wine  and  the  various  kinds  of  berries. 
In  1850  the  total  value  was  stated  at  17,773,186  ;  ten  years  later,  $19,991,885  ; 
and  ten  years  still  later,  147,335,189.  This  is  a  more  marked  increase  than 
in  our  sugar,  tobacco,  cotton,  or  cereals ;  and  these  simple  figures  contain  a 
significant  summary  of  horticultural  history. 

Besides  the  fruits  named  in  this  chapter,  there  have  been  attempts  to 
domesticate  others,  mostly  belonging  to  warmer  climates,  —  such  as  the  pome- 
granate, date-palm,  fig,  olive,  lemon,  mulberry,  almond,  and  other 
nut-trees.  But  such  attempts  have  met  with  but  little  success. 
The  mulberry,  however, 
be  it  remarked,  was  grown 
chiefly  for  the  silk  indus- 
try, which  proved  so  sig- 
nal a  failure.  Currants 
and  other  small  fruits 
have  too  little  a  history 
to  entitle  them  to  specific 
mention. 

It  may  be  remarked 
in  this  connection,  that, 
besides  fruit-trees,  such 
economic  plants  as  tea 
and  coffee  have  been 
introduced  by  the  horti- 
cultural branch  of  the 
Agricultural  Bureau  at 
Washington,  Tea  and  cor- 
but  not  with  "«  ?'■"*•• 
much  success.  The  pres- 
ent commissioner.  Gen. 
Leduc,  is  putting  forth 
more    vigorous     efforts 

than  did  any  of  his  predecessors  to  render  tea-culture  not  only  possible,  but 
also  a  profitable  industry. 


COFPBB-HIILLBII. 


BOOK    II. 


MANUFACTURES. 


I,    » 


V  '^ 


CHAPTER  I. 


MANUFACTURE  OF   IRON   AND  STEEL. 


EARLY    HISTORY. 


NATURE  has  fitted  the  United  States  to  become  the  centrt  oT  &  great 
iron  industry  by  the  lavish  endowment  of  her  territory  witK  all  the 
materials  required  in  the  production  and  manufacture  of  that 
valuable  metal. 


Buperierlty 

Iron,  coal,  and  limestone  are  found  in  every  part  *•'  United 
of  our  domain ;  and,  in  the  region  lying  east  of  the  Rocky  Moun 


other  coun- 

tains,  the  country  is  so  full  of  them  as  to  present  the  appearance  »'•«•  •"  ''eh- 
geologically  of  a  gigantic  basin  filled  to  the  rim  with  mineral  variety  of 
treasures.  It  is  said,  by  those  who  have  examined  the  mineral  «ron  ores, 
resources  of  other  countries,  that,  were  the  coal  of  the  rest  of  the  world 
deposited  within  the  iron  rim  of  this  great  basin,  it  would  not  occupy  one- 
quarter  of  the  area  of  our  own  coal-fields.  What  is  true  of  coal  is  true  of 
iron,  which,  by  the  help  of  coal,  will  be  utilized  still  more  extensively  in  the 
Tuture  of  the  world  for  the  purposes  of  man.  The  deposits  of  the  ore  in  this 
country  exist  in  such  enormous  quantity  as  fairly  to  stagger  the  imagination. 
The  ores  are  more  accessible  than  in  EIngland,  which  now  supplies  half  the 
iron  consumed  by  the  world  ;  and  they  exist  in  close  proximity  to  the  coal  and 
limestone  used  in  extracting  the  metallic  iron  from  them.  T;.eir  abundance 
insures  to  the  United  States  the  ability  to  supply,  not  only  its  own  people,  but 
the  world  at  large,  with  all  the  iron  that  could  be  consumed  for  centuries  to 
come,  if  it  were  necessary  to  do  so.  There  appears  to  be  no  other  country  so 
fortunately  endowed  with  respect  to  iron  and  coal.  England,  now 
the  resource  of  Europe  and  Asia,  and  once  of  America,  supplies 
at  present  half  the  iron  and  coal  of  the  world ;  but  her  mines  are  deep  and 
difficult,  and  costly  to  work,  while  in  the  United  States  they  lie  upon  the  top 
of  the  ground,  or  near  it.  Sweden,  with  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  the  richest 
and  best  ore,  has  no  coal.  Russia,  Austria,  Italy,  Algiers,  and  some  of  the 
German  States,  have  ore,  but  no  coal.  France  is  deficient  in  coal,  and  only 
maintains  her  iron  manufacture  by  importing  both  coal  and  iron.     Prussia  has 

185 


England. 


? 


/2_ 


^> 


t86 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


?""^J 


r 


a  sufficient  supply  of  both  materials  for  her  own  needs,  but  has  little  surplus. 

'  Brazil  has  iron,  but  very  little  coal,  and  can  only  manufacture  her  ore  by  burning 
her  forests  in  her  furnaces,  and  cannot,  therefore,  long  maintain  a  competition 
with  a  country  whose  very  foundations  are  planted  on  beds  of  coal,  if,  indeed, 
she  can  ever  seriously  enter  into  one.  Spain  has  iron  and  coal ;  but  they  are 
widely  separated,  and  little  has  been  done  to  utilize  either.  The  United  States, 
on  the  other  hand,  not  only  enjoys  incalculable  supplies  of  the  best  ores,  and 
of  coal  and  limestoj  e,  but  in  some  States  —  as  in  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  Aiabama, 
and  Kentucky  —  is  able  to  point  to  all  these  materials  so  close  together,  that 
they  exist  within  a  radius  of  a  mile  and  a  half  of  the  furnace,  all  lying  on  or 

-  near  the  surface  of  the  ground.    The  mineral  deposits  of  the  United  States  will 

lie  more  fully  described  in  the  book  on  "  Mines  and  Mining ; "  and  it  need  only 

be  said  here,  that  in  a  country  filled  with  such  exhausfless  stores  of  coal  and  of 
iron  ores  of  every  variety,  so  convenient  of  access,  nothing  except  the  grossest 
apathy  and  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  people  could  possibly  prevent  it,  in 

.  time,  from  becoming  a  leading  source  of  the  world's  supply  of  iron  and  iron 
manufactures ;  and  that  as  our  people  are  not  ignorant  and  apathetic,  but  are 
eager,  intelligent,  and  enterprising,  the  destiny  of  the  country  as  the  seat  of  a 
great  iron  manufacture  is  assured.  Indeed,  the  industry  has  already  reached 
magnificent  proportions,  and  not  only  has  now  the  capacity  to  produce  enough 
to  supply  the  wants  of  our  own  inhabitants,  but,  within  the  last  two  or  three 
years,  has  begun  to  furnish  a  surplus  for  export.  In  the  world  at 
large  the  United  States  now  stands  second  on  the  list  of  iron- 
producing  countries,  as  will  appear  from  the  following  table  of  the  product  of 
pig-metal,  compiled  by  the  American  Iron  and  Steel  Association  for  1877  from 
the  latest  accessible  statistics  :  — 


Statiitics. 


COUNTRIES. 

YEAR. 

IRON,  TONS. 

Great  Britain 

1875 

6,365,462 

United  States . 

1876 

1,868,960 

Germany 

1874 

1,660,208 

France    . 

1876 

I.449.S37 

Belgium  . 

187s 

541,805 

Austria    . 

187s 

4SS.227 

Russia     . 

1874 

S'4.497 

Sweden   . 

1875 

350.525 

Luxemburg     . 

1874 

246,054 

Italy 

1872 

26,000 

Spain 

1872 

73.000 

Norway  . 

1870 

3.975 

Mexico    . 

1876 

7.500 

Canada   . 

. 

1876 

7.500 

Japan      . 

1874 

5,000 

4 


CF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


187 


-j^3^            --     ^          ---      ^-^  -.^-^  -iW^^ 

-—!&-_---:             -  -    .               ^T-l  iTT^^ttMMJife                              1    lii 

HMp'^J'fflj.  ,,j             ..        -,  jy  a;^^^-  ^L"-'^ 

.               ^f     nil^Bf^^^^Bri  -   't              ^  ^  '11^ 

^^^^^^^^^^^p^^^^^^-^|!^M|3^^P%^^^ 

Pi  '^pt      «- 

L  ^TllS 

fc^a^' 


l^^^^^ 


IRON,  TONS. 


.^:m    n 


--^Ni^.-^  ^^y^^ 


IRON  AND  STBBL  MANUFACTUIUI. 


■■■^fifVT'^ 


i88 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


COUNTKIBS. 


Switzerland     . 

Turkey    . 

Australasia 

All  other  countries , 

Total 


IRON,  TONS. 


7,500 
40,000 
10,000 

50,000 


13,682,750 


production 
cf  iron. 


!  f 


/  The  first  discovery  of  jron  in  this  country  was  in  the  South.  Ore  was 
-^^  found  by  Raleigh  in  Carolina ;  and,  on  his  return  to  England,  that  eminent  man 
Diicover  reported  that  this  metal  formed  one  of  the  resources  of  the  beau- 
and  early  tiful  region  referred  to.  It  did  not  prove  a  special  attraction  to 
emigration  at  the  time ;  for  iron  was  not  among  the  things  in 
which  the  territory  of  England  was  deficient,  and  the  world  was 
not  then  using  a  hundredth  part  of  the  metal  which  it  consumes  now,  and 
there  was  no  great  demand  for  it.  The  steam-engine  had  not  been  invented, 
and  very  little  machinery  was  in  use.  Even  after  the  practical  settlement  of 
the  country  by  the  English  race  had  begun,  in  1607,  in  Virginia,  it  was  a  great 
many  years  before  iron  was  thought  to  be  of  sufficient  account  to  expend  any 
time  on  its  manufacture.  Tobacco  was  a  much  more  profitable  product,  and 
for  fifteen  years  was  about  the  only  product  of  the  colony ;  the  men  sent  over 
by  the  London  Company  to  introduce  industry  themselves  turning  agriculturiats, 
and  raising  that  valuable  plant.  That  minerals  abounded  in  Virginia  was,  how- 
ever, noted  at  a  very  early  day.  Tr^  ifiro  "imp  nare  "  was  sent  to  England  by 
the  Jamestown  Colony,  and  found  to  yield  an  excellent  quality  of  metal.  Atten- 
tion was  called  to  the  matter  repeatedly.  Finally  the  London  Company  deter- 
mined to  make  use  of  the  ore ;  and  about  1620  they  sent  to  Virginia,  as  appears 
from  "A  Declaration  of  the  State  of  Virginia,"  "out  of  Sussex,  about  forty,  all 
famed  to  iron  workes."  These  people  established  in  Virginia  a  forge,  or,  more 
Z^  properly,  what  is  now  called  a  " bloomary."  Reference  is  made  to  it  by  Bev- 
Manufacture  ^""'X'  '"  ^'^  "  History  of  Virginia,"  as  the  "  iron  work  at  Falling 
of  iron  in  Creek,  in  Jamestown  River,  where  they  made  proof  of  good  iron 
Virginia.  ^^^^  ^^^  brought  the  whole  work  so  near  a  perfection,  that  they 
writ  word  to  the  company  in  London  .hat  they  did  not  doubt  but  to  finish  the 
work,  and  have  plentiful  provision  of  iron  for  them,  by  the  next  Easter ; "  namely, 
y  jl-in  the  spring  of  1621.  Thus  iron  was  actually  manufactured  from  the  ore  in 
I  ^Virginia  as  early  as  1620.  The  fuel  used  was  charcoal.  In  1621,  three  of  the 
master- workmen  having  died,  the  company  sent  over  Mr.  John  Berkeley,  with 
his  son  Maurice  and  twenty  experienced  workmen,  to  carry  on  the  works. 
Ovl  the  22d  of  May,  1622,  the  works  were  destroyed  by  the  Indians,  and 
the  whole  company  massacred,  ivith  the  exception  of  a  boy  and  a  girl,  who 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


t8<^ 


IRON,  TONS. 


south.     Ore  was 


escaped  by  hiding.  Three  hundred  and  forty-seven  of  the  other  settlers  were 
killed  besides.  This  bloody  event  put  an  end  to  the  making  of  iron  in  Virginia 
for  nearly  a  hundred  years.  The  business  was  not  resumed  until  1712,  although 
the  rocks  of  this  ancient  and  well-settled  State  were  known  to  be  full  of  valuable 
deposits,  and  the  attention  of  capitalists  in  London  was  from  time  to  time 
called  to  the  fact. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  coincidences  in  the  history  of  the  iron 
manufacture,  that  a  mob   in   civiUzed    England  destroyed   a    blast-furnace, 
erected  there  by  Dud  Dudley  for  the  smelting  of  iron  by  means  Dudley's 
of  coal  fuel,  almost  at  the  same  time  that  the  savages  of  the  woods  experiments. 
burned  the  little  pioneer  factory  in  Virginia.     Experiments  had  been  making 
in  England  for  many  years  to  utilize  coal  in  producing  iron.    The  forests  of 
the  kingdom  were  being  destroyed  Rapidly  by  the  insatiable  demands  of  the 
forges  and  blast-furnaces,  which  then  could  only  be  worked  with  charcoal  fuel. 
In  1619  Dud  Dudley  had  succeeded  in  making  iron  with  coal  by  means  of 
his  skill  in  the  use  of  bellows  and  in  coking  coal.     Iron-masters  tried  to  obtain  /  ^ 
his  secret,  and  working-men  were  incited  to  jealousy  of  him.     He  built  five 
separate  works,  was  tricked  out  of  three,  and  lost  one  by  a  flood ;  and  one 
was  destroyed  by  a  mob.     Dudley  kept  his  secret,  and  it  died  with  him ;  and 
the  manufacture  of  iron  with  the  aid  of  hard  coal  was  postponed  First  use  of 
for  over  a  hundred  years.     It  was  not  until  nhmit  1 735  th.if  Dgrhy,  "ke. 
having  discovered  the  process,  put  it  into  use,  and  began  making  iron  with 
coke  regularly.    That  process  and  the  new  blowing-engines  then  quadrupled 
the  product  of  iron  in  England  in  fifty  years. 

The  next  attempt  at  making  iron  in  the  colonies  was  in  the  North.     It  was 
part  of  the  object  of  colonizing  Massachusetts  to  produce  iron.    In  the  journal 
of  the  Court  of  Assistants  at  London  for  the  meeting  on  March  2,   „ 
1628,  it  is  recorded  that  "also  for  Mr.  Malbon  it  was  propounded,  of  iron  in 
he  having  skill  in  iron-works,  and  willing  to  put  in  twenty-five   '^'^^  ^"*' 
pounds  in  stock,  it  should  be  accounted  as  fifty  pouiids,  and  his 
charges  to  be  borne  out  and  home  from  New  England  ;  and  upon  his  return, 
and  report  what  may  be  done  about  iron-works,  consideration  to  be  had  of 
proceeding  therein  accordingly,  and  further  recompense  if  there  be  cause  to 
entertain  him."    Three  days  after,  the  court  made  arrangements  with  Thomas 
Graves  of  Gravesend,  Kent,  "a  man  experienced  in  iron-workes,"  to  go  out  to 
New  England  at  the  expense  of  the  company,  and  serve  the  company  for  six 
or  eiglit  months,  provision  being  made  for  his  staying  three  years  if  dcsiral)lo. 
Tiic  result  of  the  expedition  of  these  two  men  is  not  known.     It  could  not 
have  been  very  satisfactory ;  for  no  furnace-fires  appear  to  have  been  estab- 
lished in  consequence  of  it.     The  Court  of  Assistants  in  I^ondon  got  no 
iron  from  this  preliminary  attempt.     Fifteen  years  later  the  subject  of  iron- 
making  was  agitated  again,  and  in  1637  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts 


t90 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


hi 


in' I     ■•  '\  ' 

si.  n 

i  l!  j.       <   t 


lijHr 


'     ii^^fl 


i"iui 


granted  to   Abraham  Shaw  one -half  the  benefit    of   any 


coles  or  yron 
the  countrye's 


yL 


Bog-iron  ore. 


/^ 


yy 


Winthrop. 


Stone  w""*  shall  bee  found  in  any  comon  ground  w'**  is  in 
disposing." 

The  first  iron  made  in  the  colony,  however,  was  not  from  stony  ores,  but 
was  taken  from  the  bottom  of  the  peat-bogs  and  ponds  near  the  coast.  '1  liese 
bogs  are  found  all  along  the  eastern  coast  of  the  country  as  far 
south  as  Maryland.  Water  filtering  through  the  neighboring  liills 
brings  down  into  the  ponds  large  quantities  of  sesquioxide  of  iron  in  solution,  and 
deposits  the  same  at  the  bottom  of  the  pond,  along  with  vegetable  mould,  in  soft, 
spongy  masses  which  go  by  the  name  of  ''bog-iron  ore."  The  ore,  once  taken 
out,  is  renewed  again  by  gradual  deposit.  After  the  Falling-Creek  experiment, 
the  iron-works  of  the  country  were  suppUed  for  a  long  period  principally  with 
bog- ore.  The  large  furnaces  of  the  present  day  could  not  be  supplied  with  it, 
because  it  does  not  exist  in  sufficient  ciuantity ;  but,  for  the  uses  of  the  early 
colonists,  it  supplied  pretty  nearly  every  want.  The  iron  cast  from  it  is  brittle, 
but  very  fluid  when  melted,  taking  every  minute  mark  of  the  mould  ;  and  is, 
therefore,  still  made  to  the  present  day  in  North-west  New  Jersey  and  in  Mary- 
,andjor^tove-castings. 

In  1643  specimens  of  the  bog-ores  from  the  ponds  near  Lynn  were  sent 
to  England  for  trial,  and  found  to  be  so  good,  that  a  '•  Company  of  Undertak- 
ers for  the  Iron -Works  "  was  immediately  formed,  with  a  thousand 
pounds  capital,  by  John  Winthrop,  jun.,  and  others.  Winthrop 
came  to  New  England  in  ±6^,  with  a  corps  of  workmen,  to  begin  the  regular 
manufacture  of  iron.  The  company  built  their  furnace  on  the  banks  of  the 
Saugus  River,  within  the  present  limits  of  Lynn,  at  a  spot  which  they  called 
Hammersmith,  after  the  place  in  England  from  which  some  of  the  workmen 
had  come.  The  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  greatly  favored  this  work  hy 
grants  of  three  square  miles  of  land  wherever  the  company  put  up  works, 
and  by  special  privileges  and  charters.  Subscriptions  toward  the  stock  were 
encouraged  among  the  inhabitants.  The  work  was  very  successful ;  and  on 
Oct.  14,  1645,  the  General  Court  granted  to  the  company  a  charter  "on  the 
condition  that  the  inhabitants  of  this  jurisdiction  be  furnished  with  barr-iron  of 
all  sorts  for  their  use,  not  exceeding  twenty  pounds  per  tunne."  In  1648  the 
Furnace  at  furnace  at  Lynn  was  turning  out  eight  tons  of  iron  a  week,  and 
Lynn.  appears  to  have  been  kept  busy  for  a  long  time  casting  cannon, 

shot,  pots,  and  other  holjowrware,  for  which  the  bog-iron  is  so  well  adapted. 
The  first  article  cast  was  an  iron  pot ;  and  this  historic  and  intrinsic  treasure 
was  handed  down  for  generations  in  the  family  of  the  man  who  bought  it, 
who  happened  to  be  Thomas  Hudson,  of  the  same  family  as  the  Dutch 
explorer,  Thomas  having  been  the  original  owner  of  the  lands  on  the  Saugus 
upon  which  the  foundery  stood. 

The  company  built  another  forge  about  1648,  in  the  town  of  Braintree; 


OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


(91 


Connecticut. 


of  Braintree 


and  in  165  a  a  forge  was  established  at  Raynham  (now  Taunton)  by  the 
two  Leonard  brothers,  Henry  and  James,  from  whom  have  since  Braintree 
descended    so    many  of  the   well-known   iron -masters  of  the  «ndT«un. 

ton. 

country. 

John  VVinthrop,  jun.,  went  to  New  London  in  Connecticut  in  1645,  *'*d 
in  1 65 1   obtained  a  grant  of  privileges  from  the  Assembly  to  Kirjtjron- 
enable  him  to  make  iron  there.     He  did  not,  however,  carry  out  works  in 
his  intention  of  establishing  the  business  then ;  and  the  first  iron 
works  in  this  colony  were  erected  at  New  Haven,  where  they  were  established 
by  Capt.  Thomas  Clarke  in  1656. 

Rhode  Island  made  iron  at  Pawtucket  and  elsewhere  as  early  as  1675. 
There  were  several  furnaces  and  forges  in  the  State,  all  of  them  Rhode 
ninning  with  bog-ore  taken  from  the  ponds  on  the  border  of  Bris-  '■'•'«*• 
to!  County,  Massachusetts.  The  works  at  Pawtucket  were  started  by  Joseph 
Jenks,  jun.,  from  Lynn.  The  Indians  interfered  with  their  infant  enterprises 
a  great  deal ;  and  the  iron  industry  has  not,  even  to  this  day,  reached  any 
si)ecial  development  in  the  State.  The  energies  of  the  people  were  directed 
at  a  very  early  period  to  cotton  spmning  and  weaving,  and  that  has  since 
engrossed  them  almost  entirely.  Yet  Rhode-Island  hills  contain  unlimited 
quantities  of  the  most  important  iron  ores. 

Iron  ore  had  been  discovered  in  New  Jersey  by  the  Dutch ;  and  a  com- 
pany of  people  from  Connecticut  began  the  production  of  metal 
from  it  as  early  as  1664  in  Shrewsbury,  Monmouth  County. 
Henry  Leonard  went  to  Shrewsbury  about  that  year  from  Lynn,  and  is  said  to 
have  set  up  one  of  the  first  furnaces  of  the  provinces.  Several  bloomary-fires 
were  started  in  Sussex  and  Morris  Counties  in  1685  by  immigrants  from  Eng- 
land and  the  northern  provinces  of  this  country.  The  ore  was  brought  to 
the  forges  many  miles  in  leathern  bags  on  pack-horses. 

There  is  some  dispute  as  to  whether  the  pioneer  works  in  New  England,  at 
Lynn,  were  of  the  character  of  a  blast-furnace  or  a  bloomary-fire  ;  but  there  is  y<^ 
no  doubt  at  all,  that,  during  the  first  fifty  years  of  practical  iron-  BU«t-fur.        /  ^ 
making  in  this  country,  the  furnaces  were,  in  general,  what  are  called  nacea  and     L/^ 
"  bloomaries."    The  blast-furnaces  were  exceedingly  rare.    They    '''°'"■^«•• 
were  in  use  in  England,  but  not  here,  except  at  Lynn  (where  Mr.  Swank  believes 
there  was  one  as  early  as  1644),  and  at  Shrewsbury,  N.J.,  where  one  was  set  up 
about  1680.     These  bloomaries  were  simply  an  improvement  upon  the  primi- 
tive  mode  of  making  iigp  direct  from  the  ore,  m  use  m  India  trom  the  most 
ancient  times,  and  still  employed  by  the  natives  of  Asia  and  g^^., 
Africa.    The_oripinal  bloomary  was  merely  a  hole  in  the  ground,  eest  of  maii' 
in  which  charcoal  was  burned  by  the  aid  of  a  bellows  made 
from  a  goatjjkin,  iron  ore  being  added  to  the  fire  in  small  quan- 
tities.    It  is  the  peculiar  property  of  iron,  and  the  ore  quality  above  all  others, 
which  has  made  it  of  such  extraordinary  utility  to  man,  that  its  particles  agglu- 


New  Jersey. 


ing  iron 
deacribad. 


w^f 


^3 


M$» 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


*>ll 


!  ' 


tinatt*^  ^^  ^  white-heat.  In  those  primitive  fires  it  was  found,  that,  the  stone 
being  burned  out  of  the  ore,  and  the  iron  heated  almost  to  incandescence,  the 
metal  gathered  together,  and  settled  at  the  bottom  in  a  glowing  and  more  or 
i^^ess  compact  lump,  or  bloom,  and  might  be  got  out  and  worked  by  breaking 
away  the  clay. 

This  method  of  making  iron  served  the  world  for  centuries.  It  was  finally 
improved  in^  Cit^ilnni.!,  in  Spain,  and  made  much  more  effective;  and  the 
iron-making  works  there  perfected  took  the  name  of  Catalan  bloomarics.  oi 
in  Spain.  forges,  from  the  province  in  which  they  were  first  set  up.  The 
original  form,  used  in  the  Pyrenees  since  120.^.  was  a  furnace  two  feet  high, 
with  a  hearth,  or  crucible,  to  receive  the  heated  lump  of  metal,  eleven  inches 
/  2.  jigep.  The  blast  was  fed  to  the  fire  through  two  openings,  called  tuygres^ 
about  eleven  inches  from  the  bottom.  In  five  hours  a  hundred  and  forty  pounds 
of  iron  could  be  made.  In  time  the  furnace  became  enlarged,  and  the  hearth 
was  made  twenty  inches  deep :  one  tuyere  was  discontinued,  and  the  produc- 
tion was  increased  to  three  hundred  pounds  of  metal  in  five  hgufs.  The  pro- 
\      Process  cess  was  as  follows :  In  the  fire-clay  hearth  a  bottom  of  slag  and 

\  ''escribed.  charcoal  was  I  laid,  and  glazed  over  at  a  high  heat :  the  heartli  was 
j  then  half  filled  with  charcoal.  On  the  side  opposite  to  the  tuyire  coarse  ore 
I  was  heaped  up  to  the  top  of  the  hearth,  and  the  rest  of  the  space  was  filled 
^^ —  with  charcoal.  Then  the  blast  was  started  at  a  low  pressure  of  about  three- 
quarters  of  a  pound.  In  six  hours  the  pressure  was  raised  to  a  pound  and  a 
half,  and  the  wliole  of  the  fire  heaped  over  with  fine  charcoal  and  ore,  except 
over  the  coarse  ore.  The  gas  and  flame  from  the  fire,  meeting  with  difficulty 
in  escaping  through  the  fine  charcoal,  were  forced  principally  to  find  an  outlet 
through  the  interstices  of  the  coarse  ore,  and  they  gradually  reduced  it.  The 
melted  slag,  settling  down  below  the  tityire,  was  tappedofTevery  hour.  At  the 
end  of  the  operation,  or  in  about  six  hours,1Ke  BToom  was  pried  out  of  the 
fire,  and  put  under  a  fourteen-hundred-pound  hapimer  for  manufacture.  The 
heat  could  be  so  increased  as  to  melt  tl;ie  iron,  and  run  it,  off  to  make  castings. 
In  the  Catalan  process,  three  tons  of  ore,  and  two  and  three-quarters  or  three 
tons  of  charcoal,  were  consumed  to  make  a  ton  of  iron ;  the  process  being  very 
wasteful,  but  the  metal  extremely  pure  and  good. 

The  principal  trouble  with  the  Catalan  forge  was,  that  the  fire  had  to  be 
re-made  after  each  heat.  This  objection  led  to  an  improvement  upon  it, 
Defect  of  invented  by  the  Germans  in  Alsace.  These  people  went  back  to 
Catalan  the  old  plan  of  throwing  into  the  fire  alternate  layers  of  fine  ore 

*"'*■  and  charcoal,  using  larger  fires,  and  making  the  blast  continuous. 

By  this  means  they  were  able  either  to  run  off  the  melted  metal,  or  pry 
out  the  heated  bloom,  without  re-making  the  fire.  The  principle  and  form 
of  both-iloomaries  were  substantially  the  same,  and  the  product  equally 
good.  •        <        ■ 

This  was  the  general  style  of  forge  which  found  its  way  into  America  in  the 


;iM!  .  i  ,it: 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


«93 


infancy  of  the  iron-manufacture,  and  by  which  the  manufacture  was  estab- 
lished.    Professor  T.  Sterry  Hunt  says  of  it  in  a  recent  paper,  —      t.  sterry 

"  This  furnace  had  the  great  advantage,  that  its  construction  Hunt. 
required  but  little  skill  and  outlay.  A  small  waterfall  for  the  blast  and  ham- 
mer, a  rude  hearth  with  a  chimney,  and  a  supply  of  charcoal  and  ore,  enabled 
tlie  iron-worker  to  obtain,  as  occasion  requirecj,  a  few  hundred  pounds  of 
iron  in  a  day's  time  in  a  condition  fitted  for  the  use  of  the  blacksmith ;  after 
which  his  primitive  forge  remained  idle  until  there  was  a  further  demand.  To 
this  tiny  siirh  fnrr^ar.es  are  found  in  the  mountains  of  North  Carolina,  and 
furnish  the  bar-iron  required  for  the  wants  of  the  rural  population.  .  .  .  Still 
more  worthy  of  note  is  it,  that  this  primitive  bloomary-furnace,  discarded  in 
Kurope,  has  been  improved  by  American  ingenuity,  —  enlarged,  fitted  with  a 
hot  blast,  water,  tuyhes,  and  other  modern  a^jiliances, — so  that,  in  the  hands 
of  skilled  workmen  in  Northern  New  York,  it  affords  for  certain  ores  an  eco- 
nomical mode  of  making  a  superior  malleable  iron.  A  large  part  of  this  y  ^ 
product  is  consumed  at  Pittsburgh  for  the  manufacture  of  cutlery-steel  of 
excellent  quality." 

Pennsylvania,  so  marvellously  stored  with  the  materials  for  iron-making,  did 
not  begin  the  manufacture  until  1717^^ —  the  year  before  William  Penn's  death. 
I'enn  came  to  the  province  which  was  named  after  him  in  1682.  Pennsyi- 
He  was  familiar  with  the  iron-business,  and  he  accordingly  soon  vania. 
hail  furnaces  in  New  Jersey  at  various  places  in  Sussex.  He  discovered  in 
time  that  his  own  province  was  rich  in  minerals  ;  but  it  appears  that  the  indus- 
try was  not  developed  there  until  the  year  before  his  tleath.  The  record  of  the 
event  is  found  in  a  letter  of  Jonathan  Dickinson,  written  in  171 7,  in  which  he 
sa\s,  " This  last  summer,  one  Thomas  Rutter,  a  smith  who  lived  not  far  from 
(Jerniantown,  hath  removed  farther  up  in  the  country,  and  of  his  own  strength 
has  set  up  on  making  iron.  Such  it  proves  to  be  as  is  highly  set  by  all  the 
smiths  here,  who  say  that  the  best  of  Swede's  iron  doth_jftQLiLxceed Jt ;  and  we 
have  heard  of  others  that  are  going  on  with  the  iron-works."  A  beginning 
once  made,  the  inilustry  developed  with  great  rapidity.  In  1728  four  furnaces 
were  in  full  blast ;  one  being  at  Colebrookdale  on  the  Maxatawny  Creek,  and 
one  being  in  the  present  county  of  Lancaster.  By  the  time  of  the  Revolution 
many  others  !iad  been  built  in  Eastern  and  North-eastern  Pennsylvania. 
Tiiese  were  regular  blast-furnaces  run  with  charcoal  fuel. 

Virginia  resumed  the  manufacture  of  iron  about  i7n;.  Col.  Alexander 
Spottswood  opened  some  mines  in  Spottsylvania  County,  on  the  Rappahannock, 
and  put  up  a  blast-furnace  there  about  that  year.     The  owner  told  _ 

'  "^ — —■ — «  •'  Resumption         • 

Col.  Byrd  in  1 7^2  that  he  was  the  first  in  America  who  had  erected  of  iron- 


a  regular  furnace,  and  that  "  they  ran  nltn^ri'tlier  i^nn  hl^r^i-nnri^^c  manufacture 
in  New  JKngland  and  Pennsylvania  till  his  example  had  made  them 
attempt  greater  workes."     ^^fhis  is  believed,  by  Mr.  Swank  and  others,  to  be  a 
mistake,  because  there  was  a  furnace  at  Lynn,  and  another  at  Shrewsbury,  long 


vil 


'"'m.T' 


194 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


'J7 


New  York. 


before  Col.  Spottswood  developed  his  large  and  flourishing  works.  The  erec- 
tion of  the  Rappahannock  furnace  was,  however,  an  important  event  in  llie 
history  of  the  iron-trade.  It  certainly  led  to  the  building  of  larger  works  in 
the  North  than  had  been  put  up  previous  to  that  time.  Col.  Spottswood  li:i(i 
fyurjurnaces  in  1732  ;  the  largest  being  at  Fredericksburg,  thirteen  miles  from 
tlie  mine.  .An  idea  of  the  sort  of  work  the  furnaces  ran  on  at  that  day  mav 
bo  gathered  from  the  journal  of  Col.  Byrd,  who  says,  that  at  the  furnace  at 
Massapony,  on  the  Rappahannock,  there  were  cast  "  backs  for  chimneys,  and- 
irons, fenders,  plates  for  hearths,  pots,  skillets,  mortars,  rollers  for  gardeners. 
boxes  for  cart-wheels,  &c.,  which,  one  with  another,  could  be  delivered  at 
people's  doors  for  twenty  shilliiigs_a^n." 

By  1 735  all  the  large  coast  provinces  were  busily  manuflxcturing  pig  and 
bar  iron  and  castings,  except  New  York.  New  York  came  lagging  in  the  rear 
~  of  the  train,  and  did  not  make  iron  until  about  1 740.     The  bej,'in- 

ning  of  the  industry  appears  to  have  been  due  to  the  develojjnient 
of  the  famous  brown  hematite  deposits  in  Salisbury,  Conn.,  in  1732.  No  iron 
of  any  consequence  had  been  found  within  the  limits  of  the  province  itself; 
and  the  city  of  New  York  had  been,  up  to  that  time,  supplied  with  iron  from 
the  adjoining  provinces.  In  1740  Philip  Livingston  built  the  first  iron- works 
of  the  province  on  .Xncram  Creek  in  Columbia  County,  obtaining  his  ore  from 
Salisbury  in  Connecticut,  twelve  miles  away,  'f  he  worts  consisted  only  of  a 
bloomary-forge.  In  1751  a  blast-furnace  was  built  in  Orange  Comity  to  work 
up  the  ores  of  Sterling  Mountain.  The  celebrated  mines  in  tlie  northern  i»art 
of  the  State  were  not  opened  until  1800.  The  oldest  forge  in  the  Champlain 
region  is  said  to  have  been  built  no  earlier  than_i{^Qi. 

The  iron-manufacture  began  in  New  Hampshire  about  17S0.  where  several 
bloomaries  were  built  to  make  use  of  the  bop-ores.  A  good  deal  of  irpn  was 
made  during  the  Revolution  ;  but,  after  that,  the  business  died  out.  There  is 
to-day  only  one  furnace  in  New  Hamphire  ;  namely,  the  one  belonging  to  tlie 
rolling-mill  at  Nashua. 

Vermont  entered  upon  the  industry  at  the  same  time  as  her 
sister-province,  making  use  of  the  magnetic  and  hematite  ores  in 
tiie  northern  and  western  parts  of  the  State.     Alai^ne  had  a  few  oJoomary-for^^es 
in  York  County  during  the  Revolution,  the  war  giving  an  energetic 
development  to  this  business  in  every  part  of  the  country.     North 
North  Carolina  exported  a  little  iron  as  early  as  1128.  and  during  the 

Carolina.  Revolution  had  a  great  many  bloomaries  and  forges  in  operation. 
In  South  Carolina  the  first  forge  was  erected_in..i77,^,  in  the  north-western 
South  part  of  the  State  :  it  was  burned  by  the  Tories  during  the  war. 

In  Kentucky  the   first  works  were  built  in   1701    by  government 
troops,  on  Slate  ('reek  in  Bath  County.     In  Tjnnessee  a  bloom- 
ary  was  established  at  Emeryville  as  early  as-i  790  ;  and  in"T)oth 
that  State  and  Kentuclcy  aTarge  number  of  works  sprang  up  immediately  after, 


Vermont. 


Carolina. 


Kentucky. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


»9S 


and  were  operated  for  many  years,  until  the  cheaper  iron  of  the  Nokth 
made  the  business  unprofitable.  Georgia  made  no  iron  prior  to  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution. 

FORTY    YEARS    OF    REPRESSION    AND   STRUGGLE. 


Thus,  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  manufacture  of  iron  had 
taken  a  very  favorable  start.  The  furnaces  and  forges  were  small,  and  mainly 
devoted  to  supplying  the  blacksmiths  of  the  vicinity  surrounding  ^^^^ 
them  with  bar-iron,  and  to  casting  the  articles  of  hollow-ware,  and  enacted  to 
furniture  for  fireplaces.  They  furnished  a  quantity  of  crude  iron  f'J"**  '"*"' 
for  export,  however,  because  the  skill  and  capital  to  manufacture 
this  material  into  cudery,  tools,  machinery,  and  goods  of  the  higher  types,  did 
not  at  first  exist  in  this  country,  and  the  production  was  somewhat  in  excess 
of  the  demands  of  the  blacksmiths.  Along  towards  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  steel  furnaces,  rolling  and  slitting  mills,  and  plating  forges, 
began  to  be  erected  in  the  various  colonies,  the  industry  keeping  steady  pace 
with  the  growing  wealth  and  development  of  the  several  sections.  The  fur- 
ther building  of  the  classes  of  factories  just  named  was,  however,  stopped  in 
1750  by  a  law  which  cljrectly  forbade  it  as  a  common  nuisance.  This  was  one 
of  the  early  steps  of  the  intolerance  of  the  'y^pthfr-^  """*rY  ^'i^'^*'  led  to  the 
ultimate  revolt  and  jnf)..p).p>iAn/^<.  p|f  \\it.  f  Qlgni^^t  A  peculiar  feeling  existed  in 
Enf:land  toward  the  colonies.  The  people  here  were  Englishmen,  were  proud 
of  the  fiict,  and  were  unflaggingly  loyal  to  the  government  under  the  protection 
of  whose  banners  they  were  trying  to  subdue  the  wilderness,  and  build  up  a 
group  of  flourishing  and  civilized  communities.  As  Knglishmen  they  were 
protected  by  the  arms  of  P^ngland  against  all  foreign  invasions  of  their  rights 
and  territor)',  and  their  loyalty  was  rewarded  by  the  recognition  of  their  able 
men  with  commissions  in  the  king's  civil  and  military  service  and  otherwise. 
Hut  they  had  the  misfortune  to  live  and  be  born  out  of  the  realm  itself,  and 
on  that  account  they  never  enjoyed  the  full  respect  and  sympathy  of  the 
people  of  England  and  of  the  crown.  All  the  legislation  had  in  respect  to 
them  was  inspired,  therefore,  with  something  less  than  a  spirit  of  full  fraternity, 
and  often  with  a  positive  determination  to  make  them  simply  subserve  the 
jnirposes  of  the.4ieQcle_athome,  regardless  of  their  own  welfare  and  i^ros- 
perity.  The  legislation  in  respect  to  the  industrial  development  of  the  colo- 
nies was  dictated  by  mercenary  considerations  exclusively.  Growth  here  was 
retarded  in  every  possible  manner.  Bounties  for  the  export  of  agricultural 
l)roducts  were  given  to  induce  the  colonists  to  confine  their  attention  exclu- 
sively to  agriculture,  and  to  depend  entirely  upon  the  mother-country  for 
articles  of  manufacture.  Parliament  desired  our  people,  living  as  they  did 
under  the   shadow  of  gigantic  forests,  to  export  even  their  timber  to  Eng- 


196 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


1 

1 

t 

M 

• 

1 

1 

i 


land,  and  obtain   from  that  country,   in  return,  our  wooden-wares,  chairs, 

tables,  carriages,  and  wootlcn 
bowls.  The  development  of 
the  local  industries  of  Kng. 
land,  arid  the  promotion  of 
the  carrying-trade  to  the  colo- 
nies so  as  to  insure  to  Kngland 
a  great  deal  of  shipping,  were  ^ 
aimed  at  steadily.  Tlie  growth 
of  industry  here  was  looked 
upon  with  impatience ;  and 
when  it  was  seen  that  the  colo- 
nists refused  to  be  depentlent 
forever,  and  that  they  were 
showing  great  vigor  and  enter- 
prise in  putting  up  their  own 
factories  and  forges,  Parlia- 
ment interposed  with  a  regu- 
lation of  the  sort  above  re- 
ferred to. 

The  law  of  1750  restricted  ^, 
the  iron-making  of  the  colonies 
to  the  production  of  pig  and 
bar  iron  and  to  castings.  Nails 
were  made  in  a  small  way  by 
the  people,  in  their  chimney- 
corners,  eveninL's ; 
Law  of  1750.  " 

and  the  blacksmiths 

still  worked  away  at  wrought- 
iron  implements  and  utensils: 
but  general  growth  was  stopped. 
A  large  part  of  the  iron  made 
was  exported  to  F2ngland,  the 
colonists  getting  it  back  again 
in  the  cutlery,  steel,  and  other 
goods  they  were  not  permitted 
to  make  themselves.  The  fol- 
lowing table,  which  we  copy 
from  Scrivenor's  "  History  of 
the  Iron  Trade,"  will  show  tlie 

yintity  exported  to   England,   down   to  the  time   of  the  Revolution,  in 

♦ens :  — 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


»97 


n-wares,  chairs, 
I,   and   wooden 
evelopment   of 
stries    of    Kng- 
promotion   of 
de  to  the  colo- 
isure  to  Knglaiid 
f  shipping,  were 
ly.    The  growth 
ere    was   looked 
inpatience ;    and 
en  that  the  colo- 

0  be  dependent 
that  they  were 
vigor  and  enter- 
ig  up  their  own 

forges,     Parlia- 

ed  with   a  regu- 

sort    above  re- 

>f  1750  restricted  W. 
jg  of  the  colonies 
:tion  of  pig  and 
9  castings.     Nails 

1  a  small  way  by 
n  their  chimney- 
)rners,  evenings ; 
id  the  blacksmiths, 
iway  at  wrought- 
ints  and  utensils: 
•owth  was  stopped. 

of  the  iron  made 
to  F^ngland,  the 
ing  it  back  again 
steel,  and  other 
-^ere  not  permitted 
mselves.  The  fol- 
which  we  copy 
lor's  "History  of 
de,"  will  show  the 
he  Revolution,  in 


1718    . 

17^-20 

1730    • 

1730-3' 

"73'-3» 

1732-33 

•733 

1733-34 

■734 

•734-3S 

1735 

>739 

1740 

1741 

1742 

'743 

•744 

'745 
1746 

1747 
1748 
1750 

'75' 
1752 

'753 

1754 

'755 
1761 
1762 

'763 
1764 
176s 
1766 
1767 
1768 
1769 
'770 

'77' 
1772 

'773 
1774 

'775 
1776 


'.132 

'.72s 
2,250 

2.332 
2,404 

2,197 
2,561 

2,4 '7 
2.27  s 
3.457 
2,075 
2.98s 
1,861 

2,274 
1,861 
2,156 

2.'SS 

2,924 
3.210 
2,980 
2.737 
3.244 
3.44' 
2,766 

8,500 

2.SS4 
3.264 
2.887 

3.3 '3 
2.9S3 
3.401 
4.232 
S.303 
3.724 
2.937 
3.4SI 
2,996 
3.6 


BAK-mON. 


55 

•  •  • 

S 
% 


57 

4 

196 

82 
4 
S 
5 

81 

247 
270 

389 

39 

122 

3'o 
1,059 
1,078 
'.257 

'.32s 
1,989 

1.779 

1,716 

2,222 

96s 

837 

639 

916 

28 


In  the  same  period,  there  were  some  slight  shipments  to  Scotland  in 
addition  to  these. 


'TT7T 


198 


INDUSTRIAL    tllSTOKY 


l.i: 


Condition  of 
lron-manu> 
(acturt  at 
outbreak  of 
Revolution. 


When  the  colonies  bej^an  their  daring  experiment  of  a  fight  for  politic  al 
indepentlence,  they  were  poorly  provided  with  the  means  for  carrying  on  a 
war.  Not  to  mention  their  lack  of  factories  for  clothing,  of  ships,  of  |)iililic 
funds,  and  private  capital,  and  of  a  dense  population  from  whi(  h 
to  recruit  an  army,  the  poverty  of  their  resources  for  making  can- 
non, chains,  rifles,  swords,  and  shot,  was  so  great  as  of  itself  alone 
to  place  them  at  an  enormous  disadvantage  in  the  conflict  with 
Kngland.  'I'hey  had  few  or  no  works  for  the  production  of  these 
necessaries  of  war,  and  neither  sufficient  ready  capital  to  build  all  the  ('ountry 
needed,  nor  the  skill  to  produce  at  once  an  article  of  good  workmansliip. 
The  casting  of  a  ten-pounder  cannon  was  so  serious  a  piece  of  business  with 
them  at  that  day,  that  few  cared  to  undertake  it.  The  absolute  cutting-off  ol 
the  supplies  from  Kngland,  upon  which  the  colonies  had  formerly  depended, 
however,  j)Iaced  them  under  the  necessity  of  enlarging  their  iron-manufactur- 
ing facilities  at  once.  The  people  not  l)eing  able  to  do  this  to  the  extent 
required  both  by  the  local  wants  and  the  demands  of  the  government,  ilie 
Policy  of  Continental  Congress  took  part  in  the  work ;  and  the  troops 
Continental  and  the  public  fur  's  were  employed  to  establislijurnaces  anil 
ongreM.  factories  of  iron  and  steel  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  Works 
were  established  by  Congress  in  the  Housatonic  Valle^n .Connecticut,  in 
the  Highlands  of  Jhe  Hudson,  in  Northern  New  Jersey,  Kentucky,  and  wher- 
ever the  ores  were  rich~ahd  the  forest  dense,  and  charcoaT  therefore  abun- 
dant. It  is  said  that  the  first  trials  of  anthracite  for  manufacturing  purposes 
were  made  by  Congress  at  its  armory  at  Carlisle,  Penn.,  in  1775,  established 
in  consequence  of  the  Revolutionary  war.  The  combined  resources  of  Con- 
gress and  people  were  only  barely  suflicient  at  first  to  su|)ply  the  country  with 
the  iron  it  needed.  It  took  some  time  to  train  workmen,  and  the  Tories 
freciuentl^intgiiered  with  proceedings  by  burning  the  iron-works!  Towarcl 
the  close  of  the  Revolution  the  industry  gained  a  good  start ;  and,  had  the 
treaty  of  peace  in  1783  been  followed  up  by  a  policy  favorable  to  native 
manufactures,  its  rise  would  have  been  thenceforward  rapid. 

But  the  Continental  Congress  had  no  power  to  initiate  a  policy  of  the 
proper  sort ;  and  a  period  of  six  years  followed,  during  which  the  country  was 
flooded  with  cheap  manufactures  from  England ;  and  a  large  number  of  tiie 
native  American  furnaces  and  factories,  finding  no  demand  for 
their  iron,  ceased  to  exist.  By  the  previous  repression  of  our 
industries,  England  had  been  enabled  to  enlarge  and  develop  her  own ;  and 
the  skill  of  her  workmen,  and  the  large  capital  of  the  masters,  made  it  imjios- 
sible  for  America  to  compete  with  her,  even  in  supplying  her  own  needs.  The 
few  iron  furnaces  and  founderies  which  managed  to  keep  alive  during  the 
interregnum  from  1783  to  1789  scarcely  did  more  than  provide  for  theii 
respective  neighborhoods.  ....... 


1783  to  1789. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


IM 


THE   EFFECT  OP  TARIFFS. 


In  1789  the  first  Congress  met  under  the  new  Constitution,  equipped  by 
tlif  people  with  power  to  legislate  for  the  commonweal  on  a  variety  of  im- 
]H.rtant  subjects,  which,  before  that,  the  (leneral  (Jovernment  had  been  unable 
tu  tDUch.  It  was  a  convention  of  the  best  men  of  the  Revolu-  Early  tariff 
tionary  struggle.  The  first  law  passed  was  one  in  relation  to  offi-  ''^•• 
( ial  oaths  ;  the  second,  an  act  for  the  jjrotection  of  American  industries  and 
lor  revenue.  By  this  law  a  duty  was  levied  upon  all  importations  of  iron  ;  a 
moderate  one,  —  only  five  per  cent  on  the  home  value  of  iron,  and  fifty  cents 
\Kx  hundred-weight  on  steel,  —  but  enough  to  prove  a  temptation  to  many 
luriiace-men  to  kindle  anew  the  fires  in  their  deserted  stacks,  and  collect  their 
scattered  workmen,  and  resume  the  industry  (so  valuable  to  the  country) 
wiiich  the  heavy  importations  from  England  had  obliged  them  to  abandon. 
I'he  duty,  not  proving  large  enough,  was  increased  by  different  Congresses, 
until  in  181 2  it  reached  thirty-two  percent  and  a  half  on  iron  (thirty-seven 
per  cent  if  brought  in  foreign  vessels),  and  two  dollars  per  hundred-weight 
on  steel.  .After  the  war  of  1812  it  was  reduced  somewhat.  Under  the  pro- 
tection of  this  tariff,  iron-making  was  resumed  in  all  the  States  in  which  it 
had  previously  been  carried  on.  In  States  and  localities  where  i„„e„eo( 
no  start  had  yet  been  made  it  was  begun.  Pittsburgh,  now  the  manufac- 
most  important  iron  centre  of  the  country,  had  yet  had  no  *"'*' 
blooinary  nor  foundery ;  and  Ohio,  with  its  rich  stores  of  coal  and  ore,  and 
l)iisy  farming-population,  had  seen  no  piece  of  iron  laid  on  a  village  anvil 
except  that  which  had  been  toilsomely  brought  by  wagon  from  the  distant 
Kast.  Hut  in  '^Pj  ^h**  ■roP-'"^'ustrv  was  injtiiited  a^  Pitts))iirgh  by  the 
building  of  a  foundery,  and  in  Ohio  by  the  erection  of  a  small  charcoal- 
furnace  in  Poland  Township,  Mahoning  County.  Hloomaries,  furnaces,  roll- 
ing-mills, and  steel- works  sprang  into  being  throughout  the  Union  everywhere. 
The  mines  of  the  West  and  South  were  opened  as  the  wave  of  population 
flowed  into  the  regions  surrounding  them,  and  in  the  older  communities  in 
the  rear  of  them  branches  of  the  manufacture  which  had  never  been  attempted 
on  this  continent  were  successfully  tried  and  established.  Production  began 
to  keep  pace  with  consumption,  and  a  small  quantity  of  crude  iron  was 
even  supplied  for  exportation. 

Were  it  expedient  to  do  so,  the  history  of  iron-making  from  1 789  down  to 
1878  might  be  divided  into  eras  coinciding  with  the  changes  in  the  principle 
on  which  the  tariff  has  been  framed.    There  have  been  several  charactarof 
important  changes.    The  tariff  was  protective   until   1816.     In  varioua 
1816  the  duties  were  lowered  in  defpypnri;  to  th<?  wishes  of  the  leKi'i^'ve 
iree-traders.     In  1824  the  protective  tariff  w:^  again  enacted,  and, 
l)eing  strengthened  in  1828,  lasted  until  1834.     Then  a  compromise  tariff  was 
adopted,  by  which  the  duties  were  gradually  lowered.    In  1842,  again,  there 


t'l 


200 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


was  a  tariff  for  protection  ;  but  in  1846  free-trade  gained  the  ascendency  once 
more,  and  until  i^fii  therp  wn^  little  or  no  protection.  In  1861  the  present 
protective  tariff  was  adopted.  These  changes  brought  about  periods  of  alter- 
nate depression  and  prosperity  in  the  iron-industry.  There  has  been  sucli 
an  abundance  of  land  in  the  country,  and  the  agricultural  life,  with  its  owner- 
ship of  a  bit  of  land,  has  had  such  fascinations  in  theory,  if  not  in  fact,  to  tlie 
mass  of  the  people,  that  wages  have  always  been  necessarily  high  here ;  and 
the  iron-masters  have  not  been  able  to  produce  either  crude  or  manufactured 
iron  for  American  consumption  in  competition  with  Englishmen,  without  thu 
protection  of  an  efficient  duty.  Whenever  the  tariff  has  been  lowered,  thert-- 
fore,  the__fires  have  gone  out  in  scores  of  furnace-stacks  and  rolling-mills 
throughout  the  country,  and  workmg-men  have  been  thrown  out  of  employment, 
Several  times,  as  in  1820,  the  business  has  been  in  a  state  of  ruin.  Whenever 
protection  has  been  again  extended,  the  smoke  has  again  floated  from  the 
chimneys  of  the  iron-works,  and  the  business  has  become  prosperous.  The 
influence  of  the  tariff  has  been  so  great,  that  mention  of  it  cannot  be  omitted. 
It  is  preferable,  however,  to  divide  the  history  of  iron-making  into  periods, 
simply  with  reference  to  the  progress  of  invention,  and  not  with  reference  to 
tariff  changes.  Still  it  may  not  be  uninterestmg  to  the  reader  to  glance  over 
the  following  table  of  the  changes  in  the  duties,  and  compare  it  with  the 
succeeding  table  of  production  of  iron  in  the  United  States :  — 


RATES    OF    DUTY    FROM    1 789   TO    1 876. 


1789 
1790 
1792 

1794 
1804 
1812 
tSi6 
1818 
1824 
1828 
1830 
.832 

•833 

to 

1842 

1842 
1843 


5  per  cent. 

5  per  cent. 

10  per  cent. 

15  per  cent. 

17I  per  cent. 

32-J  per  cent. 

20  per  cent. 

50  cents  per  cwt. 

50  cents  per  cwt. 

62I  cents  per  cwt. 

62  J  cents  per  cwt. 

50  cents  per  cwt. 

(  gradual  fall  to 


r! 


20  per  cent 


ff)  per  ton. 
I9  per  ton. 


5  to  7i  per  cent. 

S  to  7i  per  cent. 

10  per  cent. 


I  cent  a  pound, 

2  cents  a  pound. 

45  cts.  to  $2.50  per  cwt, 

75  cts.  to  $2.50  per  cwt, 

90  cts.  to  ty^^  per  cwt. 

$1.12  to  $3.92  per  cwt. 

jSi,i2  to  j^3.92  per  cwt. 

Si. 12  to  11(3.92  per  cwt. 

(  gradual  fall  to  20  per  1 
(      cent.        .  > 

$17  to  $56  per  ton. 
%i']  to  S56  per  ton. 


KAILROAD-BARS. 


$37  per  ton. 

25  per  cent. 

free. 

free. 

free. 
1^25  per  ton. 


50  cents  per  cwt. 

75  cents  per  cwt. 

$1  per  cwt. 


Ji  per  cwt. 

%2  per  cwt. 

%\  per  cwt. 

%i  per  cwt. 

$1  per  cwt. 
$1.50  per  cwt. 
$1.50  per  cwt. 
$1.50  per  cwt. 

$1.50  per  cwt. 

($1.50  to  $2.50  per 
I      cwt. 

($1.50  to  12.50  per 
{     cwt. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


aax 


PIG-IRON. 

BAR-IRON. 

RAILROAD-BARS, 

STEEL. 

1846  . 

30  per  cent. 

30  per  cent. 

30  per  cent. 

30  per  cent. 

IS57  . 

24  per  cent. 

34  per  cent. 

24  per  cent. 

24  per  :ent. 

1861  . 

$6  per  ton. 

$1  s  to  $20  per  ton. 

$12  per  ton. 

( $1.50  to    ^2  per 
(  cwt.  and  upwards. 
/  under   1 1   cts.    a 

IS6:  . 

$6  per  ton. 

$ij  to  JS2S  per  ton. 

$13.50  per  ton. 

)  lb.,  i|  to  2\  cts. ; 

(  over,  25  per  cent 

under  1 1  cts.  a  lb.. 

1864  . 

$9  per  ton. 

1S22  -0  to|39.2o  per  ton. 

$13.44  per  ton. 

2]  to  3  cts.  J  over, 
3^  cts.  and  10  p. 
.  c  ad  valorem, 
under  1 1  cts.  a  lb., 

1865  . 

I9  per  ton. 

$22.40  to  $39.20  per  ton. 

$15.68  perton. 

1  -' 

2^  to  3  cts. ;  over, 
3i  cts.  and  10  p. 
c.  ad  valorem, 
under  1 1  cts.  a  lb.. 

1870  . 

I7  per  ton. 

$22.40  to  $39.20  per  ton. 

$1 5.68  per  ton. 

2jto3cts. ;  over, 
3^  cts.  and  10  p. 
.  c.  ad  valorem. 

1872  . 

1^6.30  per  ton. 

$20.16  to  $35.28  perton. 

$14.11  perton. 

(  10  p.  c.  less  than 
(      in  1864. 

187s  . 

$7  per  ton. 

$22.40  to  $32.20  per  ton. 

$15.68  per  ton. 

same  as  in  1864. 

Down  to  1816  a  discrimination  was  regularly  made  in  favor  of  the 
American  carrying-trade  by  levying  ten  per  cent  more  of  duty  if  the  iron  were 
brought  in  foreign  vessels.  The  figures  above  given  represent  the  duty  on 
imports  in  American  vessels. 

The  best  statistics  as  to  the  production  of  iron  in  the  United  States  are 
those  compiled  by  the  American  Iron  and  Steel  Association,  of  which  Mr. 
James  M.  Swank  is  the  author.    They  are  as  follows :  —  .^ 


PRODUCTION   OF   PIG-IRON    IN    GROSS   TONS. 

1810 54,000 

1820 20,000 

1828 ^ 130,000 

1829 142,000 

1830 165,000 

1831 191,000 

1832 200,000 

1840 315,000 

1842 215,000 

1846 765,000 

1847 800,000 


202 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


1848 800,000 

1849  ....                       650,000 

1850 564,755 

1852 500,000 

1854 736.218 

1855 784,178 

1856 883,137 

1857 798,157 

1858 705,094 

1859 840,627 

i860 9'9,770 

1861 731,544 

1862 787,662 

1863 947,604 

1864 >,>3S.996 

1865 93',S82 

1866 1.350.343 

1867 1,461,626 

1868  .        .        ; 1,603,000 

1869 1,916,641 

1870 1,865,000 

1871 i,9ii,6oS 

1872 2,854,558 

1873 2,868,278 

1874  •        .        .               2,689,413 

1875 2,266,581 

"876 2,093,236 


it"* 


THE    ERA    OF    ANTHRACITE    FUEL    AND    THE   HOT    BLAST. 

Down  to  i8j8_the  only  fuel  used  to  any  extent  in  the  manufacture  of 
iron  from  the  ore  was  charcoal.     There  were  a   few  coke— furnaces  in  the 
country ;  but  the  vast  majority  of  the  iron-masters  used  charcoa' 
bloomaries   and   furnaces.     The  furnaces  were  small  (the  stacks 


Introduction 
of  anthra- 
cite. 


seldom  over  twenty  feet  high),  and  producing  from  two  to  four 
tons  of  iron  a  day.  From  a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  bushels  of  char- 
coal and  two  tons  of  ore  were  consumed  to  the  ton  of  iron  produced,  the 
(juantity  of  coal  varying  according  to  the  hardness  of  the  wood  from  which 
the  coal  had  been  made,  and  the  skill  and  expeHence  of  the  foreman.  The 
profits  of  the  business  depended  largely  on  the  judgment  and  success  of  the 
Process  de-  foreman  in  the  use  of  charcoal.  The  blast  was  of  cold  air.  sup- 
scribed,  plied  by  two  pairs  of  jargt  bjsUojys  worked  by  water-power,  and 
blown  into  the  furnace^  sometimes  through  hollow  green  logs  placed  back 
from  the  ttiyire  opening,  so  as  to  be  safe  from  burning.  The  quality  of  iron 
made  by  these  old-fashioned  furnaces  was  exceedingly  good.  The  metal 
was  pure,  and  of  great  tenacity  and  durability  or  wearing  surface,  and  was 
of  the  greatest  value  for  the  purposes  of  steel.  Even  at  the  present  time, 
invention  has  been  unable  to  produce  iron  of  superior  quality  to  that  made 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


303 


in  the  charcoal   bloomaries   and  fum?ces ;   and  the  highest-priced   bars  at  / 
present  are  still   those  thus  produced.     The  quantity  which  could  be  made 
in  the  old-fashioned  furnace  was,  however,  small ;  and,  as  the  forests  in  the 
mining-regions  were   consumed,  the  cost  of  production  even  of  that   small 
([uantity  increased. 

Experiments  were  made  for  the  production  of  iron  with  anthracite  coal. 
1  he  country  was  richly  stored  with  supplies  of  this  valuable  fuel ;  and  its 
usefulness  for  the  generation  of  steam,  and  for  the  warming  of  Early  ex- 
houses,  had  been  demonstrated  at  a  very  early  day.  Could  it  be  pediments. 
Inirned  in  the  blast-furnaces,  a  saving  of  labor  and  expense,  and  an  increase 
of  production,  would  certainly  follow.  One  experiment  was  made  as  early  as 
18 1 5  at  Harford  Furnace  in  Maryland,  the  anthracite  being  mixed  with  one- 
^HarcoaT  In  1826  anthracite  was  tried  in  a  furnace  near  Mauch 
success.     In    1827  similar  experiments,  with   similar  results, 

The  experiments  were  abandoned 


l!> 


half 

Chunk  ivithout 

were  made  at  a  furnace  at  KingstoUj  Mass 

in  a  good  deal  of  despair. 

In  1828  James  B.  Neilson  of  Scotland  brought  out  an  invention  which 
made  it  possible  to  work  with  anthracite,  and  immediately  revolutionized  the 
iron-making  of  the  world.  This  was  the  use  of  the  hot-air  blast  Neiison's  /  ^ 
in  smelting  iron.  The  previous  failures  with  anthracite  had  been  '"v-intion. 
due  to  the  employment  of  tlie  cold  blast.  Mr.  Neilson  applied  the  hot  llast 
to  coke  and  charcoal  furn.  es.  Its  first  utility  was  considered  to  be  the  saving 
of  fuel  effected  by  it.  On  tlie  Clyde  a  ton  of  iron  had  required  the  combus- 
tion of  eight  tons  and  a  half  of  coal  coked.  With  the  hot  blast  this  was 
reduced  to  two  tons  and  a  half  at  once.  It  was  an  American  who  conceived 
the  idea  of  burning  anthracite  direct  by  means  of  the  hot  blast.  In  1833 
Dr,  Geissenheimer  of  New  York  obtaiufid.  a.  patent  for  smelting  iron  wjth 
anthracite  and  the  hot-air  blast.  His  own  experiments  were  unfortunately 
unsuccessful:  but  in  1837  some  gentlemen  from  Reading  succeeded  with  the 
new  idea  in  an  old  uirnace  near  Mauch  Chunk,  using  eighty  per  cent  of 
anthracite  ;  doing  so  well,  in  fact,  that  they  at  once  built  a  new  furnace  to 
larry  on  the  business  regularly.  They  had  good  luck  ;  and  so  had  the  owner 
of  an  anthracite  furnace  built  in  1837  at  I'ottsville,  Penn.,  and  blown  in  in 
1839.  This  furnace  was  blown  by  steam-power,  and  produced  forty  tons  a 
week  of  good  foundery-iron.  ,'\  premium  of  five  thousand  dollars  was  given 
to  Mr.  William  Lyman,  its  owner,  by  Nicholas  Biddie  and  others,  as  the  first 
person  who  had  made  pig-iron  with  anthracite  continuously  for  a  hundred 
days  in  the  United  States. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  anthracite  iron-business  of  the   country. 
Thereafter,  almost  all  the  new  works  put  up  in  tlie  iron-regions  increase  in 
were  built  expressly  to  burn  anthracite   as   fiiel.     The  fiirnaces  production. 
which  still  continued  to  burn  charcoal  were  principally  in  the  North  ;  the 
coa!  measures  of  that  region  not  having  been  developed,  and  the  forests  sup- 


V 


m^^n 


i-,1l" 

mam 

m 

I   m 

m 

I:  Ml 

M 

im 

|; 

ao4 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


A' 


plying,  practically,  inexhaustible  quantities  of  the  old  style  of  fuel.  The  his- 
tory of  the  blast-furnace  since  that  date  has  been  one  principally  of  growth 
in  size  :  year  by  year  the  stacks  grew  larger  and  taller,  until,  from  twenty  feet 
in  height  and  ten  in  diameter,  they  have  now  risen  even  to  ninety  feet  in 
height  and  twenty-five  in  diameter.  In  1855  the  yearly  production  of  anthra- 
cite pig-iron  overtook  that  of  charcoal  iron,  and  the  latter  variety  has  been 
steadily  falling  to  the  rear  ever  since.     In  1869  the  production  of  charcoal 

\  iron  was  again  passed  by  that  made  with  bituminous  coa!  and  coke.  In  1872 
tlie  product  was  as  follows:  Anthracite  iron,  1,369,812  net  tons;  bituminous 
coal  and  coke-iron,  984,159  tons;  charcoal  made,  500,587  tons.  The  metal 
made  by  the  hard-coal  and  hot-blast  processes  is  inferior  to  that  made  by  the 
old  style  of  furnace ;   but  it  fulfils  the  demand  of  the  times  for  cheap  and 

.^bundant  iron. 

\M  Blast-furnaces  are  always  located  in  the  vicinity  of  the  supplies  of  fuel, 
either  in  the  coal-mining  regions,  or  along  the  lines  of  coal  transportation. 
It  is  cheaper  to  bring  the  ore  to  the  coal  than  the  fuel  to  the  ore,  —  a  foot 
which  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  experience  of  Michigan,  which,  with 
incalculable  treasures  of  ore  of  the  finest  qualities,  is  obliged  to  send  away  tlie 
principal  part  of  her  ore  to  Ohio  and  other  States  having  mineral  coal,  to  Ix" 
made  into  pig-iron  there.  Indiana  and  Illinois,  both  great  iron-making  States, 
are  so  solely  on  account  of  their  coal.  Their  iron  ores  are  scanty,  and  of 
bad  quality.  Blast-furnaces  are  possible  even  in  the  cities  of  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  and  Pittsburgh,  and  in  other  cities  reached  by  the  railroads  of 
a  great  coal  State. 

The  blast-furnaces  of  the  United  States  have  reached  a  size  and  perfection 
excelled  nowhere  in  the  world.  There  have  been  great  intelligence,  and 
Blast-  alacrity  of  invention,  on  the  part  of  those  engaged  in  the  iron- 

furnaces,  trade  in  this  country ;  and,  in  respect  to  mechanical  appliances, 
the  American  furnaces  ha\'e  been  placed  fully  on  a  par  with,  if  not  above, 
the  same  class  of  works  in  other  parts  of  the  earth. 

"j^f  The  blast-furnace  is  a  structure  of  stone  and  brick  work,  from  forty  to 
seventy-five  and  even  ninety  feet  high,  enclosing  a  chimney-like  cavity,  in 
Description  which  the  orcs,  fluxes,  and  fuel  are  placed  to  be  sme  '  d.  Usually 
of  blast-  the  stack  is  composed  of  a  lining  of  fire-brick  of  the  most  refrac- 
urnaces.  ^^^^  character,  backed  with  a  less  refractory  quality,  and  that  with 
common  red  brick  and  stone.  Most  Western  furnaces,  and  many  of  the  new 
ones  in  the  East,  are,  however,  substantially  an  iron  cylinder  lined  with  fire- 
brick. The  Philadelphia  Furnace,  —  finished  at  Philadelphia  in  1873,  with  all 
the  latest  improvements,  —  sixty  feet  high,  is  of  sixteen-inch  fire-blocks,  adapted 
in  shape  to  the  contour  of  the  interior,  backed  by  a  nine-inch  course  of 
ordinary  fire-brick.  Then  a  four-inch  air-space,  filled  with  loam,  is  backed  with 
a  nine-inch  course  of  red  brick.  A  three-inch  air-space,  filled  with  sand,  then 
occurs,  and  a  four-inch  course  of  red  brick ;  and  the  whole  is  cased  v.'ith 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


2QS 


2o6 


INDUSTRIAL    IllSTOKY 


%M 


boiler-iron  a  quarter  of  an  inch  thick,  extending  to  the  top  of  the  stack.  The 
crucible,  or  hearth,  is  composed  of  sixteen-inch  fire-blocks.  This  is  a  good 
type  of  construction.  Back  of  the  courses  above  described  common  masonry 
of  considerable  thickness  is  generally  built  to  support  the  stack,  if  an  iron 
casing  is  not  used.  The  interior  cavity  of  the  furnace  is  round  horizontally, 
but  perpendicularly  is  very  much  of  the  shape  of  the  chimney  of  an  ordinary 
kerosene  lamp.  At  the  open  top,  in  a  seventy-five  foot  stack,  it  is  ten  feet 
in  diameter.  It  gradually  grows  larger  going  down  for  a  distance  of  about 
forty  feet,  where  it  reaches  a  width  of  about  eighteen  feet :  it  remains  of  this 
diameter  for  ten  feet  more,  and  then  contracts  rapidly  in  the  next  seventeen 
feet  to  eight  feet  diameter.     This  sloping  portion  of  the  furnace  is  called  the 

— "  boshes ;  "  and  it  is  the  part  of  it  which  supports  the  heav)  weight  of  the  ores 
and  fuel,  filling  the  stack  to  its  mouth  above.  At  the  bottom  of  all  is  the 
hearth,  or  crucible,  where  the  melted  iron  and  slag  collect.  This  is  from 
five  to  eight  feet  in  diameter,  and  about  the  same  in  height.  The  extreme 
width  of  the  foundation  upon  which  this  mass  of  masonry  rests  is  from  thirty 
to  forty-five  feet.  In  the  most  modern  stacks  the  masonry  is  not  solid  down 
to  this  foundation  ;  but  that  part  of  it  above  the  l^eartii  rests  on  an  iron  ental)- 
lature,  sustained  by  iron  columns  planted  upon  the  foundation  of  the  stack. 
T'he  tiiyires  for  the  blast  are  from  three  to  seven  in  number,  and  are  cut  into 
the  hearth  about  four  feet  from  the  bottom.  The  air  is  blown  into  the  furnace 
at  a  pressure  of  from  three  to  four  pounds,  iind  heated  to  a  temperature  ot" 
from  six  hundred  to  nine  hundred  degrees.  In  order  that  the  tuyires  shall  not 
be  melted,  a  current  of  cold  water  is  kept  playing  upon  them  constantly.  Up 
towards  the  top  of  the  stack  a  number  of  openings  permit  the  refiise  gases 
from  the  burning  coal  below  to  be  drawn  ofT  by  means  of  the  draught  of  a  tall 
chimney,  instead  of  escaping  through  the  mouth  of  the  stack  itself.  These 
gases  are  made,  by  flues,  to  play  around  the  cold-air  pipes  and  the  boiler 
which  drives  the  blowing-engines ;  and  by  their  combustion  they  heat  the  air 
for  the  blast,  and  maintain  a  high  pressure  of  steam.  The  quantity  of  air 
blown  into  the  furnace  under  pressure  to  produce  the  intense  heat  needed  to 
reduce  the  iron  ore  amounts  to  fifteen  tons  or  more  an  hour,  and  is  always  of 
much  greater  weight  than  the  materials  in  the  stack  itself. 

Formerly  the  furnaces  were  built  against  a  hillside  or  a  high  bank,  like  a 
lime-kiln,  for  convenience  in  dumping  the  ores  and  fuel  into  the  top  of  the 
stack.  The  more  modern  plan  is  to  construct  an  elevator  l)y  the  side  of 
tlie  fiirnace,  with  a  platform  on  top  about  the  throat  of  it,  from  which  the 
materials  are  dumped  into  the  stack  from  a  barrow,  or  thrown  iii  by  hand. 

1^  A  furnace  being  ready  for  blowing  in,  the  fire  is  kindled  in  the  hearth  ;  and, 
when  well  under  way,  a  (}uantity  of  ore,  coal,  and  limestone,  to  dissolve  the 
impurities  of  the  ore,  are  thrown  from  the  top.  With  good  ores  and  hard  coal 
the  proportion  of  the  different  materials  to  the  ton  of  iron  made  is  about  as 
follows  :  iron  ore,  2,100  pounds;  coal,  1,700  pounds  ;  limestone,  400  pounds. 


OF    THE  UNITED   STATES. 


ao7 


The  blast  is  now  turned  on  at  two-pounds  pressure.  If  all  goes  on  well,  in 
twenty-four  hours  the  pressure  is  increased  from  four  to  six  pounds.  The 
workmen  keep  sharp  watch  of  the  tuyhes  to  see  that  they  are  bright  and  clean, 
and  of  the  gaseous  products  of  combustion  to  see  that  the  furnace  is  working 
freely  and  well.  Every  four  hours,  ordinarily,  the  hearth  is  tapped  near  the  top 
to  draw  off  the  melted  slag.  There  is  a  litde  hole  made  for  the  purpose, 
which  k-  kept  plugged  with  clay  between  times.  This  process  produces  an 
exceedingly  brilliant  display.  The  slag  spouts  from  the  litUe  opening  made 
for  it  with  a  glare  which  pains  the  eye  with  its  intensity.  It  runs  down  a  rough 
trougli  scraped  out  of  the  ground,  and  out  through  the  open  door  of  the  shop 
into  the  outer  air  to  cool.  As  the  slag  gets  low  in  the  hearth,  the  blast  escapes 
with  it,  carrying  a  fiery  spray  from  the  opening  like  a  piece  of  fireworks,  within 
tlie  reach  of  which  no  man  can  stand  and  live.  At  the  proper  moment  the 
li!;ist  is  turned  off.  The  men  run  up  and  plug  the  opening  with  clay,  and 
the  blast  is  turned  on  again  into  the  furnace.  The  melted  iron  in  the  hearth 
is  drawn  off  once  in  eight  hours  from  a  little  hole  at  the  bottom  of  the 
hearth,  which,  as  previously  explained,  is  usually  kept  plugged  with  clay. 
Tlie  metal  remains  liquid  in  the  hearth,  from  the  fact,  that,  unlike  water,  \\\Q^-^d 
hottest  metal  sinks  to  the  bottom,  and  thus  it  is  possible  to  let  fifteen  or  ^•^^ 
twenty  tons  of  it  accumulate  without  any  danger  of  its  chilling.  The  process 
of  drawing  off"  the  iron  is  even  more  beautiful  than  that  of  taking  away  the 
slag.  The  metal  flows  out  in  a  bright  stream,  throwing  off  dazzling  scintilla- 
tions, as  it  comes  in  contact  with  the  oxygen  of  tiie  air,  far  surpassing  in  vigor 
and  beauty  any  thing  produced  by  the  art  of  man  in  any  other  way.  The 
metal  flows  along  the  floor  of  the  shop  in,  channels,  and  runs  into  the  rough 
moulds,  where  it  hardens  into  the  rough  pigs  of  commerce.  Tiiese  are  tested, 
when  cold,  by  breaking  with  a  sledge-hammer,  to  ascertain  their  iiuality,  and 
arc  then  stacked  up  for  transportation  to  market. 

The  introduction  of  the  hot-air  blast  and  the  emi)loyment  of  anthracite  as 
fuel,  followed,  five  or  six  years  afterwards,  with  the  application  of  bituminous 
coal  to  smelting-puri)oses,  was  a   timely  event   for  the   United 
States.     The  country  was  about  entering  upon  an  era  of  railroad   n^g^°o|"new 
and  steamboat  b.iilding  made  necessary  by  the  diffusion  of  our  methods  of 
jiopulation  over  the  vast  area  of  virgin  territory  protected  by  our  P'°  ""^'"^ 
flag.    An   extraordinary  demand   for  iron  was   developing ;    and 
national  development  would  have  been  seriously  retarded   if  we   had   been 
obliged  to  depend  on  foreign  lands  for  our  supplies  of  the  metal.     The  hot- 
air  blast  and  the  use  of  coal  as  fuel  came  along,  therefore,  (ill  in  good  time  for 
America.     The  reduction  in  the  expense  of  smelting  which  they  effected,  and 
tlio  dtjuiand  for  metal,  gave  an  extraordinary  impulse  to  the  industry.     In  the 
period  from  1848  to  i860,  furnaces,  rolling-mills,  and  iron  and  steel  works, 
steadily  multiplied  in  all  parts  of  the  country.     It  is  an  interesting  fact,  that,  in 
tiiat  period,  iron-making  was  actively  prosecuted  in  many  States  in  which, 


»       1    ? 


'Ut; 


208 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


since  railroad-building  has  stopped,  it  has  in  part  or  entirely  disappeared.  In 
Tennessee  there  were  in  1855,  during  that  era  of  activity,  seventy-five  bloonia- 
ries  and  forges,  seventy-one  furnaces,  and  four  rolling-mills ;  but  at  the  present 
time  there  are  only  eighteen  charcoal  and  four  bituminous  coal  furnaces,  a 
score  of  bloomaries,  and  the  four  rolling-mills  referred  to.  Arkansas  niaile  , 
iron  in  1857,  but  makes  none  now.  In  1857  North  Carolina  had  fifty  blooma- 
ries and  forges,  two  rolling-mills,  and  six  furnaces,  in  operation.  Then,  are 
not  now  in  that  ancient  State  a  dozen  active  forges  and  bloomaries.  There 
are  no  rolling-mills  nor  steel-works,  and  only  one  active  furnace.  South  Caro- 
lina made  iron  extensively  before  the  war ;  but  her  fires  have  all  gone  out,  and 
her  furnace- stacks  were  in  1876  all  deserted. 

A  fresh  development  was  given  to  the  blast-furnace  business  by  the  war  and 
the  tariff  of  186 1.  A  new  era  of  railroad-building  set  in;  and  such  was  the 
Effect  of  demand  for  iron,  and  so  high  were  the  prices,  and  so  large  the  prof- 
'*'"■  its,  that  some  of  the  most  brilliant  fortunes  of  the  present  age  were 

made  in  the  manufacture  of  the  metal.    In  1874,  735  furnaces  were  in  operation 
in  the  United  States,  besides  a  number  of  bloomaries,  distributed  as  follows :  — 


ANTHRACITB 

CHARCOAL 

UlT.   AND  COKB 

FUKNACES. 

FURNACKS. 

FURNACKS. 

TOTAL. 

Maine 

I 

I 

New  Hampshire 

I 

, 

I 

Vermont 

s 

s 

Massachusetts 

5 

6 

Connecticut 

9 

9 

New  York  . 

45 

22 

67 

New  Jersey . 

16 

.. 

16 

Pennsylvania 

152 

44 

73 

269 

Maryland     . 

6 

"4 

8 

28 

Virginia 

Zl 

34 

West  Virginia 

3 

S 

8 

Georgia 

«3 

2 

'5 

Alabama 

20 

20 

North  Carolina 

10 

2 

13 

Tennessee    . 

24 

3 

27 

Kentucky    .        . 

23 

S 

28 

Ohio    .... 

40 

62 

102 

Indiana       . 

7 

7 

Illinois 

*       •        . 

4 

. . 

S 

9 

Michigan     . 

*        . 

30 

3 

34 

Missouri 

. 

. . . 

12 

9 

21 

Wisconsin   • 

, 

3 

II 

,  , 

14 

Minnesota   . 

• 

I 

.  , 

I 

Texas  . 

• 

... 

I 

•• 

I 

Total 

229 

322 

184 

73S  . 

OF    THE    UN/ TED    STATES. 


309 


In  1877  the  number  reported  was  714,  of  which  236  were  in  blast,  and  478 
out  of  blast.    The  productive  capacity  of  the  7 1 4  enumerated  is  about  4,500,000 
tons  a  year,  or  twice  the  present  consumption  of  the  country.     The  statittici  (or 
only  new  furnaces  at  present  building  in  the  country  are  in  Ohio  '"^y- 
and  some  of  the  Southern  States,  notably  Georgia,  where  iron  can  be  made  at   i 
an  expense  of  thirteen  or  fifteen  dollars  a  ton  against  an  average  of  twenty  1^^ 
dollars  a  ton  in  the  Northern  States,  except  in  Ohio,  where  it  is  fifteen  dollars  r 
a  tun. 


THE   GROWTH    OF    ROLLING-MILLS. 

Another  department  of  the  iron-industry  rose  into  great  prominence  with 
the  war  and  the  tariff  of  1861,  accompanied  as  those  events  were  by  the  acci- 
dental circumstances  of  a  new  anil  unprecedented  mania  for  rail-  rj-jj  jevei- 
road-building,  for  supplying  cities  and  villages  with  iron,  water,  and  opment  o( 
l^as  pipes,  anil  roads  and  canals  with  iron  bridges,  and  the  use  of  '■°'""*-'""'»' 
iron  in  architecture.  This  was  the  rolling-mill  business,  which  had  never  fairly 
recovered  from  the  deadly  blows  of  the  policy  of  repression  inaugurated  by 
Kngland  in  1 750. 

Previous  to  i860  rolled  iron  of  all  kinds  had  been  largely  imported  :  railroad 
bars  Iiud  been  almost  exclusively  so.  After  1 860  the  mills  and  works  necessary 
for  the  production  of  all  this  material  were  erected  on  American  soil,  the  few 
old  ones  already  in  the  business  being  enlarged  to  meet  the  demands  of  the 
times.  Machinery  of  a  magnitude  and  power  hitherto  unknown  in  America 
was  built,  and  put  into  the  mills  for  rolling  and  forging  plates,  shafts,  rails,  &c. ; 
and  magnificent  establishments  grew  up  in  different  States  of  the  North,  like 
the  Cambria  Iron-Works  at  Johnstown,  Penn.,  employing  seven  thousand  of  our 
countrymen,  and  spending  ten  million  dollars  a  year  for  wages  and  materials. 

In  the  perfection  of  the  different  i)rocesses  of  the  rolling-mill  a  field  was 
afforiled  for  the  free  play  of  the  peculiar  geiiius  of  the  American  people.  Up 
to  within  a  very  few  years,  the  Americans  have  been  deficient  in  m^pXty  of 
the  patient  analysis  of  the  chemical  composition  and  qualities  of 
the  ores  and  mineral  treasures  found  embedded  in  their  soil,  com- 
pared with  the  rest  qf  the  world  ;  but  they  have  been  untiring  and  exceedingly 
successful  in  mechanical  invet.tion.  In  the  production  of  skilful  machines  to 
jicrform  special  tasks,  and  save  a  former  great  expenditure  of  human  toil,  they 
are  perfectly  at  home  ;  and  this  trait  of  our  countrymen  has  been  illustrated  in 
the  development  of  the  different  rolling-mills  of  the  United  States.  The  pud- 
dhng-furnaces  for  converting  pig  and  scrap  iron  into  wrought  iron,  by  exposing 
them  in  an  open-hearth  furnace  to  the  action  of  a  current  of  flame  which  burns 
out  its  carbon  ;  the  iiuge  seventy- five-ton  hammers  and  squeezers  for  forging  JJ  J' 
the  blooms  from  the  furnace  into  bars  for  re-working  and  rolling ;  the  rolls  and 
otiier  appliances,  many  of  them  invented  abroad,  —  have  all  felt  the  magic  touch 
of  American  inventive  genius,  and  been  greatly  developed  and  improved ; 


American 
genius. 


i 


;  I, 


.^!'.i: 


9IO 


IXD  US  TRIA  I.    HIS  TOR  Y 


while  many  now  appliances  have  been  introduced  of  purely  American  ori-in, 
wiiich  have  exlraonlinarily  simplified  and  cheapened  the  prcresses  of  ininu- 
fucture.  It  would  reipiire  a  volume  to  describe  all  the  improvements  intm- 
duced  into  the  rolling-mills  of  the  United  States;  but  one  of  them  niaj  Ik- 
mentioned  as  ilhistratin^'  the  ^'eneral  character  of  a  lar^'e  number  of  them.  Ai 
the  Sable  lron-\\'()rks  at  rittsburL;h.  iVnn..  Mr.  Zug.  the  sc.iljr  partner  of  tlu- 
Zug's  im  firm,  has  set  up  a  mechanism  of  his  own  invention  to  dispone  of 
provcments.  j],^,  j)uddl(.'d)ars  as  tlu'V  leave  the  rolls.  .\s  the  red-hot  bar  comes 
iVoni  ihe  rolls  it  is  diMliar,uvd  ujion  a  line  of  rollers,  over  wliidi  it  runs  in  a 
scale,  on  whi(  h  it  is  detained  lon,^;  enouL;h  to  be  weij,'hed.  It  is  then  jiushed 
alonj;  the  rollers  to  a  i,'reat  pair  of  shears,  where  it  is  (  ut  into  lengths,  the  jiicds 
falling  into  an  iron  basket  (xcupying  a  pit  of  water.  'J'his  basket,  suspeinKd 
from  a  beam  overhead,  is  raised  to  such  a  height,  that  it  runs  by  its  own  wnju 
to  the  other  kixmX,  wliere  it  comes  in  (ontact  with  an  ol)ject  which  unlatches  the 
bottom  of  the  basket  ;  an<l  the  iron  falls  to  the  ground,  p'ady  for  jiiling  lor 
the  various  furnaces.  I'lie  striking  of  the  object  which  opens  the  bottom  of  thi.' 
iron  basket  reverses  its  (lire(  tion,  and  sends  it  back  on  the  now  falling  beaiii  to 
the  pit.  with  the  bottom  again  secure  for  reloading.  With  this  mechanism  tin.' 
])iiddle-iron  is  dragged  from  the  rolls,  weighed,  cut.  and  laid  asiile  by  one  hkim, 
who  handles  t!  product  of  sixteen  furnaces. 
Statistics  of  In   1873  the  rolling-mills  of  the  United  States  numbered  ,^10, 

numbers.  ^.S  folloWS  :  — 

M.iiiic 1 

Vermont r 

Massacluisetts i\ 

Rhode  Island 4 

Connecticut 5 

New  Yolk    .                 -M 

New  Jersey IJ 

Pennsylvania ilS 

Delaware 10 

Maryland S 

Virginia 3 

West  Virginia 7 

Ohio     ............  .)ij 

Kentucky     ............  10 

Tennessee     .                  ..........  5 

Indiana 9 

Illinois iS 

Michij;an ) 

Missouri       ............  6 

Wisconsin    .         .                  I 

(Georgia 3 

Alabama 2 

California I 

Total 310 


'iti? 


01     JJ/h    UNITED    aj'ATKa. 


I  I 


,;^*»'.Y»w^  M 


111,1)    IlillN-F  IKNAi  i:    UN    TIM.    IHNKMMI.H. 


i 


' .' 


CAMBRIA   IRON-WORKS,    lOHNSTOWN,   VENN. 


•It 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


t 


The  total  of  rolled  iron  capacity  was  2,833,000  tons.     In  1876  the  num. 

ber  of  mills  was  338.     'I'he  capacity  was  something  over  3,000,000  tons ;  Imt 

the  actual  nroiluction  was  1,021,7^0  net  tons,  worth  about  jtino.. 
Production.  ^        <  <•  /  < 

000,000.     The  product  was   in  sheet-iron,  boiler-iron,  plates  for 
iron  ships,  bars,  rods,  hoops,  rails,  bridge-iron,  &c. 


INI'LUKNCE   OF    PARIS   EXPOSITION   ON    AMERICAN    IRON-MANUFACTUUIC. 

Ikfore  passing  on  to  sjieak  of  the  steel-works  of  the  United  States,  aHusioii 
may  be  made  to  an  event  occurring  in  1867,  which  had  an  important  influence 
PariiExpo-  on  the  whole  iron-industry  of  this  country:  that  was  the  Paris 
■ition.  Exposition.     The  war  was  over  in  America,     'I'he   people  were 

settling  down  to  the  developments  of  the  arts  which  promote  peace,  and  make 
a  nation  united  and  great.  New  life  was  felt  throbbing  in  every  department  of 
industry.  A  keen  interest  was  felt  here  in  the  Kxposition  of  1867;  and  Mr. 
Abrani  S.  Hewitt  was  sent  over  there  in  an  official  cai)acity  to  study  wiiai 
foreigners  had  to  teach  us  with  reference  to  the  iron-industry,  and  otlar 
experts  were  sent  to  investigate  and  report  upon  other  Hiings.  What  Mr. 
Hewitt  and  the  iron-manufacturers  who  visited  that  great  fair  learned  about 
the  foreign  iron-business  was  new  and  interestini;,  and  it  has  since  proved  of 
inc  alculable  value  to  America.  It  taught  us  many  important  lessons,  ami 
proved  a  fresh  incentive  to  effort. 

The  principal  fad  which  arrested  attention  was  the  marked  superiority  of 
Europeans  in  jjroducing  difficult  shapes  of  rolled  iron  v-thout  weld  or  joint, 
_       ,    ,.       and  their  willingness  to  handle  iron  and  stee.  ...-all  piiriuJSL's  in 

Superiority  "^  '       ' 

ofEuropemnt  larger  masses  than  in  America.  The  Icadi.ig  European  nations 
In  rolling        present  at  the  fair  exhibited  a  vast  variety  of  articles  rolled  from  a 

heavy  Iron.       ' 

single  piece,  which  could  not  have  been  thus  made  in  .Aiucrica 
then,  —  such  as  deeply-dished  boiler-heads,  steam-domes,  tube-sheets,  and 
culinary  vessels  of  every  form  ;  and  many  other  things  made  purely  as  fours  de 
force,  to  show  what  could  be  done,  —  such  as  cocked  hats,  a  series  of  s(iuarc 
domes  raised  from  a  flat  plate,  &:c.  They  displayed  beams  a  hundred  feet  long, 
weighing  fifteen  hundred  ])ounds,  ami  others  of  the  same  length,  woigiiin},' 
two  tons  and  a  quarter.  A  single  plate,  thirty  feet  long,  two  feet  six  indus 
broad,  six  inches  thick,  and  weighing  eleven  tons,  was  shown  from  I'.nj; 
land.  Krupp  showed  a  single  steel  ingot  of  forty  tons;  when  in  1851  an 
English  ingot  weighing  two  tons  and  a  quarter  had  been  deemed  an  astoni^li- 
ing  achievement.  Knipp  also  had  on  exhibition  a  fifty-ton  steel  cannon 
mounted  on  a  fifteen-ton  carriage,  and  a  twenty-five-ton  turn-table  throwing  a 
solid  shot  of  twelve  hundred  and  twelve  pounds  and  a  shell  of  ten  luiiidrcd 
and  eighty  pounds.  These  achievements  have  all  been  surpassed  since  then, 
many  of  them  in  America ;  but,  to  the  dazzled  eyes  of  the  American  iron- 
manufacturers,  they  were  in  1867  a  revelation  of  marvels  as  interesting  as  a 
tale  of  Arabian  enchantment. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


a«3 


Mr.  Hewitt  and  others  spent  much  time  while  in  Kurope  during  that  exhi- 
l)itioii  in  studying  these  j)roducts  of  Kuropcan  art,  and  in  visiting  ,„y„„„. 
the  steel-works  and  rolling-mills  of  the  great  centres  of  the  trade,   tiomot  A.  8. 
ami   then  came  back  to  America  with  a  volume  of  new  ideas,   "•**'"  "^ 

otntrt* 

wind)  they  have  since  utilized  here  to  the  extraordinary  benefit  of 
ihcmsclves  and  the  country. 


THK    MANUKACrUKK    OF    STKKL.  * 

The  most  valuable  property  of  iron,  next  to  that  of  agglutination  at  a  white-    ^ 
heat,  and  possibly  exceeding  that,  is  the  (quality  of  forming  steel.     C'asl-iron  is  j  ^ 
not  pure  metallic  iron  :    it  contains  from  three  to  five  per  cent  of  superiority 
carbon  (often  five  i)er  cent  and  nine  tenths)  chemically  combined.   "'  •***' 
By  ilcpriving  the  metal  of  all  except  about  one-half  per  cent  of  its  carbon,  the 
wrmiuht  iron  of  commerce  is  obtained.     By  restoring  to  it  from  three-fourths 
to  one  per  cent  and  a  half  of  the  carbon,  or  by  reducing  the  carl  on  of  cast- 
iron  to  that  minimum,  a  new  (piality  of  iron  is  obtained,  which  we  call  steel,  — 
a  product  of  the  highest  value,  exceeding  all  others  in  elasticity,  tenacity,  and 
hanhiess,  ac(|uiring  a  special  tetnper  by  rapid  cooling,  white,  fine-grained,  and^ 
capable  of  taking  a  higii  polish.     It  is  the  true  metal  for  arms. 

•Xnciently  the    Hindoos  made   steel    in   small  (piantities   by  taking  their 
charcoal-made  wrought  iron,  cut  into  small  pieces,  and  putting  about  a  pound 
of  it  a  time  into  a  crucible,  with  ten  times  the  ([uantity  of  wood   s,eei.m«k- 
chopped  fine.     They  put  the  crucible  tightly  plugged  into  a  fiir-   ingbythe 
naie,  and  heated  it  intensely  for  two  or  three  hours.     At  the  end      '"  °''*' 
of  the  operation  the  steel  was  found  fiised  into  a  cake  in  the  bottom  of  the 
crucible.     From  the  steel  thus  made  were  fashioned  the  famous  cimeters  and 
blades  of  the  lOast,  of  such  exquisite  edge  and  temper  as  to  cut  a  gauze  veil 
floating  in  the  air  without  disturbing  its  movement. 

It  was  many  ages  before  steel  was  made  in  Western  Kurope.     When  the 
manufacture  of  it  began  there,  a  new  process  was  invented.     Steel  was  made 
-^  l)y  cciiientation.    The  process,  in  use  to  the  present  day,  consisted   Blistered     ^  ^ 
of  packing  wrought-iron  bars  in  charcoal  in  crucibles,  and  heating  "*"'• 
them  from  six  to  ten  days,  according  to  the  hardness  of  the  product  required. 
The  product  thus  formed  was  calletl  "  blistered  steel."  because  the  bars,  when 
withdrawn,  were  found  covered  with  blisters.     Cast-steel  was  formed  by  break-  Jj  ' 
ing  these  bars,  and  fusing  them  ;   and  shear-steel  by  tempering  the  cast-steel, 
breaking  the  pieces,  welding  them  at  a  good  heat,  and  then  hammenng  them 
until  a  more  uniform  and  tenacious  texture  was  produced. 

The  business  of  steel-making  was  established  in  America  as  Early  tteei- 
cady  as  the  Revolution  ;  but  it  did  not  thrive  until  within  the  last   united 
thirty  years.      There  was  every  temptation  to  make  the  metal,   statei. 
because  it  was  worth  in  bars  from  two  hundred  and  fifty  to  three  hundred 


,.aU'  \ 


* '' 


d\ 


3hj 


fc 


ai4 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


dollars  a  ton  as  against  an  average  of  from  twenty  to  forty  dollars  a  ton  for 
pig-iron,  and  from  eighty  to  a  hundred  dollars  for  good  bar-iron.  Ameriran 
iron,  too,  was  exceedingly  pure  and  tenacious,  and  well  fitted  for  steel- 
making.  But  the  business  had  been  from  antiquity  shrouded  in  the  deep- 
est mystery  by  makers,  and  it  was  long  before  the  American  Congress  fjave 
sufficient  protection  to  those  who  wished  to  venture  in  the  business  lioic 
to  encourage  them  to  embark  their  capital  in  it.  When  the  business  was 
undertaken,  a  great  deal  of  money  was  lost  in  it,  and  many  attempts  were 
abandoned  in  despair.  To  the  energy  of  a  few  men,  princii)ally  at  Pittsburgh, 
Penn.,  and  the  skill  of  a  few  native  chemists,  is  due  the  fact  that  the  business 
.  was  finally  mastered  and  established.  American  steel,  and  the  saws,  cutlery, 
tools,  and  machines  made  from  it,  have  since  become  flimous  the  world  over. 

As  the  art  is  practised  in  the  United  States,  steel  is  made  by  three  general 
processes  ;  ami  the  product  is  called  respectively  pot  or  crucible  steel.  Sic- 
n>e«<i-Martin  steel,  and  J3essemer  steel :  in  the  first  class,  cementation  is 
Three  modes  ''"'g'-'ly  employed.  There  are  also  two  American  methods  used, 
of  making  the  invention  of  Professor  A.  K.  ICaton  of  New  York.  One,  dis- 
""'■  covered  in   1 85 1,  consists  in  melting  malleable  iron   in  crucihlos 

wiih  a  carbonaceous  salt,  such  as  ferro-cyanide  of  potassium,  using  it  alone  or 
with  a  little  charcoal.  'I"he  cr.rl)onization  is  rapidly  effected  ;  and  the  steel, 
when  fused,  is  cast  into  moulds.  The  other  jjrocess,  discovered  in  1856,  con- 
sists in  decarbonizing  cast-iron  by  heating  it  intensely  in  thin  plates  in  a  bath 
of  melted  carbonate  of  soda.  The  plates  are  then  melted  and  cast.  The 
principal  drawback  to  the  former  of  these  two  processes  is,  that  the  crucibles 
cannot  long  withstand  the  intense  heat  to  which  they  are  subjected ;  and  the 
principal  objection  to  all  crucible  processes  is,  that  the  capacity  of  produ(  tion 
is  limited  by  the  necessarily  small  size  of  the  pots.  A  good  article  is  pro- 
duced, however ;  and  the  business  is  actively  prosecuted  at  thirty  cast-stoel 
establishments  in  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  and  Connectii  ut, 
nine  of  them  l)eing  at   Pittsburgh.      The  product  of  the  works  is  in   tool, 

■?  '. spring,  machine,  hammered,  and  ingot  steel :  it  now  amounts  to  39,000  tons 

a  year,  worth  512,000,000.  There  are  a  large  number  of  works  in  dinerent 
parts  of  the  country  for  making  bars  by  cementation,  their  product  in  1S76 
being  10,306  tons.  ' 

\Vhen  Mr.  Hewitt  was  at  the  Paris  Exposition  in  1867,  two  methods  for 
making  steel  on  a  large  scale  were  beginning  to  attract  great  attention.  'Die 
Method  Bessemer  process  was  then  the  sensation  of  the  hour,  and  enor- 

considered  mous  provision  was  l)eing  made  in  Europe  for  manufacture  by 
means  of  it.  He  studied  the  process  carefully,  and  reported 
upon  it.  The  other  method  was  that  which  is  called  the  Siemens- 
Martin.  Mr.  Hewitt  himself  introduced  that  system  to  America,  upon  his 
return,  at  his  works  at  Trenton,  N.J. 

An  Englishmen  has  the  reputation  of  inventing  the  Bessemer  process ;  b'lt 


at  Paris  Ex- 
position. 


H2 


/ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


"5 


tlio  first  person  to  suggest  it,  and  make  an  experiment  with  it,  was,  according 
tu  Mr.  Swank,  an  American.  As  early  as  1851,  William  Kelly,  an  Bessemer 
iron-master  at  Eddyville,  Ky.,  suggested  the  possibility  of  making  P'oce"- 
.steel  on  a  large  scale  by  blowing  air  into  and  through  melted  cast-iron,  thus 
burning  out  its  carbon  until  it  was  converted  into  steel.  He  made  a  few  trials, 
anil  ol)tained  a  patent  in  1851.  Henry  Bessemer  secured  his  first  patent  for 
the  process  in  England  in  1855.  Neither  of  the  two  men  was  able  to  attain 
sui  cess,  however,  by  the  methods  he  originally  adopted  ;  and  it  was  not  until 
some  changes  and  improvements  Iiail  been  crtected  that  either  accomplished 
anv  thing.  Tiie  process,  as  employed  in  this  country,  is  carried  on  under  a 
conil)ination  of  the  Bessemer  and  Kelly  patents. 

The  plant  re(iuired  for  the  conversion  of  pig-metal  into  Bessemer  steel  is 
exi)ensive  ;  and  there  are  now  only  eleven  establishments  for  it  in  the  United 
States,  —  five  in   Pennsylvania,  three  in  Illinois,  and  one  each  in   vaiueof 
New  York,  Ohio,  and  Missouri.     One  of  these,  in  Illinois,  is  the   product. 
largest  in  the  world.    The  product,  however,  is  large,  amounting  now  to  540,- 
000  tons  a  year,  worth  $65,000,000. 

The  cast-iron  is  melted,  and  then  drawn  out,  in  five-ton  charges,  into  great 
l/ear-sliai)e(l  converters  made  of  iron  lined  with  refractory  fire-clay.  The  con- 
verters are  hung  on  trunnions,  and  are  tipped  down  to  receive  the  process  "■*" 
eiiarge.  The  melted  iron  lies  in  the  belly  of  the  swelling  side  of  described. 
the  converter  until  the  reciuisitc  amount  is  obtained  ,  then  the  converter  is 
swmig  into  an  uprigiit  position,  and  at  the  same  moment  a  blast  of  air  is 
turned  on,  the  air  finiling  its  wa)-  into  the  converter  through  a  number  of  small 
holes  at  the  bottom,  imilemeath  the  melted  iron.  The  process  now  becomes 
one  of  the  most  spectacular  in  the  iron-industry.  The  air,  rushing  through 
the  liijuid  iron,  pours  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  converter  in  a  tremendous  flame. 
At  lirst  the  silicon  is  seized  upon  by  the  oxygen  of  the  air,  the  result  being 
slag ;  and,  while  it  is  burning,  the  flame  is  comi)aratively  dull.  But  immedi- 
ately the  carbon  begins  to  burn,  and  the  fl^me  then  increases  in  volume  anil 
brilliancy.  T"he  surging,  splashing  ma.jS  grows  hotter  ami  whiter,  and  appears 
to  expand  and  boil.  A  thick,  white,  roaring  blaze  pours  from  the  mouth  of 
the  converter,  and  its  iron  fotmdations  tremble  under  the  violent  ebullition. 
There  are  few  such  exhibitions  of  chemical  power  10  be  seen  in  the  industrial 
arts.  As  the  decarbonization  goes  on,  the  flame  grows  thinner  and  smaller ; 
and,  when  it  is  complete,  the  light  dies  out  of  it.  Bessemer  originally  intended 
to  stop  the  process  at  the  point  where  just  enough  carbon  had  been  left  in  the 
metal  to  make  steel,  using  the  spectroscope  for  the  purpose.  This  was  found 
impracticable ;  and  the  plan  now  is,  to  continue  the  blast  until  all  the  carbon 
is  burned  out:  the  right  moment  is  indicated  to  the  eye  by  the  name.  The 
n)nverter  is  then  tipped  over,  and  a  small  charge  of  melted  spiegeleisen,  rich 
in  carbon,  is  poured  in.  It  diffuses  itself  instantly  through  the  melted  mass 
in  Uie  converter.     A  flaming  re-action  takes  place  ;  and  then  the  converter  is 


/£> 


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^JBE 


i;i 


216 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


m 


If 


emptied  with  a  ladle,  which  is,  in  turn,  swung  over  the  ingot  moulds.  A  fire- 
clay plug  is  removed  by  a  lever,  and  the  steel  runs  out  pure,  white,  and  shin- 
ing. The  whole  operation  is  brief,  and  the  men  remain  silent  and  attentive 
until  it  is  completed. 

The  use  of  ferro-manganese  for  conversion  in  this  process  has  latterly  been 
introduced,  and  is  increasing.  Four-fifths  of  the  Bessemer  steel  now  made 
Use  of  ferro-  in  this  country  is  rolled  into  railroad  iron :  it  is  a  leading  indus 
manganese,  t^y^  ^nd  has  placed  the  steel-rail  business  here  ahead  of  the  iron- 
rail  manufacture.  The  other  fifth  of  the  product  is  devoted  chiefly  to  the 
purposes  of  machinery. 
/  /  The  Siemens-Martin  process  is  not  yet  extensively  used.  It  affords  a 
valuable  product ;  but  the  system  last  described  is  at  present  the  favorite.  The 
Siemens-  Sicniens-Martin  plan  is  simply  that  of  the  carbonization  of  wrougln 
Martin  iron  iu  an  open  hearth  or  reverberatory  furnace,  by  mixing  it  witli 

process.  cast-iruH  and  iron  ore.     The  flame  from  the  furnace  is  made  to 

pass  over  a  hearth  on  which  the  metal  is  placed,  and  effects  the   required 
-    chemical  transformation.     The  metal  is  sometimes  supplied  with  ferro-inan- 
ganese  in  the  process  of  conversion  into  steel.    The  product  of  open-hearlh 
steel,  which  was  only  3,000  tons  in  1872,  amounted  in  1876  *i  21,490  tons. 

Since  the  first  crude  experiment  at  iron-making  in  the  forests  of  Virginia, 

two  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  flown  by  on  the  wings  of  time ;  yet  it  has 

not  been  until  within  the  past  five  years  that  the  United  States 

have  bcL-n  able  to  produce  iron  and  steel  enough  to  supply  lier 

own  wants,  either  in  war  or  peace.     The  railroads  of  the  countr) 

have  been  prih^Ipally  built  with  rails  imported  from  the  contineii 

Our  factories  and  shops  have  been  equipped  with  foreign-made 

Tools,    telegraph-wire,    chains,   and    manufactured    articles    in 

general,  as  well  as   meta!  in  pigs  and  ingots,  have  been  brought  here  from 

abroad  in  enormous  cjuantities  from  the  earliest  day.     In  1873  the  amount 

imported  was  valued   at  fifty-eight   million   dollars.     Thanks  to  the  natural 

resources   of  our  country  anc'    the   enterprise   of  our  countrymen,  and  the 

influences  which  have  aided  them,  the  United  States  have  now  an  iron  and 

steel  producing  capacity  fiilly  equal  to  her  wants,  and  indeed  in  excess  of  it. 

The  importation  has  been  cut  down  to  the  insignificant  sum  of  about  seven 

million  dollars  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1877;  and  an  exportation  has 

liegun  not  only  to  the  less  advanced  nations  of  the  world,  but  also  to  civilizx'd 

^IP  Europe.    The  United  States  are  at  last  truly  independent  of  the  world  for  her 

iron  and  steel. 


Wonderful 
extension  of 
steel-indus- 
try. 

of  Europe, 
machinery. 


i:    i:- ill 


lili 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


217 


CHAPTER   II. 

IRON   AND   STEEL   MANUFACTURES. 

IT  was  one  peculiarity  of  the  times  in  that  age  of  the  world  when  America 
was  first  settled,  that  gq]d  and  silvgr  were  the  most  highly  prized  of  metals ; 
and  the  abundance  of  them  in  any  country  was  regarded  as  the  utility  of 
test,  not  only  of  its  wealth,  but  of  its  civilization.  Times  have  "°"- 
changed  since  then ;  and  a  celebrated  wTiter  has  pointed  out,  that,  in  this 
latter  age  of  the  world,  the  civilization  of  a  race  of  men  is  more  clearly 
indicated  by  the  iron  it  employs  and  consumes  than  by  any  other  power  it 
possesses.  Iron  has  always  brought  superiority  to  the  race  using  it  in  the 
largest  degree  for  .veapons  and  implements ;  but  in  modem  times  the  fact 
has  become  more  conspicuous.  It  is  marvellous  to  look  back  along  the 
history  of  the  conquests  and  wars  of  the  past,  and  to  compare  the  condition 
of  mankind  at  the  present  day  with  what  it  was  two  hundred  years  ago,  and 
study  the  important  part  played  by  iron.  Eminence  and  progress  appear  to 
have  been  immediately  due  far  more  to  the  generous  use  of  this  valuable 
metal  than  to  the  intelligence  of  the  human  race  and  the  power  of  numbers. 
Steam  could  never  have  been  made  the  obedient  vassal  of  man,  except  for 
this  tenacious  metal  to  confine  and  direct  its  forces.  Famines  were  never 
obviated  until  husbandry  was  made  successful  by  iron  implements,  and  iron 
railways  were  laid  to  insure  the  free  distribution  of  crops ;  and  the  fami  ■\es 
of  the  present  age  occur  only  in  those  regions  into  which  the  railway  and  the 
liberal  use  of  this  noble  metal  have  not  penetrated.  The  people  would  still 
be  living  in  hovels,  except  for  iron  to  fashion  the  wood  of  the  forests,  and 
t)ind  the  framework  of  our  homes.  With  a  metal  no  more  serviceable  than 
t  ojjper,  the  world  would  never  have  risen  to  the  heights  of  comfort,  intelligence, 
and  civilization,  it  has  now  attained ;  the  brilliant  conquests  of  the  material 
universe  which  have  characterized  the  present  century  could  never  have  taken 
place. 

The  variety  of  uses  to  which  iron  is  now  put  is  remarkable,  and  there  seems 
to  be  no  limit  yet  to  its  employment.  Machinery  has  been  invented  which 
will  fashion  it  for  any  end,  in  masses  of  any  size,  from  the  hair-spring  of  a 


2l8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


^  r 


V'- 


w;itch  to  tliose  niagiiificent  products  of  constructive  art,  the  locomotive  ami 
tlic  iron  slcaniship.  Its  use  is  now  as  boundless  as  man's  desires,  and  alnio  i 
Variety  of  as  wiile  as  its  own  diffusion  tlirougiiout  nature.  Iron  is  found  in 
uses.  every  rex  k  :    it  blooms  in  tiie  rose  and  in  tlie  maiilen's  dicek,  ami 

tlie  spectroscope  detects  it  in  tlie  light  of  the  sun  and  stars.  It  may  be  said 
fainy  to  pervade  nature,  and  now  also  to  i)ervade  every  department  of  hunuin 
activity.  It  plays  some  jKirl  in  tlie  simjjlest  occupations  of  every-day  life  :  it 
mints  the  coin  of  the  people  ;  it  steers  our  shi[)s  ;  drawn  out  into  a  wiiv,  it 
sounds  the  deepest  oceans,  and  carries  our  messages  from  continent  to  ((iini- 
nent  ;  it  lights  our  battles,  and  wins  our  daily  bread,  and  larves  our  gravestoiKs 
when  we  are  gone  ;  it  made  England  mistress  of  the  seas  and  of  comnierd- ; 
and  it  is  one  of  the  most  efficient  causes  of  the  remarkable  advance  of  ilie 
United  States  during  the  present  century,  whi(  h  is  the  conmient  of  the  schoLirs 
and  i)ublic  men  of  the  world. 

In  the  ai)plication  of  iron  to  the  uses  of  humanity,  no  people  have  excelled 
our  own  countrymen  in  ingenuity  and  enterprise.  'The  purpose  ol  this  chapter 
is  to  describe  the  growth  of  some  of  the  principal  iron  and  steel  industries 
which  they  ha\e  established. 


^/v- 


NAILS. 


facture  of 
naili. 


Nail-making  is  purely  an  .'\merican  art  ;  for,  although  nails  were  invented 

before  the  white  man  first  cast  anchor  off  these  shores,  the  process  of  making 

Nail-making    'hem  which  has  superseded  all  others  was  the  ])roduct  of  the  Yaii- 

an  American   kee's  braiii,  and  the  modern  system  was  employed  here  long  Ijefore 

it  found  its  way  into  luirope. 

Iron  nails  were  sparingly  used  in  anticjuity,  but  they  were  to  some  extent  in 
the  middle  ages  ;  and  their  use  became  general  three  or  four  hundred  years 
Early  manu-  '^S"»  wheii  England  devloped  her  iron-industries.  ICngland  was  the 
great  nail-making  country  of  Europe.  So  large  a  part  of  her  ]i()|ni- 
lation  was  employed  in  the  art,  that,  in  iater  times,  sixty  thousand 
l)ersons  were  employed  in  nail-making  at  liirmingham  alone.  .All  the  nails  were 
made  by  hand.  The  iron  was  drawn  out  into  rods,  the  end  was  heated  and 
formed  by  hammer  on  an  anvil  into  a  nail,  when  the  rod  was  re-heated  and  again 
hammered.  The  business,  not  being  so  laborious  as  the  majority  of  those  in 
which  men  were  engaged,  was  turned  ov(;r  largely  to  women  and  children  ;  ami. 
not  being  very  remunerative  to  the  workers  themselves,  the  social  condition  nf 
the  nail-makers  of  England  was  one  of  the  dark  pictures  of  her  industries.  ' ' 
the  last  century,  several  attempts  were  made  to  save  a  part  of  the  Ial)or  expem 
in  nail-making  by  the  use  of  machinery.  William  Finch  of  Wimboorne,  Slal- 
fordshire,  brought  out  one  patent  for  the  use  of  tilt-hammers,  which,  by  rajiid 
striking,  enabled  several  nails  to  be  made  from  the  rod  in  one  heat.  Thomas 
Clifford  invented  another  plan  in  1790,  which  aimed  at  squeezing  a  bar  of  imn 


TT 


into  nails  by  ft 
tluir  faces.     T 
however,  until 
laliorioiis  work, 
i'lie  first  re< 
in  (  1  ingress  in^ 
son  had  inserti 
in  ihe  bill.     Mr 
a  tax  on  the  iiu] 
til  i(  great  <|uani 
reimsylvania,  ai 
.America.      Fish( 
and  accommoda 
it  sells  for,  e.xcej 
:!■>.  if  not  thus  t 
hei  (line  usual  foi 
|ie(.|ile   to   erect 
111  iheir  chimney- 
in  the  winter  ev 
little  other  work 
Kreat    (|uantities 
made,      even      1 
Tiiese    j)eople    t; 
lion    of    the    m< 
return  him  nails 
seipience   of   thi>, 
"f  liarter,  the   m 
prodigiously  greai 
■iilvantages  are  ik 
ill  tlie  hands  of  t 
Massachusetts, 
can  be  i)rosecute( 
manner  by  every 
I'he   duty  wa 
creased. 

liut,  even  at  t 
tlie  minds  of  our 
to  make  nails,  an( 
'Ircd  patents  whic 
nail-making,  twen 
In  1.S10  the  .secre 
"  Twenty  yean 
<'iitting  slices  out 


OF    T]IE    I'NlThl)    SIATES. 


219 


!■  Ifi--- 


iiiio  nails  by  feeding  it  in  hctwrcn  two  heavy  rollers  with  proper  moulds  on 
tin  ir  faces.  'I'he  greater  part  of  the  nails  used  continued  to  he  made  i)y  hand, 
hiiwcver,  until  Anieri<  an  genius  released  the  women  and  children  from  su(  h 
laliniious  work. 

riie  first  record  we  have  of  nail-making  in  this  country  is  found  in  a  debate    \^,^ 
111  Congress  i"  1  y.S^i-  when  the  first  tariff  bill  was  imder  discussion.     Mr.  MacH-  /^\ 
sdii  had  inserted  a  duty  of  one  cent  a  pound  on  nails  ami  spikes   pirc,t  naii- 
in  llie  bill.     Mr.  Lee  tiioiight  this  was  objectionable,  as  it  might  jje    making  in 
a  t, IX  on  the  improvement  of  estates.     Mr  (lu'jdhue  assured  him      "'«'■"-''• 
th.il  great  (|uantities  of  nails  were  being  manufactured  in  Massa(  husetts  and 
I'rnnsylvania,  and  in  a  little  lime  enough  would  l>e  made  to  sujiply  all  North 
Aim  ri<a.      h'isher  Ames  said  this  on  the  subject :   "  It  is  a  useful    Fisher 
and  accommodating  niaiuifac  ture,  which  yields  a  clear  gain  of  all   Ames. 
it  sells  for,  except  the  cost  of  the  material.     The  labor  emi)loyed  on  it  is  such 
a--,  if  not  thus  employed,  would,  in  many  instances,  be  thrown  away.     It  has 
liii  oine  usual  for  the  <x)unlrv- 


|n(i]ile   to   erect   small   forges 
111  their  chimney-corners  ;  and 


ill  the  winter  evenings,  when 
little  other  work  can  be  done, 
i^rtit  (juantities  of  nails  are 
made,  even  by  children. 
Tliese  peoi)le  t.ike  the  rod- 
iKiii  of  the  men  hant,  and 
ri.tiirn  him  nails  ;  and,  in  con- 
sei|uence  of  this  easy  mode 
of  barter,  the  manufa(  ture  is 
|iniiligiously  great.  J'>ut  these 
advantages  are  not  exclusively 
ill  the  hands  of  the  peojile  of 
Massachusetts.  The  business 
ran  be  prosecuted  in  a  similar 
manner  by  every  State  exerting  similar  industry." 

The   duty  was   allowed    to   remain    in    the   bill,  and    afterwards   was    in- 
creased. 

]iut,  even  at  the  time  that  Fisher  Ames  described  the  chimney-corner  forges, 
the  minds  of  our  countrymen  were  busy  with  the  idea  of  jjerfecting  a  machine 
to  make  nails,  and  save  all  this  labor  by  hand.     Of  the  three  hun-   pa,ent«for 
ilre<l  ])atents  which  have  up  to  1878  been  granted  for  machines  for   naii- 
iiail making,  twenty-three  were  issued  before  the  present  century.   '"■''''"*•■ 
In  iSio  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  reported  :  — 

"  Twenty  years  ago.  some  men  now  unknown,  then  in  obscurity,  began  by 
rutting  slices  out  of  old  hoops,  and,  by  a  common  vice  griping  ihese  pieces. 


FAIKVIEW    NAI1.-WOKKS. 


/.//^ 


:C'?  j:'       i 


illilHli 


220 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Cut  nails. 


headed  them  with  several  strokes  of  the  hammer,  By  progressive  improve- 
ments slitting-mills  were  built,  and  the  shears  and  heading-tools  were  perfected  ; 
yet  much  labor  and  expense  were  requisite  to  make  nails.  In  a  little  time, 
Jacob  Perkins,  Jonathan  Ellis,  and  a  few  others,  put  into  execution  the  thought 
of  cutting  and  of  heading  nails  by  water ;  but,  being  more  intent  upon  their 
machinery  than  upon  their  pecuniary  affairs,  they  were  unable  to  prosecute  the 
business.  At  different  times  other  men  have  spent  fortunes  in  improvements ; 
and  it  may  be  said  with  truth,  that  more  than  a  million  of  dollars  have  been 
expended.  But  at  length  these  joint  efforts  are  crowned  with  complete  suc- 
cess ;  and  we  are  now  able  to  manufacture,  at  about  one-third  of  the  expense 
that  wrought  nails  can  be  manufactured  for,  nails  which  are  superior  to  them 
for  at  least  three-fourths  of  the  purposes  to  which  nails  are  applied,  and  for  most 
of  those  purposes  they  are  full  as  good." 

Jeremiah  Jeremiah  Wilkinson  of  Rhode  Island  is  said  to  have  been  the 

Wilkinson.     ^^3,^  ^yi^Q  headed  nails  in  a  vice. 

When  the  manufacture  of  cut  nail.>  was  first  unrlertriken,  wrought  nails  cost 
twenty-five  cents  a  pound,  and  were  largely  imported.  This  made  their  use 
for  fences  and  houses  expensive ;  and  their  cost,  the  abundance 
of  timber  in  this  country,  and  the  desire  of  every  man  to  have  his 
own  house  and  barn,  proved  powerful  incentives  to  inventors  to  undertake  the 
manufacture  of  them  by  machinery.  The  new  machines  did  so  well,  that  in 
^'j^  1 8 10  one  was  perfected  which  was  able  to  make  a  hundred  nails  a  minute  ;  and 
in  1828  the  production  was  so  brisk,  that  the  price  was  reduced  to  eight  cents 
a  pound.  It  is  now  about  two  cents  and  a  half  a  pound.  In  1833  the  duty  on 
nails  was  five  cents  a  pound  :  but  the  rapidity  of  manufacture  here  had  brought 
prices  down  to  five  cents  a  pound,  which  was  the  same  as  the  duty ;  and  in 
/V'1842  the  price  was  two  cents  below  the  duty. 

The  American  nail-machine  is  a  somewhat  complicated  afTair  in  detail, 
but  simple  in  theory.  The  iron  is  rolled  out  into  bars  wide  enough  to  make 
Description  three  0"  four  strips,  each  one  of  which  is  as  wide  as  the  length  of 
of  machine,  jj^g  j^ail  it  is  intended  to  make.  The  cutting  of  the  bar  into  strips 
is  done  by  the  slitting-mill,  and  is  done  while  the  bar  is  hot,  and  thus  more 
easily  cut.  The  strips  are  then  taken  to  the  nail-machines,  of  which  there  are 
froiTi  forty  to  a  hundred  in  a  factory ;  in  the  Wheeling  Nail- Works  there  being 
one  hundred  and  six,  and  one  hundred  and  ten  in  the  Belmont  Works,  also  at 
Wheeling.  Each  machine  works  upon  one  strip  or  nail-rod  at  a  tinie,  clipping 
Ou  a  piece  from  the  end  presented  to  it,  and  then  another,  as  the  strip  is 
turned  over  and  the  end  again  presented.  The  strip  must  be  turned  over  each 
time  a  nail  is  clipped  off,  because  the  nail  is  cut  tapering.  Each  bit  as  it  is 
cut  nff  is  grasped  by  a  powerful  vice,  which  holds  it,  while  an  object  called  the 
"  header  "  presses  up  the  large  end  into  a  head  :  the  nail  then  drops  among 
its  companions  below.  The  process  is  a  rapid  one,  and  a  good  machine  will 
make  from  half  a  ton  to  a  ton  and  a  half  a  day. 


Ua. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


221 


The  variety  of  styles  of  nail  made  by  marhinery  now  is  very  large,  and 
it  may  almost  be  said  that  wrought  nails  are  so  made   now :    for  manufac- 
tuiors  have  within  twenty  years  begun  to  anneal  cut  nails,  giving  variout       Ly^ 
them  a  malleable  quality  ;  and  these  have  driveii  the  old  style  of  kinds  of     '/ 
wrought  nail  out  of  use.     The  styles  now  made  are  cut,  wrought,  ""  *  "'"''''■ 
horseshoe,   barbed,   composition,   button,   railroad,  carpet,  coffin,  sheathing, 
galvanized,  harness,  leatiier-work,  picture,  siding,  slating,  trunk,  upholstery, 
weather-tiling,  and  screw  nails,  spikes,  brads,  and  tacks  being  included  in 
the  above.     The  machine  for  making  railroad-spikes  was  the  invention  of  Mr. 
Henry  Burden  of  Troy  (who  also  invented  the  horseshoe-machine),  and  has 
proved  both  profitable  to  the  inventor  and  his  sons,  and  useful  to  the  country. 

The  yearly  product  of  nails  and  spikes  in  the  United  States  now  amounts 
to  over  4,900,000  kegs   of  one    hundred   pounds   each.      The   magnificent 
factories  employed  in   their  manuflicture  —  ecjuipjicd  with   blast- 
•"urnaccs   and   puddling-ovens,  and   giving  work  often  to  several 
hundred  men  —  excite  the  liveliest  feelings  of  admiration  when  a  comparison 
is  made  between  them  and  the  little  chimney-corner  forge  of  the  olden  times. 


Production. 


CUTLERY. 

Edge-tools  were  made  in  the  United  States  as  earl'  ?  the  Revolutionary 
war ;  it  being  at  that  time  an  absolute  necessity  for  the  people  to  provide 
themselves  with  such  implements  liy  their  own  efforts.  They  g^^,  „,,„„- 
were  of  a  very  clumsy  character,  however,  and  not  very  durable.  («cture  of 
How  slow  the  progress  was  may  be  seen  from  the  absurd  daggers  '  e*-*""  »• 
and  swords  which  are  preserved  to  us  from  the  war  of  181 2,  which  were  almost 
as  heavy  as  axes,  and  which  often  resembleil  iron  clubs  with  edges  more 
than  specimens  of  cutlery.  Tiic  swortls  too,  while  frequently  possessing  the 
power  of  being  bent  double  like  Damascus  blades,  seldom  possessed  that  of 
resuming  their  original  shape  upon  the  i)ressure  being  removed.  For  two 
hundred  years  after  the  first  settlement  of  '  .e  country  the  inhabitants  were 
really  dependent  upon  Europe  for  their  cutlery.  Our  forests  were  felled  prin- 
cipally with  English  axes,  the  crops  cut  with  English  scythes  and  sickles, 
the  building-arts  carried  on  with  chisels  and  tools  from  Sheffield,  and  even 
the  loaf  of  bread  upon  the  table  sliced  with  an  English  knife.  The  (luantity 
and  variety  of  edge-tools  madt;  in  the  New  World  were  extremely  small. 

About   forty-five    years   ago   the   attention    of   New-  I^nglanders   was    di- 
rected to  the  manufacture,  both   by  the  great  success  of  England,  —  which 
had  made  herself  the  chief  source  of  supply  of  cutlery  for  the   p 
world,  —  and   by  the   growing   demand    in  .America.      Steel  was   against 
imported  from  Sheffield,  and  various  mechanics  began  to  fashion   *'"="=■" 

.    .  ,  tools. 

It  into  the  articles  retpiirea  by  the  wants  of  our  population.     The 

greatest  obstacle  to  the  success  of  these  pioneers  of  the  art  was  the  prejudice 


222 


IND  US  TRIA  L    f/fS  TOR  Y 


in  America  against  tlie  products  of  American  sliops.  Our  working-mon  wi  ru 
intelligent,  and  knew  the  value  of  a  good  tool,  and  preferred  to  get  a  good 
tool,  even  if  the  cost  of  it  was  high.  It  took  many  years  to  convince  tlum 
that  the  Americans  couUl  make  an  article  as  true  and  serviceable  as  that  wlii',  h 
was  produced  at  Sheffield.  It  was  really  not  imtil  the  generation  of  men  tlun 
living  had  passed  off  the  stage  that  this  prejudice  was  conejuered.  The  feelini,' 
of  tliat  day  is  well  illustrated  by  an  incident  which  Mr.  (Ireeleyonce  related 
in  regard  to  some  Connecticut  fish-hooks.  A  manufacturer  of  that  State  tried 
to  introduce  some  hooks  of  his  own  make  to  the  New-York  market,  ami  sent 
samples  of  them  to  the  dealers  tiiere  for  trial.     'I'hey  were  returned  with  thf 


KNIFE  AND   FllRK. 


discouraging  statement  that  they  were  far  inferior  to  British  hooks.  Tlu' 
manufacturer  tried  several  times  to  get  his  hooks  accepted ;  and  finally  he 
took  some  I^nglish  cards,  removed  the  hooks,  put  American  hooks  on  tlic 
cards,  and  sent  them  to  a  merchant  for  comjiarison  along  with  another  lot  of 
the  same  hooks  mounted  on  American  cards.  .Again  word  came  back  tiiat 
the  hooks  on  the  British  cards  were  in  every  way  superior  to  those  on  the 
American  cards.  And  the  worst  of  it  was,  that,  when  the  little  device  of  the 
manufacturer  was  explained  to  the  merchant,  the  latter  was  still  unconvinced 
that  the  Connecticut  article  could  at  all  compare  with  the  imported.  'I'his 
was  exactly  the  case  with  early  American  edge-tools.  The  public  knew  the 
merit  of  the  imported  ware,  and  distrusted  the  home-m:  'e. 

American  cutlery  obtained  a  place  at  length,  howt  'er ;  and  of  late  tlie 
industry  has  had  a  rapid  growth.  The  early  i)rejudice,  doubtless,  was  tiie 
Rapid  cause  of  this,  in  part ;  for  it  led  to  the  use  of  none  except  the  best 

growth  of  metal,  and  made  manufacturers  pay  the  utmost  attention  to  tlie 
excellence  of  the  form  and  finish  of  their  goods.  American  cut- 
lery is  now  finding  its  way  all  over  the  world  ;  and  'Sheffield  is  fairly  staggered 
at  the  appearance  of  American  knives,  shears,  scytties,  and  planes,  in  the  ware- 
houses of  every  large  English  city.  Sheffield  is  losing  its  trade  in  consequence. 
Canadian  cutlery  shares  the  same  reputation  as  American. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


333 


Steel  is  the  material  used  for  all  cutting-edges.      The  property  of  steel 
whi(  li  gives  it  value  for  this  purpose  is  that  of  being  hardened  and  tempered. 
It  is  heated  to  redness,  and  then  suddenly  cooletl.     If  the  heat   Edgr-toou 
is  high,  the  steel  is  soft,  but  tenacious.     If  the  heat  is  low,  the  steel   made  of 
is  hard,  but  brittle.     This  is  taken  advantage  of  in  the  making  of  **""'' 
(liillrcnt  classes  of  tools.     Tluis  430  degrees  give  a  pale  yellow-color,  suit- 
able for  lancets,  which  re<iuire  a  fine  edge,  and  need  litde  strength  ;   at  450 
<lcj;rees  the  color  is  a  pale  straw-color,  good  for  razors,  pocket-   Coior  of  steel 
knives,  and  chisels ;   at   490   degrees  a   brown-yellow  temper  is   according  to 
n.uhed,  suitable  for  cold-chisels;    at  510  degrees  a  brown  with   *""'""'• 
]iuriile  si  ots,  fitted  for  axes  and  planes;  at  550  degrees  a  bright  blue,  indicat- 
iiii;  a  temper  for  swords  and  watch-springs  ;   at  560  degrees  a  full  blue,  suit- 
aMo  for  fine  saws  ;  at  590  degrees  a  dark  blue,  the  temper  for  large  saws  ;  at 
()\<-)  degrees  the  color  is  dark,  with  a  tinge  of  green,  and  the  metal  is  too  soft 
ijr  instruments. 

A  weapon  may  be  made  with  more  tiian  one  \    uner  in  it.     A    . 

'  ■'     _  '  A  tool  may 

sword,  for  instance,  is  best  with  a  blue  tcmjier  at  the  point  (giving   have  more 
it  the  greatest  elasticity),  a  violet  in  the  middle,  a  vellow  along  the   *''""  """ 

111,'  temper  in  it. 

edge  (for  keenness),  and  a  green  near  the  handle  (for  toughness). 

It  is  not  usual,  nor  is  it  necessary,  to  fashion  cutlery  entirely  of  steel. 
Simple  articles,  like  table-knives,  chisels,  planes,  scythes,  spades,  &c.,  have 
Incn  made  by  welding  a  thin  strip  of  steel  for  the  edge  upon  a  ■^^^■^^  p,r„y 
Iku  k  piece  of  iron.  Blistered  steel  is  melted  into  cast  steel  for  »teei,  and 
the  purpose,  and  hammered  into  bars.  In  shears,  only  the  edge  p"'^'*'  ''""• 
was  formerly  of  steel :  now  the  blades  are  of  steel,  and  the  handles  of  iron. 
In  table-knives  the  blade  is  of  steel,  and  the  shank  of  iron.  Formerly  this 
class  of  articles  was  made  entirely  by  hanil ;  but  American  ingenuity  has  per- 
fected a  machine  to  do  a  great  part  of  the  work,  and  the  best  blades  are 
fomied  by  it  entirely.  The  machine  has  been  adopted  in  Europe.  The 
blades  of  pen-knives  are  hammered  out  from  the  best  cast  steel,  the  smithing 
being  well  done,  for  the  sake  of  condensing  the  metal.  A  temporary  shank 
ii  drawn  out  to  hold  the  blade  while  it  is  being  ground  and  sharpened.  A 
number  of  blades  are  tempered  at  once  by  being  placed  over  a  tire  on  a  flat 
plate  together,  with  their  backs  downward.  When  they  have  acquired  a  brown 
or  purple  color,  they  are  suddenly  plunged  into  cold  water.  Scythes  are  drawn 
out  under  a  trip-hammer  from  a  bit  of  iron  of  the  reiiuisite  s'ze,  upon  which  a 
piece  of  steel  has  been  welded  for  the  edge.  Tiie  workman  sits 
on  a  stool  by  the  side  of  his  hammer,  with  the  fire  in  which  the 
metal  is  heating  within  easy  reach.  He  takes  the  piece  from  the  fire  with  a 
pair  of  tongs,  lays  it  on  tlie  anvil  under  the  hammer,  and  draws  it  out  into 
a  rough  blade  with  marvellors  speed  and  dexterity.  It  is  given  the  right  curva- 
tion  while  hot,  and  the  back  is  folded  in  other  machines  made  for  the  purpose, 
it  is  then  tempered,  and  taken  to  the  grinding-room  to  be  finished,  first  on 


Scythes. 


Wh:  ' 


<t 


224 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


heavy  wet  grindstones,  and  then  on  emery-wheels.  The  Ameriran  scythe  has 
become  cx'lebrated  for  its  superior  strengtli  and  hghtness.  Compared  with 
the  heavy  implements  of  native  make  found  on  the  continent  of  Kurope,  it  is 
the  aristocrat  of  the  harvest-field.  It  outlasts  the  European,  and  recpiires  only 
half  tiie  strength  to  use  it.  Razors,  bowie-knives,  and  hunting-knives  are  made 
from  the  best  cast  steel  by  hammering  and  careful  grinding  and  polishing. 

Edge  and  finish  are  given  to  c\itlery  in  the  grinding-rooms.  In  s(  yihc- 
factorios  the  operation  is  extraordinarily  noisy,  the  din  of  a  dozen  blades 
Edge  and  Strongly  pressed  upon  the  heavy  grindstones  being  almost  intulcra- 
finish  given  bic.  'I'lie  finer  work  is  generally  done  on  emery-stones,  'rhe 
by  grin  ing.  ^,^.^-14],,,^  \^  ^j  unhealthy  one  for  the  workmen,  on  account  ul  the 
fine  dust  which  floats  in  the  air,  and  reaches  the  lungs  of  the  grinders.  The 
evil  is  mitigated  to  some  extent  by  a  flue,  suitably  placed  to  remove  the  metallic 
ilust  from  the  revolving  stones,  into  which  there  is  a  powerful  suction  of  air; 
but  it  does  not  entirely  obviate  it. 

Thi-  various  world's  fairs  have  given  the  cutlery  of  the  United  States 
importance,  and  have,  among  other  things,  performed  the  great  service  of 
Effect  of  teaching  our  own  countrymen  its  value,  'i'he  manufacturers  do  not 
world's  fairs,  now  hesitate  to  use  American  steel  for  all  their  work.  Some  of 
them  make  the  steel  themselves,  and  so  are  sure  of  its  (juality ;  as  in  the  ( ase 
of  Mr.  Disbton  of  Philadelphia,  —  a  man  who  began  business  as  a  medianic 
Henry  by  wheeling  his  first  load  of  materials  himself,  and  who  now  has  a 

Di»»ton.  trade  amounting  to  $1,500,000  yearly.     Cutlery  has  hitherto  lictn 

imported  to  the  extent  of  several  millions  a  year.  In  1872  the  importation  was 
$10,500,000.  So  rapid  has  been  the  progress  of  American  workshops  durini,' 
tiie  last  few  years,  that  the  importation  has  been  cut  down  to  $900,000  a  year ; 
and  a  i)romising  export  has  begun,  now  amounting  to  $700,000  a  year.  V.vq- 
pean  manufacturers  visiting  this  country  candidly  confess  that  they  are  amazed 
at  what  they  see  in  this  industry. 

CLOCKS    AND    WATCHES. 

The  word  "  clock  "  brings  up  a  medley  of  recollections  as  diverse  and  as 
interesting  as  the  contents  of  a  bazaar,  —  the  belfries  of  France,  ks  cloches,  from 
Early  clock-  which  the  word  itself  is  derived  ;  the  little  old  mathematician  in  a 
making.  black  gown  in  the  little  old  shop  in  London,  lost  in  abstruse  calcu- 
lations as  to  the  speed  of  a  pendulum,  while  his  apprentices  at  the  door  of  tlic 
shop  arc  calling  to  the  passers-by,  "  What  d'ye  lack,  sirs?  what  d'ye  lack?  "  tlic 
stately  old  Dutch  time-piece,  ticking  solemnly  in  its  place  in  the  quiet  old 
colonial  farm-house  ;  the  bustling  Yankee,  driving  from  village  to  village  with 
a  wagon-load  of  wooden-wheeled  time-keepers,  and  i)ed(lling  them  away  for 
provisions  and  calicoes,  and  whatever  other  articles  of  value  our  great-grand- 
fathers had  a  surplus  of,  and  were  willing  to  part  with  in  trade ;   and  the 


anticiit  State   of 
nearly   all    in    us 
States  have  been 
of   Yankee    notic 
original  Miother  J 

IIIIMI. 

ihc  sun  was 
(lur  lorefathers,  ju 
lotlKiii  the  signal-! 
of  tho  Weather  \\\ 
am!  they  were  rei 
ill  ri,i;ard  to  what 
tlk-  sky  as  to  the 
coining    changes 
loni;  as  the  p()|)ula 
rovod    in    tlij    fort 
(hiclly  in    the    fie 
wiiv  unnecessary  ; 
HJicn    i)coi)le    gatl 
and  found    that    ii 
|nir>iiits  of  the  sho 
.md  tiie  studio,  the 
trade  of  the  flight 
Mnnnents    to    recc 
iioiir>  became  usefi 
UM'd  the  sun-dial. 
water-glass,  and  tlu 
Allied  the  (Jreat  c 
wliii  h  would  Inirii 
I'inally  a  machine  n 
»eij,'hts  was  eini)l( 
■iii'i  Italy  invented. 
Northern  luirope 
'iiid   solemn    style 
''"-•y   init    on    the 
staircases  and  in  t 
'ithedrals.     The  p( 
•li'iiight  of  for  the 
i'Lrping  at  I'aris  in 
•T   London    in    16. 
'li"  ks  were  clumsy 
^iliiiirs.      Each  was 
and  l)ased  upon  a  fi 


T    fTi  >■ 


Ot    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


aa5 


ancient  State   of  ConnccticMt.  ;hc   birthplace  of  the  wooden   clock,  where 

nearly  all    in    use    in   the    l-'nited 

Si.Uis  iiave  been  made,  —  the  land 

of   Yankee    notions,    and    of    the 

(iri^iiial  Brother  Jonathan  and   Har- 

iiiiin. 

The  sun  was  the   time-piece  of 
iiur  forefathers,  just  as  the  sky  was 

to  tiKIll  the  signal-station     Necessity  of 

of  the  Weather  Hureau  ;  time-pie«s- 
,111(1  they  were  remarkably  knowing 
ill  n.,i;ard  to  what  could  be  read  in 
the  sky  as  to  the  time  of  day  and 
coining  changes  of  the  air.  As 
long  as  the  population  of  the  wt)rld 
niwd  in  tlvj  forests,  and  labored 
(iiiclly  in  the  fields,  time-keepers 
were  unnecessary  ;  and  it  was  only 
whiii  peojile  gathered  in  cities, 
anil  found  that  in  the  engrossing 
|iiirMiits  of  the  shop,  the  laboratory, 
,iiiil  the  studio,  they  could  not  keep 
trai  k  of  the  flight  of  time,  that  in- 
-tniincnts  to  record  the  passing 
hours  became  useful.  'I'lie  ancients 
tbc'il  the  sun-dial,  the  ( lepsydra,  or 
water-glass,  and  the  hour-glass  ;  and 
Alfred  the  (Ireat  emjfloyeil  landles 
wlii(  li  would  burn  an  hour  apiece. 
Finally  a  machine  run  by  Different 
weights  was  employed  ;  kinds  of 
and  Italy  invented,  and  "'°"='"'- 
Northern  ICurope  perfected,  the  tall 
and  solemn  style  of  clock  which 
tiiey  put  on  the  landings  of  the 
staircases  and  in  the  towers  of  the 
(athedrals.  The  pendulum  was  first 
thought  of  for  the  purposes  of  time- 
keeping at  Paris  in  1639,  and  utilized 
at  London  in  1641.  'These  old 
liocks  were  clumsy  and  ill-regulate<l 
;ifl"airs.  Each  was  made  by  itself, 
aiul  based  upon  a  fresh  set  of  abstruse  and  interminable  calculations  as  to  the 


Ri;i;i^i.ATi'R. 


A 


mi 


M 


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^1  .i 


Fl 


fli 

m\ 

III 

■  1 

is 

H  ^H 

' 

.  > 

HvhB 

UB^^B 

) 

{«> 

E^B^ 

HI' 

Ml) 

ti 

Bi 

336 


/A'/? f  '.V 7A7--/ A    ///.V 7VA'  V 


length  of  pendulmn  and  speed  of  wliecls,  and  rciniircd  almost  as  many  spLi  ial 
<)l)servations  of  its  motion  by  the  maker,  l)efore  it  would  go  right,  as  is  ex- 
pended at  the  Naval  ()l)servatory  at  Washington  upon  a  special  star  before 

its  position  in  tliL- 
heavens  is  fmally  .iiid 
anthoritativch  |iut 
down  upon  liie  <  lu  .. ; 
and  some  of  these  stars 
are  observed  ^cvcnil 
iumdred  times.  TIr' 
early  (locks  in  Aniorita 
were  all  imported  from 
I'.iigland  and  tlic  Nith- 
criands,  and  were  < ONt- 
Iv  pieces  of  furniture. 
Shortly  after  tlir 
i\e  volul  ion,  (  bx  k 
ui.iking  was  begun  in 
tiiis  coimtry  at  Plym- 
outh, Conn.,  by  Kli 
Terry,  one  of  tlic  nM 
tyi)e  of  Yankees,  who 
fashioned   the  wocilni 

Clock-mak-        ^^''^'^-''^     "'■ 

ing  began  in      liis    (  !(](  ks 

Connecticut.  '  . ,      .1 

Wltll     llu' 

aid  of  a  jack-knife,  and 
started  out  with  a  horse 

ALVAN  CLAKK,   MAKBK  OF  ASTRONOMICAL  INSTKl'MKNTS.  twlce   a   JX'ar    tO    lUlldlc 

them.  The  wheels  were 
marked  out  on  thin  pieces  of  wood  with  scjuare  and  comi)ass,  ami  siia|)cd 
and  toothed  with  saw  and  knife.  Mr.  Terry  began  in  1793,  and  prospered 
so,  that  in  1800  he  was  able  to  employ  two  young  men  to  assist  liim. 
Twice  a  year  he  started  out  towards  the  Hudson  River  and  the  north  country. 
whither  population  was  tending  at  that  period,  to  sell  his  clocks  ;  and  he 
disposed  of  them  readily  at  twenty-five  dollars  apiece.  In  1S07  a  slock 
comiiany  was  formed  at  Waterbury  to  aid  Mr.  Terry ;  and  he  then  went  into 
business  on  a  large  scale,  buying  an  old  mill,  introducing  machinery,  and  lay- 
ing out  the  works  for  five  hundred  (locks  at  once,  —  something  which  it  is  said 
had  never  before  been  done.  In  18 10  Mr.  Terry  sold  out  to  Thomas  iS: 
Hoodley ;  but  he  himself  continued  to  make  clocks.  Others  had  by  this  time 
become  established  in  clock-making  ;  and  com])etition  was  so  sharj),  that  the 
price  of  clocks  dropped  from  twenty-five  dollars  to  ten  dollars,  and  finally  to 


five  dollars.    'I'he 

ijine  t(j  grief,  am 

|iilkir  scroll  top  ta 

>iy!c  tli.iii  its  |)rc(!e 

and  netted  Mr.  Tei 

The  next  stej)  i 

of  .Mr.  Terry,  and  ; 

durac  leristic  of  th( 

xliool.     .Mr.  Jerom 

a  tirciilar-saw  in  gel 

dockri  rapidly  ami  c 


Tile'  clocks  ran  for  o 
'•'   ^^^7    Mr.   Jeron 
'li'ik   with    metal  w 
"lii'le  business.     Mi 
""■ked.     Steel  h.as 
"  >lieets,  and  machii 
iin  wheels  recpiired 
' '"  "lit  the  works  for 
and  Ihe  cost  of  the  i 
^'^  the  wheels  of  eac 
"I'  one  could  be  intci 


'^Wf 


OF    T//K    VMTliJ)    SIAI'ES. 


337 


m 


five  dollars.  The  public  was  greatly  benefited  by  this  ;  but  the  '"'".ifacturers 
I, line  to  grief,  and  many  of  tlain  failetl.  In  1S14  Mr.  Terry  invented  the 
pillar  s(  roll  top  case  dock,  \vhi<  h,  being  of  a  little  different  and  more  tasty 
,ivlc  tli.ui  its  prcilecessors,  was  popular  for  a  while.  It  sold  for  filteen  dollars, 
,in(|  lu  lied  Mr.  Terry  a  fortune. 

Till'  next  step  in  advance  was  taken  by  (Miauncey  Jerome,  an  apprentice 
,if  Mr.  I'erry,  and  a  very  ingenious  fellow,  who,  with  the  passion  for  whittling 
(Iwraiteristic  of  the  Yankee,  h.id  begun  to  make  wooden  clocks  before  he  left 
.ihoiil.     Mr.  Jerome,  when  fairly  est.iblished  in  business.  emi)loyetl   chauncey 
,1  (iri  111. ir-saw  in  gelling  out  his  wood,  and  was  able  to  jjroduce   Jefo"""- 
clocks  rapidly  and  cheaply,     lie  had  a  great   sale  all  over  the  I 'niled  States. 


^'lic.  ^ 


A\ 


m  ■  \ 


y- 


\ 


Smil/S    WMIMMANS    11  (KK. 


Tho  dorks  ran  for  one  day,  and  are  said  to  have  been  good  time  keepers. 
Ill  iS;,7  Mr.  Jerome  proved  his  ingenuity  by  bringing  out  the  one-day 
'lo(k  with  metal  wheels,  —  an  event  which  completely  revolutionized  the 
whole  business.  He  employed  brass  at  first,  because  it  could  be  easily 
« irkttl.  Steel  has  been  introduced  only  recently.  The  brass  was  obtained 
:n  wheels,  and  machines  were  invented  to  stamp  from  the  sheets  the  eight  or 
kii  wheels  re(piired  by  each  clock  in  a  single  operation.  Three  men  could 
nit  out  the  works  for  five  hundred  clocks  in  a  single  day  with  these  machines, 
and  ihe  cost  of  the  movements  was  soon  reduced  to  about  fifty  cents  apiece. 
A'i  the  wheels  of  each  clock  were  exactly  those  of  any  other  clock,  the  parts 
ol  one  could  be  interchanged  at  will  with  another,  or  taken  from  store ;  which 


\  I 


i: 


^■ij;!'(,.ff  ! 


338 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


1 49 


was  foiiml  of  vast  utility.  Wooden  f  locks  were  now  promptly  thrown  over- 
board  by  all  makers.  They  had  been  subject  to  disarrangement  by  moist 
weather,  and  could  not  be  sent  beyond  seas  to  foreign  countries  with  which 
the  Unitctl  States  were  engaged  in  commerce.  The  metal  clocks  defied 
moisture,  and  could  be  sent  anywhere  ;  and  the  manufacture  of  them  received 
an  enormous  expansion.     They  were  sent  all  over  the  world,  and  were  found 

by  travellers  ticking  away  on  every  coast  and 
continent,  and  in  nearly  every  language  under 
the  sun.  Machinery  was  also  invented  to 
make  the  frames  of  the  clocks,  and  stamp  out 
the  dials  and  hands.  Mr.  Jerome's  business 
increased  from  the  few  hundred  a  year  of  his 
early  days  to  four  hundred  and  forty-four 
thousand  a  year  in  1853,  and  the  original 
cost  of  clocks  was  brought  down  to  a  dollar 
and  twenty-five  cents  apiece. 

A  good  story  is  told  of  a  shi|)nient  of 
wooden  clocks  to  F^ngland  in  1841  hy  Mr. 
Jerome,  which  may  be  jjlaced  with  the  other 
Shipment  of  ^^o^'X  o'"  ^hc  shipment  of  a  cargo 
clocks  to  of  warming-pans  to  the  West 
"^  ""  ■  Indies  by  an  enterprising  \'ankee, 
n.nd  their  sale  there  as  sugar-scoops.  The 
law  of  England  permitted  the  customs-otiiiers 
to  seize  upon  goods  imported  to  the  kingdom 
if  they  considered  them  to  be  undervalued, 
paying  the  importer  the  amount  of  his  valuation,  with  ten  per  cent  added. 
Mr.  Jerome's  first  cargo  was  entered  in  F^ngland  at  regular  prices  ;  hut  the 
officer  thought  the  valuation  so  low,  that  he  seized  the  clocks,  and  paid  Mr. 
Jerome  his  price  and  ten  per  cent  advance.  Not  particularly  afflicted  tlurehy, 
Mr.  Jerome  sent  over  another  cargo,  which  he  sold  to  the  customs-otVu  er  in 
the  same  way.  He  then  sent  a  third  cargo  ;  but  tlie  second  one  had  been  an 
eye-opener,  and  Mr.  Jerome  was  permitted  to  import  liis  goods  himself. 

The  brass  clocks  had  a  great  sale,  and  there  were  in  1854  thirty  establish- 
ments in  Connecticut  making  them.     Harnum  owned  one  of  them,  and  used 

History  of  ^'^  ^^'''  ^  '''^''S'-'  P'T"'  "^'^  '^'^  clocks  in  the  old-fashioned  way.  In 
several  clock  1855  he  s()l(l  his  factory  to  the  Jerome  C'om])any  ;  and,  owing  to 
companies,  ^j.^^,  \7a^Q  (lebts  of  the  former,  the  Jerome  Company  broke  down. 
The  iNew-Haven  Clock  Company  was  formed  to  succeed  it.  The  largest 
concerns   in    Connecticut   are    now  the    New-Haven,   the    Ansonia,  and  the 

Waterbury  Companies,  and  Seth  Thomas  iV  Companv. 
Steel  clocks.  „„  ,  ,  ,  ,      r  ■  ,      ,-'  ,  1 

Ihe  use  of  steel  works  and  of  springs,  and  of  fourteen  and 

thirty  day  clocks,  is  now  increasing,  and  the   style   of  time-keeper  is  con- 


LOllSVII.I.E  CLOCK. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


229 


stantly  clianging  and  improving.     Calendar  clocks,  to  indicate  ihe  day  and 
the  miiiith;   astronomical  clocks,  electric,  burglar-alarms,  peep-of-day,  watch- 
man's detector,  and  tower  clocks ;    clocks  to  run  a  hundred  years  without 
wimiiiiL; ;  illuminated  clocks  with  phantasmagoria ;  clocks  which   calendar 
consist  only  of  a  plate-glass  dial  and  a  jxiir  of  hands,  the  works  <:'o<:'«s- 
being  concealed  in  the  hands,  and  working  them  simi)ly  by  shifting  a  weight ; 
and  other  styles,  —  are  now  made  in  great  numbers.     The  latest  is  a  nutmeg 
clu(k,  wliich  will   run   in   any  position,  —  standing  up,  or  lying  Nutmeg 
down.  —  winding  up  without  a  key,  and  good  to  travel  wit'^  on   '='<"=''s. 
the  ( ars,  which  will  keep  good  time  under  the  most  discouraging  circumstances. 
In  watch-making  .\mcrica  made  no  venture  until   1850.     Labor  was  too 
liiyii  and  too  impatient  here  to  attempt  this  art  in  competition  with  the  Swiss 
and  I'lench.     Mechanical  talent  in  this  field  was  exclusively  em-   ^^^^^ 
ploved  in  repairing  and  regulating  watches  which  were  imported,   making  not 
In  184S,  Aaron  L.  Dennison,  a  watch-repairer,  and  Edward  How-   begun  until 
ard.  a  clock-maker,  both  of  Hoston,  consulted  about  the  idea  of 
makiiii,^  watches  by  machinery.     They  studied  the  matter  for  two  years ;  and 
Mr.  1  )ennison,  the  author  of  the  project,  travelled  througii  Switzerland,  care- 
i;llv  informing   himself  in   regard  to  the  methods  and  weak  points  of  the 
iiidibtiy  as  practised  there.     F^xperiments  were  made  at  Roxbury,  and  in.  1850 
lii;'  two  men  went  regularly  into  the  business.     After  the  first  thousand  watches 
were  made,  the  Hoston  Watch  Company  was  formed,  with   its  factory  at  Rox- 
liny.     In  the  ])cginning  tlie  company  made  only  the  rough  skele-   Bogmn 
I'a  movements,  cutting  tliem  out  by  machinery,  and  finishing  them   Watch  Com- 
largely  by  hand,  and  importing  the  jewels,  trains,  &C.,  from  Swit-   P""^' 
/irkmd.      \.  larger  factory  was  built  at  Waltham,  Mass.,  in  1854;    but  the 
(iiitkiy  toi  machinery  and  experiments  proved  too  heavy  for  the  company,  and 
it  tliileil.     Mr.  Robbins  bouglit  the  factory  for  seventy-five  thousand  dollars, 
anil  started  the  .American  W'atc  h  Company,  with  a  capital   of  two  hundred 
tliousand  doiiars,  whicii   has  since   made   the   \\'altham  watches   so  famous. 
.Mr.  Howard  went  back  to   Roxbury,  ami  resumed  the  manufac-   Mr.  How- 
ture  of  watches  there.     Little  by  lilUc  the  manufacturers  imijroved-""*- 
tluir  machinery,  until  at  length  they  have  ceased  to  import  any  of  the  parts 
oi  tlie  watcii,  and  tiiey  make  every  thing  under  their  own  roof.   prSgress  in 
Tiie  minute  rubies,  saijphiies,  and  chrysolites,  as  small   as  grains   watch- 
01  sand,  are  drilled  with  microscopic  exactness  by  the   diamond's   '""'""b- 
point,  and  oi)ened  out  witii  diamond-dust  on  a  hair-like  iron  wire,  the  sizes  of 
the  jewels  being  graduated  by  a  scale  which  indicates  differences  of  a  ten- 
thousandth   part  of  an  inc  h.     Screws  so   minute   that  it  takes  two  .hundred 
thuusaiid  to  weigh  a  ])oun(l  arc  cut  from  a  steel  wire,  tlircnded,  and   headed 
«itli  surprising  si)ecd  ami  accuracy.     The  wheels  an  I   pinions  arc  cut  and 
bored  with  the  most  minute  exactness,  and  so  completely  alike,  that  the  watch 
may  he  assembled  from  wheels  antl  parts  taken  at  random  from  the  respective 
heajjs. 


w 


■■ir 


it 


' 


230 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


The  late  war  gave  a  great  impetus  to  watch-making.  The  United  States 
put  a  million  of  men  under  arms,  and  every  one  wanted  a  watch.  The  Ameri- 
Effectofwar  can  Company  at  Waltham  increased  its  plant  in  1865,  its  capital 
upon  this  being  $750,000  ;  and  new  companies  were  formed  in  various  parts 
n  ustry.  ^^  ^|^^^  country.  The  American  Company  has  since  then  doubled 
its  capital.  To-day  there  are  eleven  factories  making  watches,  the  principal 
ones  being  the  American  Company  at  Waltham,  which  produces  about  four 
History  of      hundred  and  twenty-five  movements  a  day,  and  the  Elgin  National 

Watch  Company  at  Elgin,  111.,  which  makes  three  hundred  a  day. 

The  Empire  City  Watch  Company  at  Jersey  City,  N.J.,  and  Rob- 
bins,  Clark,  &  Biddle  of  Philadelphia,  are  also  prominent  makers. 


other  com- 
panies. 


Ill.l.lN    WATCH    CdMlANY. 


American  watches,  though  discredited  at  first,  have,  of  late  years,  produced 
a  decided  sensation  in  the  world  of  industry.  From  the  time  when  all  the 
parts  of  the  watch  began  to  be  made  by  the  factories  here,  the  companies 
have  been  turning  out  a  better  ordinary  time-keeper  than  the  Swiss  watdi. 
Swiss  watches  held  their  own  for  a  while,  on  account  of  their  cheapness,  in 
1872  tWee  hundred  and  sixty-six  thousand  of  them  were  sent  to  the  United 
States.  In  1876  the  Elgin  Company  announced  a  reduction  of  the  i)riccs  of 
their  watches  from  forty  to  fifty  per  cent.  Seven  movements  with  visible 
pallets  were  sold  at  four  dollais.  That  was  a  terrible  blow  to  the  imported 
time-piece  ;  but  a  still  more  staggering  one  was  inflicted  by  the  Waltham  con- 
Swiss  cern,  which  immediately  announced  a  large  reduction  of  prices 

watch.  below  those  of  their  rivals.     The  Swiss  watch  could  not  stand  that, 

and  the  imiiortation  of  them  in  1876  was  only  seventy-five  thousand.  The 
Americans,  on  the  other  hand,  are  now  beginning  to  export ;  and  they  send 
from  twenty  thousand  to  thirty  thousand  to  England  alone,  and  are  meiiaLJug 
the  Swiss  make  in  all  the  njarkets  of  the  world. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


% 


IRON    PIPES    AND   TUBES. 

'I'liis  important  industry  took  its  rise  in  the  United  States  about  1835, 
and  was  essentially  the  outgrowth  of  the  business  of  supplying  cities  and 
villages  with  water  and  gas.     Many  of  the  companies  which  now  manufacture 
pipes  were  founded  long  before  1835,  —  as,  for  instance,  the  Bridgewater  Iron 
Company  in  Massachusetts,  which  was  started  in  18 10  by  I^zell  Rise  of  pipe. 
iS:  rerkins ;  the  great  Pascal  Iron- Works  in  Philadelphia,  founded  '""Ju'tfy- 
in  I  Si  I  by  Stephen  P.  Morris  ;  and  the  Camden  Iron- Works,  in  the  city  of  that 
name  in  New  Jersey,  which  began  in  1824:  but  these  works  were  originally 
devoted  to  the  product  of  other  varieties  of  iron-ware,  stoves,  &c.,  and  took 
lip  jiipe-making  because  of  the  new  demand  which  sprang  up  about  1835. 
The  number  of  pipe  and  tube  establishments,  which  is  seventy-seven,  does  not 
represent  the  magnitude  of  the  industry,  for  some  of  the  largest  Magnitude 
works  in  the  United  States  arc  devoted  to  this  specialty,  and  three  of  the  busi- 
of  tlicm  claim   to  be   the  largest  of  their  class  in  the  world  :   "'**' 
namely,  the   Pascal    Iron-Works   at    Philadelphia,  covering   twelve  acres  of 
ground,  and  employing  two  thousand  hands ;   the  National  Pipe  and  Tube 
Works  at  Pittsburgh,  with  a   production   of  sixty  thousand  tons   Principal 
of  gas  and  water  pipe  annually ;    and  the  Reading  'I'ube- Works   works. 
at  Reading,  Penn..  emi)loying  twenty-five  hundred  men.      The  factories  are 
distributed  as  follows  :  — 

Massachusetts,  eight ;  New  Ham[)shire,  two ;  Rhode  Island,  two ;  Con- 
nc(  ticut,  one  ;  New  York,  twenty-one  ;  New  Jersey,  five ;  Pennsylvania, 
twenty-six  ;  Ohio,  seven  ;  Kentucky,  two  ;  Michigan,  one  ;  Missouri,  one  j 
\Vi^c()nsin,  one. 

'['lie  following  is  the  character  of  the  product  of  these  works :  cast-iron 
gas  :id  water  mains,  wrought-iron  steam,  gas,  and  water  pipes  and  fittings, 
lap  and  butt  welded  boiler-tubes,  artesian-well  pipe,  oil-well  tubing,  Product  oi 
coil-pijx-.  galvanized  pipe,  tuyere  coils,  lamp-posts,  vulcanized  works. 
riibher-cuated  tube,  greeniiouse-pipe,  drain-pipe,  railway  water  columns, 
fittings,  and  tools.  At  the  flictory  of  Dennis  Long  &  Coinpa.iy  in  Louisville  — ■ 
one  of  the  largest  for  cast-iron  pipe  in  the  country,  which  is  equipped  with 
three  founderies  —  a  large  number  of  old  cannon  have  been  converted  since 
the  war  into  the  innocent  uses  of  gas  antl  water  supply. 

Ihe  making  of  cast-iron  pipe  is  so  simple  as  to  need  no  description. 

Wrought-iron   pipe-making   is  (luite  a   different   afiiiir.      In    practice  the 
operation  is  rapid  and  simple.     The  iron-plate  heated  to  redness,  and  pardy 
bent  by  apparatus  made  for  the  purpose,  is   draggetl  from   the 
furnace,  and  the  end  presented  to  a  ponderous  matdiine.     It  goes   making 
through  the  machine  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  emitting  a  series  of  wrought- 

000  jjp^  pipe. 

sharp  reports  like  a  volley  of  musketry ;    and  as  it  is  projected 

straight  and  glowing  from  the  jaws  that  held  it,  the  edges  perfectly  welded,  it 


lk' 


SstV^i 


I 

■ 


232 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Strongly  resejnbles  a  thunderbolt  forged  by  Vulcan  himself.  The  workmen 
have  little  to  do  except  to  take  the  plates  from  the  furnace  at  the  rij^ht 
moment,  and  feed  them  to  the  welding-machine.  But  the  machine  itself  is 
not  ;,  simple,  and  is  tiie  product  of  a  great  deal  of  study  and  experiment. 
Two  forms  of  weld  are  given,  —  the  butt-weld,  in  which  the  edges  of  the  licatcd 
plate  are  forced  into  contact  under  great  pressure,  and  thus  united ;  and  the 
lap-weld,  in  whicii  the  edges  of  the  plate  are  made  to  lap,  and  are  tiien  jicr- 
fectly  united  by  pressure.  The  former  weld  is  suitable  for  gas  and  other  pipes 
which  are  subjected  to  no  special  strain  :  the  latter  is  essential  for  boiler  and 
steam  tubes,  &C.  The  butt-weld  is  produced  by  first  bending  the  i)lates  until 
their  edges  nearly  touch,  and  then,  after  heating,  running  tiiem  through  a  set 
of  iron  jaws  by  means  of  cii)])aratus  suited  to  tiie  purpose.  The  opening  in 
the  jaws  gradually  contracts  from  a  si^e  adapted  to  the  partially-bent  plate,  or 
"  skelp,"  to  a  jjerfect  cir(  le  the  size  of  the  finished  tube  ;  and  as  the  plate  goes 
through  this  smaller  ai)erture,  a  great  pressure  being  exerted  on  all  sides  of  the 
tube  at  once,  the  edges  come  into  forcible  contact,  and  unite  perfecdy.  The 
lap-welding  process  is  similar  in  principle,  but  varies  in  detail.  The  edges  of 
the  plate  are  first  shaved  or  "scarfed"  by  machinery,  so  that,  when  they  lap, 
they  will  not  form  a  double  thickness  of  metal.  It  is  recpiisite  how  in  welding 
t*^  nnply  pressure  to  the  inside  as  well  as  the  outside  of  the  tube,  in  order  that 
the  edges  shall  not  curl  under :  this  is  accomplished  by  means  of  a  mandrel 
of  slightly  conical  form,  which  is  -arried  at  the  end  of  an  iron  rod  omewhat 
smaller  than  the  diameter  of  the  tube  to  ,be  welded.  As  the  heated  i)late  i^ 
forced  into  the  jaws  of  the  machine,  the  mandrel  enters  the  tube ;  and  thus  a 
powerful  pressure  is  exerted  both  within  and  without,  and  the  weld  becomes 
jierfectly  homogeneous.  The  mandrel  is  destroyed  by  the  tremendous  opera- 
tion to  which  it  has  been  subjected,  and  a  new  one  is  ])ut  on  for  the  next  tube. 
It  is  this  process  which  creates  the  sound  of  musket-firing.  The  reader  can 
imagine  tiie  interesting  nature  of  it  in  a  factory  where  eighteen  or  twenty 
furnaces  are  going  at  once. 

The  i)anic  of  1S73  put  an  end  temporarily  to  the  improvement  of  real  estate 
and  the  enlargement  of  cities.  Most  of  the  pipe  and  tube  companies  have 
Effeet  of  accordingly  shortened  their  production.  Some  of  them  stopped 
panic  of  1873.  ^ork.  In  an  ordiiiary  year  the  seventy-seven  factories  will  con- 
sume about  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  tons  of  pig-iron,  and  manufac- 
ture a  product  worth  o\er  twelve  millicMi  dollars.  The  Pascal  Works,  whi(  h 
adds  the  manufacture  of  gas-generating  machinery  and  boilers  for  ranges  to  its 
uther  business,  has  a  yearly  product  of  nearly  five  million  dollars. 

LOCOMOTIVES. 

It  is  a  trait  of  our  countrymen  that  they  have  never  been  able  to  export  in 
large  quantities  their  raw  materials  and   crude  fabrications   (cotton  alone  ex- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


233 


ceptcd),  for  the  reason  that  the  smaller  wages  and  cheaper  capital  of  Europe 
have  prevented  Americans  from  entering  into  competition.      But,   American 
when  it  comes  to  the  exportation  of  objects  requiring  for  their  locomotive. 
production  a  constructive  ability  and  a  mechanical  skill  of  the  very  highest 
orikr,  our  countrymen  have  shown  themselves  able  to  compete  us  superior- 
witli  and  surpass  the  world.     The  fact  is  exhibited  in  the  history  of  '*y- 
till'  locomotive  in  .America.     Pig  and  bar  iron  and  steel  have  been  among  the 
nu)~i  insignificant  of  our  exports.     Manufacturers  abroad  have  heard  that  the 
iron  of  the  Continent  rivals  in  (juality  the  famous  ores  of  Sweden.     Yet  what 
tliev  know  about  it  is  from  books  and  travellers :  they  ha\  e  scarce  ever  seen 


MOUBRN   LOCOMOTIVE. 

any  of  it ;  for  it  docs  not  enter  into  foreign  rommcire.  But  that  splendid 
creation,  the  American  locomotive,  into  whicii  this  same  iron  is  f;\shioned,  is 
now  known  all  over  the  globe,  anil  is  freely  emj)loycd  in  most  of  the  civilized 
(ountries,  as  being  the  strongest,  swiftest,  and  most  enduring  of  these  willing 
servants  of  man.  In  the  calendar  year  of  1876  less  than  a  tliousand  tons  of 
raw  iron  and  steel  were  exported  from  the  United  Slates.  But  we  have 
recently  seen  a  single  steamship  loading  at  Philadelphia  with  thirty  loco- 
motives,—  containing  nearly  a  thousand  tons  of  finished  iron,  and  Export  of 
worth  six  Imnilred  thousand  dollars,  —  for  transportation  to  Russia  ti^*""- 
alone,  on  an  order  from  the  Imperial  (lovernment.  The  American  locomotive 
is  used  and  admired  in  .Austria,  Italy,  (Ireece,  Russia,  Kgypt,  Soutii  .America, 
and  .Australia,  and  even  in  (Jermany,  the  land  where  a  single  great  master- 
workman —  J\ru])p,  the  captain  of  modern  industry,  as  Mr.  Hewitt  calls  him 
—  ?m]iloys  ten  thousand  men  largely  in  the  production  of  this  class  of  works. 
I'he  orders  sent  to  .America  increase  as  time  goes  on  ;  and  the  new  railways  of 
the  future,  especially  on  the  southern  half  of  this  continent,  will  be  largely 
operated  by  the  engines  made  by  the  workmen  of  the  United  States,  —  the 
smartest,  liveliest,  most  mtelligent  mechanics  under  the  sun. 


X. 


% 


234 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


'Mfftl 


|7 


s¥°"- 


As  will  be  related  in  the  chapter  on  Railroads  in  another  part  of  tliis 
book,  the  locomotive  is  an  afterthought  of  the  men  who  attempted  to  build 
carriages  to  run  on  the  ordinary  wagon-roads  by  steam-power.  The  first  su^'- 
pr.  Robi-  gestion  was  made  by  Dr.  Robison,  then  a  student  in  the  Univer- 
sity at  Glasgow,  in  1759.  Watt  afterwards  took  uj.  be  idea,  but 
accomplished  nothing  with  it,  because  he  was  an  opponent  of  the  high-pressure 
|]  system,  and  the  low-pressure  engines  were  too  heavy  to  be  successful  in  loco- 

Richard  Ire-   motion.     Richard  Irevittrick  saw  the  trouble,  and  in  1802  took  out 
vittrick.  ^  patent  for  a  steam  road-carriage  on  the  high-pressure  principle, 

which  attracted  some  attention.  In  1804  he  built  the  first  railway  locomotive,  i 
which  he  worked  at  Merthyr-Tydvil,  in  South  Wales,  on  a  tram-road.  In  tiie 
next  twenty-five  years  a  number  of  patents  for  locomotives  were  taken  out  in 
England.  Capitalists  were  slow  to  place  confidence  in  the  new  idea,  however ; 
for  they  feared,  that,  with  a  heavy  train  of  cars,  the  wheels  of  the  engine  would 
^  Early  diffi-  slip  round  on  the  rails,  and  the  train  would  not  start.  Adhesion  to 
1^X7  =""'"•  the  rails  by  cogs  or  otherwise  was  thought  necessary.     This  was 

^4/  shown  to  be  unnecessary  in  1829  by  experiments  made  upon  the  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  Railway,  —  the  pioneer  line  in  England,  which  was  opened  for 
travel  that  year.  The  directors  had  offered  a  premium  of  five  hundred  pounds 
for  the  best  locomotive-engine,  not  to  exceed  six  tons  in  weight,  which  should 
draw  three  times  its  own  weight  at  a  speed  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  and  cost  not 
over  five  iiundred  and  fifty  pounds.  Five  engines  were  entered  for  the  coui- 
petition.  — " The  R,ocket."  "Novelty,"  "Perseverance,"  "Sans  Pareii,"  and 
"Cyclopbde  ;  "  and  "  The  Rocket  "  demonstrated  its  capacity  to  make  twenty- 
four  miles  an  hour,  drawing  a  train  three  times  its  own  weight.  A  few 
attempts  to  introclilce  the  cogged  wheel  and  rail  were  made  even  after  that : 
but  they  attracted  little  attention,  and  amounted  to  nothing.  An  era  of 
locomotive-building  now  began. 

The  first  engines  used  in  the  United  States  were  imported  from  England 
for  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal  Company,  the  Mohawk  and  Hudson  Rail- 
First  eneinea  way,  and  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railway.  The  pioneer  was  an 
absurd  little  affair  called  "The  Lion."  which  in  j 828  was  placed  on 
the  Delaware  and  Hudson  Company's  road,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Lackawaxen,  and  started  on  its  first  trip  by  Mr.  Horatio  Allen.  Compared 
with  the  engines  of  to-day,  it  might  better  have  been  called  "  The  Chipmuk ; " 
still  it  was  rather  an  impressive  affair  then.  There  was  some  apprehension  as 
to  how  the  little  monster  would  perform,  and  many  diought  that  the  trestle- 
work  bridge  across  the  creek  would  not  sustain  its  weight.  Mr.  Allen  found 
no  one  willing  to  make  the  first  trip  across  the  bridge  :  so  he  went  out  alone 
with  the  engine  himself,  in  the  presence  of  a  great  crowd  of  spectators,  his 
own  hair  standing  on  end,  however,  as  he  rounded  some  of  the  curves,  and 
flew  over  the  bridge.  The  results  of  the  trial  were  satisfactory.  "  The  Lion  " 
neither  blew  up,  nor  ran  away,  nor  leaped  into  the  creek,  nor  broke  do\Mi 


1\ 


used  in  Unit 
ed  States 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


235 


in  United 
States. 


the  bridge.     It  clung  to  the  track,  made  very  fair  time,  and  was  entirely 
tractable. 

Several  other  engines  were  bought  abroad  about  this  time  for  the  purposes 
of  experiment  and  study ;  but  the  purchases  continued  for  only  a  few  years, 
and  were  very  liinited  in  extent.     The  inventi\e   genius  of  the  Numerous 
United  States  was  aroused,  and  a  number  of  mechanics  in  diflorent  American 
parts  of  the  country  determined  to  attempt  the  building  of  engines  '"^'"*  °""- 
here.     The  Patent  Office  was  overwhelmed  with  applications  for  a  patent  for 
this  and  that  device,  and  form  of  construction  ;  and  in  a  very  few  years  the 
demands  of  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  were  fully  met  by  the  American 
shops. 

The  first  Inrnmn^ive  made  in  the  United  States  was  the  idea  of  Mr.  K.  L. 
Miller  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  who  came  North  in  1830  to  arrange  for  the 
building  of  the  machine  for  a  railroad  in  which  he  was  interested, 

.  ^  ^..       ,  ,  .      ,  ■  ^    E.  L.  Miller. 

running  out  of  Charleston  across  the  country,  toward  the  city  of 
Hamburg.  Mr.  Samuel  Hall  of  the  West-Point  Foundery,  New  York,  under- 
took to  make  the  engine  under  his  direction.  It  was  comj^leted  in  1830,  sent 
South,  and  operated  the  same  year  on  the  railroad  out  of  Charles-  p.^^^  j^^^_ 
ton,  of  which  eight  miles  had  been  built.  Mr.  H.  Allen  had  been  motive  made 
secured  as  chief  engineer,  and  the  locomotive  was  first  exhibited  to 
the  people  of  the  South  by  him.  It  was  appropriately  called  "The 
liest  Friend."  That  particular  engine  did  what  a  man's  best  friend  never  does, 
—  promised  much  and  performed  little,  and  finally  left  the  railroad  entirely  in 
tlie  lurch  by  blowing  up  in  a  very  short  time  after  it  was  put  into  the  service. 
Yet  no  better  title  was  ever  given  to  a  locomotive  in  America  ;  for  this  princely 
invention  has  been  indeed  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  since  that  early 
(lay  their  "best  friend." 

A  stimulus  was  given  to  the  mechanical  and  inventive  genius  of  the  coun- 
try in  1 83 1  by  an  advertisement  issued  by  the  Ualtimore  and  Ohio  Railroad 
Company,  which  had,  since  May,  1830,  been  operating  twelve  stimulus 
miles  of  road  west  from  Baltimore  by  horse-power.  The  com-  B'ven  by 
pany  offered  rewarils  of  four  thousand  and  thirty-five  hundred 
dollars  respectively  for  the  locomotives,  which,  upon  trial,  should 
prove  to  be  the  first  and  second  best  in  complying  with  the 
published  requirements  of  the  company.  Three  locomotives  were  l)uilt  in 
answer  to  this  liberal  offer ;  and  the  prize  was  awarded  to  "  The  York,"  an 
engine  l)uilt  at  the  city  of  that  name  in  Pennsylvania  by 'Davis  & 
(Jurtner,  which  was  found  to  be  able  to  draw  fifteen  tons  at  the 
rate  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour.  Being  employed  on  the  road  to  Ellicott  Mills, 
a  distance  of  twelve  miles,  it  generally  made  the  trip  with  four  cars  in  an 
hour.  On  a  straight  track  it  attained  a  velocity  equal  to  thirty  miles  an  hour. 
The  success  of  "The  York"  was  a  great  encouragement  to  American 
builders ;    and  rhapsodies  of  the  most  inflated  description  over  the  "  march 


Baltimore 
and  Ohio 
Railroad 
Company. 


'The  York.' 


.■i,/ 


236 


/JVD  rs  TRIA  L    ins  TON  Y 


n 


of  steam  "  filled  the  newspapers  of  tliat  day,  elicited  by  the  performances  of 
"The  York."  The  lialtiniore  and  Ohio  Company  held  out  every  inductnieiil 
to  mechanics  from  that  time  forward  to  imi)ri)ve  upon  "The  York,"  and  buiM 
a  class  of  engines  of  great  atlhesion  to  the  track,  and  of  better  working-power. 

L In  1S31  "The  De  Witt  Clinton  "  was  built  at  the  West-Hoint  Foundery  for 

"DeWitt  the  Mohawk  anil  Hudson  Road.  It  weighed  fi  ur  tons,  ran  on 
Clinton."        f^J^,I.  wheel;-,  and  made  forty  miles  an  hour  without  a  load. 

In  1832  a  locomotive  was  made  by  Matthias  W.  lialdwin  of  I'liiladtlpliia 
for  the  little  six- mile  railroad  running  out  from  that  city  to  (Jermantown,  \\\v 
Matthias  w.  cars  of  which  were  at  that  time  being  drawn  by  horses.  Like  all 
Baldwin.  ^f  qjj^  successful  engiue-builders.  Mr.  Baldwin  rose  from  the 
shop.  He  began  life  as  a  jeweller,  learning  his  trade  in  'die  store  of  KletcluT 
tv  (lardiner,  and  afterwards  i...ving  a  little  shop  of  his  own.  The  demand  for 
his  jewelry  not  being  very  satisfactory,  he  went  into  a  maclvne-shop  in  jiartner- 
ship  with  David  Mason.  .\  stationary  steam-engine  specially  adajited  to  tlie 
needs  of  the  shoj)  having  become  desirable,  Mr.  lialdwin  designed  one  himself. 
He  was  thus  interested  in  steam-engineering  ;  and  he  found  it  easy  to  go  one 
step  farther,  and  attemj)t  a  locomotive,  when  the  era  of  railway-building  began 
in  the  I'nited  States.  His  ])rimitive  locomotive,  bui't  for  the  C'lermantowr. 
"Old  Iron-  Road,  was  named  "( )ld  Ironsides,"  and  was  tried  on  the  line  in 
sides."  November,  1S32.     It  weighed  five  tons,  and  ran  on  four  wheels, 

the  forward  pair  being  forty-five  in(  hes  in  diameter  and  the  driving-wheels 
fifty-four  inches,  and  the  wnole  four  having  wooden  spokes.  The  cylinders 
were  nine  inches  and  a  half  in  diameter,  with  eighteen  inches  stroke,  'i'he 
boiler  had  seventy-two  c:opper  flues.  The  smoke-stack  was  an  absurdly  tall 
affair,  rising  a  great  distance  above  the  machine.  —  a  f.ict,  however,  which  did 
not  prevent  the  sparks  from  burning  the  clothes  of  the  engineer  and  the  pas- 
sengers. There  was  n'>  cabin  for  the  engineer;  and,  it  being  inconvenient  for 
that  functionary  to  carry  an  umbrella  when  it  rained,  tlie  engine  was  housed  in 
wet  weather,  and  the  cars  drawn  by  horses.  It  cost  thirty-five  hundred  dollars. 
Mr.  Baldwin  got  five  hundred  dollars  less  for  it  than  he  exjjccted  ;  and,  havinu 
many  other  discouragements  with  it,  he  vowed  thai  he  would  never  ouild 
another  locomotive.  But  he  did,  for  all  tn.at ;  and,  his  later  attempts  being 
extremely  successful,  the  works  founded  by  him  are  the  foremost  in  the  countr) 
"E.  L.  Mil-  to-day.  In  1.S34  he  built  a  six- wheeled  engine  for  Mr.  Miller,  for 
'"•"  the  South-Carolina  Road,  called  "The  V..  L.  Miller,"  with   wheels 

of  solid  bell-metal,  the  jjurpose  of  which  ws  to  gain  a  better  adhesion  to  the 
rails.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  experiment  with  that  nieial  was  not 
repeated.  The  wheels  wore  out  very  (juickly,  and  had  to  be  thrown  aside.  In 
June,  1834,  Mr.  Baldwin  completed  a  successfiil  locomotive,  called  "The  Lan- 
caster," for  the  States  Road,  which  ran  out  from  Philadelphia  to  Columbia,  and 
connected  there  with  the  canal  to  the  western  part  of  the  State.  'J"he  engine 
weighetl   eight  tons  and  a  half,  and  was  found  to  be  able   to  haul  nineteen 


^:'       ^ 


OF    T/IK    UNITED    STATES. 


237 


loatled  cars  at  twice 
the    speed    attained 
wilii    horses.       'I'he 
Si.itr  aiitliorities  were 
^ivatly  pleased    witli 
iw  perfurmaiK'es,  and 
(k(  idcd    to    con\ert 
ihcir  railroad  at  onee 
tVuin  a  liorse  line  to  a 
steam  line.    Mr.  Bald- 
win  gained    a    great 
(leal   of   credit    from 
'•The     Lancaster;" 
and,  receiving  several 
oiders,  he  thencefor- 
ward devoted  himself 
to  the  industry,  and     >. 
founded     the    works     5 
uiii(  ii  have  sin(  e  at-     r 
tained  to  such  magni-     3 
liule  of  operation  and     3 
world-wide    reputa-     \ 
tion.       Mr.    Baldwin     \ 
combined     tiie     best    "^ 
(lualities  of  the  .Ameri-     r 

*''»     •»^'-     Baldwin's  I 

chanic:, —    improve-  £ 

inventive    """"•  * 

geniiis  of  a  high  order 
and  unflagging  perse- 
verance, ([ualities  not 
always  imited  in  the 
same  man.  He  was 
always  impr-'ving  his 
locomotives,  and 
many  of  the  most  im- 
l)ortant  inventions  of 
the  art  were  his  own. 
In  1835  he  bought 
one  device  from  I',.  L. 
.Miller,  which  after- 
wards he  threw  over- 
board.      This  was  a 


ft] 


m 


I 

I 


238 


/.Vn  us  TR  lA  r     riL-:TORV 


i 


plan  for  br^.ging  part  of  the  weib^hl  of  the  tender  upon  ihe  rear  of  the 
engine,  th'is  Increasing  the  pressure  upon  the  driving-wheels,  and  conse- 
qi'ontly  the  adhesion  of  the  engine.  Mr.  Ilaldwin  adopted  this  device,  and 
paid  a  hundred  dollars  per  engine  for  it,  and  in  1839  Ljught  the  patent  Ibr 
nine  thous.ind  dollars.  H(  afterwards  perfected  plans  of  his  own  for  accom- 
pliohing  the  same  jDject  of  greater  adhesion  in  a  better  way.  'Ihe  Baldwin 
engines  gradually  mproved  in  size  and  style  from  year  to  year.  Cabins  woru 
built  upon  them  for  the  engineers  and  firemen.  Tiie  old  style  of  a  single  pair 
of  drivers  was  changed  to  two  pairs,  and  in  1855  to  three  pairs;  ten-wheeled  / 
engines  weighing  twenty  seven  tons  beir,^  built  in  that  year  for  several  of  the 
leading  roads.  In  1S66  "The  Consolidation,"  weighing  f)rty-five  tops,  with 
twelve  wheels,  and  carrying  all  except  fiv  tons  of  its  wi^nt  upon  the  driver^, 
was  Iniilt,  being  the  parent  of  a  class  of  engines  of  enormous  jjowcr  of  that 
name.  Head-lights,  variable  cut-.^ffs,  and  other  features  of  the  modern  lo- 
comotive, were  siiccefisi\cly  introduced  l)y  Mr.  Baldwin  ;  and  the  works  called 
by  his  name  are  now  producing  tyjjcs  of  engines  which  are  not  sur^jassed  at 
the  present  day. 

After  the  origihal  onerinients,  shops  for  engine-building  were  opened  in 
\arious  parts  of  the  country.  In  1833  Long  iS:  Norris  of  I'hiladelphia  buiii 
Recent  rapid  ''^"  engine  of  Siich  unusual  tractive  power,  that  it  commanded 
growth  of  attention  in  England,  and  led  to  the  first  expo'tation  of  Ameriian 
ustry.  loromotives.  Several  were  orderc  from  the  naker  for  employ- 
ment on  the  line  between  Birmingham  and  (lloucester.  In  1835  engines 
were  built  at  Lowell,  Ma.-.s.  In  1837  a  firm  at  I'aterson,  N.J.,  —  Rogers,  Keuh- 
um,  &  (jrosvenor,  —  began  the  business,  and  founded  the  works  which  are  now 
known  as  the  Rogers  Locomotive  Works.  Mr.  Rogers  was  (in  1849)  the  first 
to  employ  the  link  motion  in  locomotive  praciice  in  this  country ;  and  he  liad 
to  encounter  the  hearty  opposition  Oi  Mr.  Baldwin  and  others  for  several 
years  before  the  utility  of  the  idea  was  conceded.  Mr.  Baldwin,  after  a  lorn,' 
fight  against  the  innovation,  yielded  to  it  in  1854,  and  put  it  upon  his  engines, 
'The  Rogers  Woiks  are  also  to  l)e  credited  with  the  fiill-stroke  pump,  and  the 
effectual  jacketing  of  the  boiler_to  prevent  radiation.  In  1847  the  Taunton 
Locclmonve'  factory  was  established  by  Wr\V.  Fairbanks,  a  boiler-maker  of 
Pro\idence,  R.I.  Shops  were  also  started  about  that  time  at  Boston,  Law- 
ren<e,  Manc'iester,  and  elsewhere  ;  but  most  of  these  soon  ceased  to  do  busi- 
ness, the  shops  in  the  Middle  States  possessing  superior  advantages  for  the 
manufacture.  Tiie  Messrs.  Winans  at  Baltimore  jierfected  many  valuable 
ideas  in  locomotive-building,  and  were  the  inventors  of  the  camel-back 
engine,  which  has  obtained  some  celebrity. 

Of  late  years,  the  larger  railroads  of  the  country  have  begun  to  construct 
Locomotives  Jocomotivcs  in  their  own  shops.  One  effect  of  this  has  been  to 
built  in  rail-  concentrate  the  production  by  private  companies  into  fewer  hands, 
road  shops.  ^^^  ^^  manufacture  is  now  principally  confined  to  Paterson  and 
Philadelphia. 


o/-  r://-:  united  states. 


239 


I'hc  principal  improvements  of  the  last  twenty  years  have  been  due  to  the 
ncccsjiity  of  fitting  smoke-stacks  with  an  apparatus  to  catch  the   ,„_,py,.  <  J^  ; 
sparlis  ;  to  the  substitution  of  coal  for  fuel  in  place  of  wood,  caus-   menu  of  |«lt  ^  • 
iiig  uiany  changes  in  construction,  and  the  building  of  a  larger  *^*"*y 
and  more  powerful  type  of  engine  ;  and  the  larger  use  of  steel  for 
tiros,  boilers,  and  working-parts  of  the  machinery. 

The  weight  of  the  locomotive  now  in  use  on  Ameiican  roads  varies  from 
thirty  to  forty-five  tons,  two-thirds  of  the  weight  l)cing  on  the  drivers.  Few 
of  the  fatter  class  are  useil ;  but  the  I  )anforth  Works  at  I'aterson  weight, 
have  made  a  few  of  that  weight  since  1873  for  the  Haltimore  and  speed,  econ- 
Ohio  Road.  The  average  cost  of  locomotives  is  »weive  thousand  "'"*'' 
dollars :  those  of  the  largest  type  cost  twenty  tiiousand.  On  the  New- York 
Central,  the  Union  Pacific,  and  other  roads  where  the  grades  are  not  severe, 
a  speed  of  sixty  miles  is  fre  ]uently  attained  in  travel ;  but  the  great  additional 
(onuimption  reouired  by  that  rate  of  speed,  and  the  greater  liability  to  acci- 
dent, makes  if  undesirable  for  the  orilinary  traffic  of  the  roads.  'I'he  usual 
speed  of  American  railway-express  travel  is  thirty  miles  an  hour.  The  iverage 
( ost  per  mile  run  is  jinetcen  cents  :  viz.,  for  repairs,  three  cents  and  seven- 
teiitlis ;  fuel,  five  cents  and  six-tenths  ;  stores,  five-tenths  of  a  cent ;  miscella- 
neiius,  two  cents  and  five-tenths  ;  attendance,  six  cents  and  five-tenths.  If 
the  engine  is  driven  at  greater  tiian  average  speed,  tiie  cost  may  be  nearly 
ddubled,  as  the  fuel  consumed  will  vary  from  sixteen  tn  'jij^t}.-  prtin^fk  pi-r 
mile  with  the  speed.  More  oil  will  be  rociuired,  and  the  machines  will  wear 
f,i-.ter.  The  maximum  load  of  a  ten-wlieeled  cunsolidation  engine  on  a  level 
liivision  with  which  the  men  may  expect  to  make  time  is  ninety  cars,  although 
tlie  engines  of  the  Pennsylvania  Road  l\ave  frcfiuently  hauled  over  one 
Jiundred.     An  ordinary  freight-train  woukl  consist  of  about  forty  cars. 

A  special  class  of  locomotives  has  come  into  existence  of  late,  growing  out 
of  the  needs  of  the  population  of  large  cities  for  rapid  transit  between  their 
home's  and  the  scenes  of  their  daily  occupations.  In  New- York  Dummy- 
City,  the  bulk  ''  the  business  of  that  great  commercial  emporium,  «"«'"«•• 
and  of  the  n..  ufacturing  which  is  done  there,  is  transacted  within  a  space  of 
tlirce  miles  fr  1  the  lower  end  of  the  island  upon  which  the  city  stands.  The 
population  >  the  other  hand,  is  scattered  -along  for  a  distance  of  six  miles 
beyond  the  bu  less  part  of  the  island,  and  -ndeed  much  farther:  and  a  large 
share  of  the  men  who  find  employment  in  its  stores,  banks,  and  factories, 
raliier  than  live  so  far  away  from  their  work,  now  reside  across  the  several 
rivers,  in  New  Jersey  and  Connecticut,  and  on  Long  and  Staten  Islands ; 
l)ecause,  though  sometimes  a  greater  number  of  miles  away,  they  are  nearer  in 
point  of  time,  because  they  have  access  to  the  city  by  steam-cars  and  steam- 
ferries.  The  inhabitants  of  the  island  have  hitherto  depended  principally  on 
horse-cars  and  stages  j  and  it  frequently  takes  an  hour  to  go  from  one's  home 
to  his  office,  and  vice  7>ersa.     The  same  thing  is  true  in  principle  of  all  the 


/    \A 


:1-*-    •' 


^T,'T, 


' 


l^ii 


l-'vi 


140 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


other  large  cities  of  the  country.  Hy  the  natural  expansion  of  the  town,  the 
population  are  compelled  to  reside  at  great  ilistances  from  their  places  of 
employment. 

The  horse-car  nmning  on  a  railway  laid  through  the  centre  of  the  sirtet 
8ubser\'es  the  purpose  of  expeditious  transportation  in  cities  of  moderate  si/e  • 
AppiicaUon  ^'"^  '"  '*  ''"'^''■'  fade-ceutre  of,  say,  five  hundred  thousand  souls,  it 
of  itt.in  10  does  not :  and  the  people  of  such  a  town  will,  in  the  course  of  the 
w7yl'"'  ^'^"'^'''  '^^''^"  '"  ''^'-'  ''KKregate  from  five  thousand  to  eight  thousand 
years  of  time  simply  in  getting  about  from  home  to  business,  and 
vice  versa,  by  this  slow  mode  of  locomotion  ;  which  might  be  saved  and  util- 
ized, were  travel  on  the  street-railways  et1e(  ted  by  steam.  In  a  larger  rity 
more  time  is  lost.  Tlie  growth  of  cities,  therefore,  has  made  necessary  the 
application  of  steam  to  the  purposes  of  local  travel. 

Sl)ecial  difticulties  are  encountered,  however,  in  using  steam  on  citv  rail- 
roads. Sparks  from  the  engine  are  likely  to  endanger  the  safety  of  property. 
'I'he  puffing  and  liie  steam  frigliten  the  carriage  and  dray  horses  of  the  street. 
The  liability  of  collisions  ami  accidents  is  increased  by  the  more  rajiid  style 
Difficuitiei  °^  travelling.  The  problem  is  one  which  has  taxed  the  inventive 
to  be  over-  genius  of  the  country;  but  it  is  one  which  inventors  have  not 
come.  hesitated  to  try  to  solve.     Newton  used  to  say  that  he  tlelighted 

to  encoimter  an  obstacle,  as  it  was  always  a  proof  to  him  that  he  was  on  the 
brink  of  an  important  iliscovery.  It  has  been  so  with  reference  to  steam  on 
American  street-railways.  The  special  difliculties  of  the  case  only  rendered 
the  inventors  doubly  zealous,  and  have  only  led  to  a  greater  triumph.  The 
problem  has  at  length  been  successfully  solved,  and  nothing  now  prevents  the 
population  of  every  large  city  from  travelling  from  home  to  business  by  steam 
but  the  lack  of  enterprise  and  public  sjnrit  among  them. 

The  street-railway  locomotives  are  of  two  sorts.  The  first  is  the  duniniy- 
engine  :  it  can  be  fitted  to  the  ordinary  street-car,  and  is  so  employed  with 
Kinds  of  great  success  in  the  city  of  I'hiladelphia,  which   is  the  pioneer  in 

•treet-raii-  its  practical  use.  The  engine  is  a  small  one  of  the  vertical 
way-iocomo-  j^.p^.  ^,^^1  Qccuijies  a  cabin  at  the  front-end  of  the  car.  It 
burns  coal,  and  consumes  its  own  smoke,  and  runs  as  cjaietly  as 
the  ordinary  horse-car.  \'ery  little  steam  escapes  from  it,  and  that  little 
creates  no  alarm  among  the  carriage  and  dray  horses,  which  the  car  passes  at 
a  speed  of  ten  miles  an  hour  on  the  street.  There  is  no  doubt  but  this 
style  of  street-motor  will  eventually  supersede  horse-power.  The  existing 
horse-railway  companies  resist  its  introduction  only  because  they  would  lose 
so  mu<  h  capital  by  a  cdiange. 

Elevated  "^^'  "dier  sort  of  street-engine  is  applied   to  travel  on  tiie 

iron  railway,  elevated  iron  railways  which  have  been  building  in  the  city  of 
engines.  j^t^^^  y^^^  during  the  last  five  years.     These  are  genuine  loco- 

motives, drawing  a  car  or  train  of  cars  after  them  as  on  the  great  railways 


OF    TIIK    UNITED    STATES. 


241 


riiiiiiiiiK  through  the  open  country  from  city  to  city.     They  are  small,  weighing  J ' 

jroiii  live  to  ten  tons  only,  consiuning  their  own  smoke,  and  making  little  noise  ^ 
IrmiU's  that  produced  by  rattling  over  the  rails.  'I'hey  travel  at  great  speed, 
ami  ri'duce  the  hour's  travel  on  the  plodding  horse-car  to  fifteen  minutes  and 
less.  Their  special  peculiarity  is,  that  the  boiler  and  machinery  hang  low 
liitvvi.cn  the  wheels,  so  as  to  render  them  steadier  ui)on  the  rails,  and  effectu- 
allv  lo  obviate  the  clanger  of  being  upset.  Travel  behind  one  of  these  l)eauti- 
fiil  iiigines  on  the  elevated  railw.iys,  in  a  car  fitted  up  as  luxuriously  as  those 
oil  the  great  railways  of  out-of-town  travel,  is  as  far  in  advance  of  transporta- 
tum  in  the  noisy,  Imnbering  arks  which  the  tired  horses  of  the  roadway  lines 
.>iill  drag  after  them,  as  the  American  mechanic  is  in  the  scale  of  civilization 
lic\nud  the  I'atagonian  savage. 

Al  the  beginning  of  this  <  hapter  allusion  was  made  to  the  brilliant  general- 
iz.ili()n  of  a  recent  writer,  that  the  consumption  of  iron  by  a  race  of  men  now 
iiK'.isures  their  position  in  the  scale  of  civilization.     The  facts  in    _ 

■  Coniump- 

r^yiid  to  the  locomotive   throw  a  ray  of  light  on  the  reason  why.   tion  of  iron  • 

Tlic  reason  is  this,  —  that  the  use  of  iron  shows  the  extent  to  which   B'^Beo'":'*- 

lliiation. 

.1  country  employs  time  and  labor  saving  inventions.  M.ichinery 
3.w\  ingenious  tools  relieve  mankind  from  drudgery,  and  give  the  mind  a 
<h.in(  e  to  |)lay  ;  and  every  new  invention  which  throws  a  fresh  burden  upon 
tiic  inusc  les  of  steel  and  the  moving-jjower  of  steam,  and  takes  it  off  from  the 
human  race,  gives  a  fresh  impetus  to  the  intelligence,  the  spirit,  and  the  refine- 
iiKnt  of  the  people.  Ought  not  the  marvellous  progress  of  the  United  States 
in  every  thing  whi(  h  distinguishes  the  age  from  the  gloom  and  ignorance  and 
poverty  of  the  middle  ages  to  be  .attributed  in  large  part  to  the  time  and  labor 
saved  by  the  locomotive?  and  ought  we  not  to  regard  the  ingenious  men  by 
whose  toil  and  energy  this  wonderful  device  has  been  perfected  as  benefactors 
ol'tlie  race,  —  not  second  even  to  those  who.  at  the  cost  of  life  and  treasure, 
won  for  us  the  inestimable  blessings  of  liberty  and  free  government? 

I'here  are  now  eighteen  locomotive-works  in  the  United  States,  which  have 
the  capacity  to  produce  twenty-six  hundred  locomotives  a  year;   Number  of 
although  the  (piantity  annually  made  is  less  than  half  this  number,   estabush- 
<;enerally  this  has  been  a  very  prosperous  business  ;  and  it  is  to  be   *"'""• 
hoped,  that,  ere  long,  these  various  establishments  will  be  reai)ing  the  reward 
to  which  they  are  entitled  because  of  their  industry  and  genius. 


I 


SE\VIN(.-MACHINK.S. 


In  ancient  times  there  was  great  simplicity  of  dress,  because  the  process  of 
Aveaving  cloth  was  slow  and  difificult,  and  there  was  great  economy  simplicity  of 
of  material  in  jieople's  attire.     The  wealthy  in  that  age  were  dis-   ancient 
tin!,niished  from  others  more  by  the  magnificence  of  the  cloth  they     '*"" 
wore  than  by  any  special  elaboration  in  the  fashion  with  which  their  garments 


'■.  I ;   '  i  <  i'  1 


242 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Greater  elab- 
oration of 
dress  re- 
quires more 
sewing. 


were  made.  There  was  little  sewing  then,  and  the  avocation  had  not  yet 
called  into  being  that  special  class  of  sewing-women  which  came  upon  ilic 
scene  in  a  later  age.  Along  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  cum- 
merce  brought  great  wealth  to  Italy,  jnd  with  it  a  new  luxury  of  attire.  The 
dress  of  both  sexes  not  only  became  richer,  but  more  elaborate.  The  Ital- 
ians became  the  most  handsomely-dressed  people  in  the  world  ;  and  the  city  of 
Milan  came  in  time  to  dictate  the  fashions,  not  only  to  Italy,  but  to 
the  north  and  east  of  Europe,  and  even  to  give  its  name  to  the 
new  art  of  millinery,  which  thereupon  took  its  rise,  and  dealt  with 
the  decoration  of  dress.  With  the  new  luxury  of  attire  came  a 
great  increase  in  the  amount  of  sewing ;  anil  when,  two  or  three 
centuries  later,  the  steam-engine  was  set  to  work  in  Europe  to  drive  the 
loom,  and  the  manufacture  of  cloth  began  to  be  carried  on  at  an  enormo\isIv 
increased  scale  and  diminislied  cost,  and  peopie  began  to  wear  twi'o  and 
three  times  as  many  yards  of  cloth  as  before,  sewing  was  again  doubled  and 
tripled,  and  then  gave  employment  to  a  special  class  of  thousands  of  voiiien 
Increase  of  ^"^  S'^ls  in  all  large  cities.  As  sewing  was  easier  work  than  nail- 
sewing-  making,  and  was  held  to  be  (whether  rightfully  or  not)  more 
women.  respectable  work  than  household  service,  the  ranks  of  the  i"wiiig- 
women  soon  became  overcrowtled,  the  pay  became  scanty,  a'nl  the  wirkers 
encountered  great  poverty  and  suffering  in  trying  to  earn  their  living.    The 

hnes  — 

"  O  Industry,  how  rich  thy  gifts  I 
Health,  ])lcntv,  .ind  content 
Are  blcsings  ..11  by  thee  bestowed  "  — 

became  a  bitter  mockery  to  these  struggling  women  ;  and  Tom  Hood  wTote 
one  of  the  most  touching  poems  of  modern  times  to  commemorate  their 
privations. 

The  sewing-macliine,  by  which  the  condition  of  those  who  live  by  the 

needle  has  been  materially  improved,  and  sewing  made  an  agreeable  task,  is 

often  claimed  to   be  a  purely  American  invention.     The  'iniled 

Sewing-  '  ■' 

machine  an  States  has  won  laurels  enough,  however,  in  promoting  the  welfare 
of  mankind,  to  be  generous  in  its  claims  about  the  sewing-machine. 
This  invention  is  not  American  in  the  sense  that  the  nail-macliinc, 
the  electric-telegraph,  the  iron-clad  gunboat,  and  many  kindred  discoveries, 
are.  The  idea  was  originally  the  thought  of  an  Englishman,  Charles  \'.  W'ei- 
senthal,  who  in  1755  obtained  a  patent  for  a  crude  device  to  facilitate  tiie 
process  of  embroidering ;  and  a  great  many  experiments  were  made  in  the 
kingdom  of  England  toward  perfecting  the  contrivance  before  Aineri<ans 
directed  their  attention  to  the  subject.  To  America  belongs  simply  the  honor 
of  producing  the  first  machines  which  were  ever  used  practically  in  the  sewing 
of  cloth  and  leather. 

Weisenthal's  invention,  which  proposed  to  use  a  needle  pointed  at  both 


American 
invention. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


243 


had  not  yet 

ame  upon  the 
centuries  com- 
Df  attire.    The 
itc.     The  Ital- 
and  the  city  of 
to  Italy,  hut  to 
;s  name  to  the 
and  dealt  with 
f  attire  taine  ii 
:n,  two  or  llirce 
:;    to    drive   the 
an  enormously 
wear  twi'-e  and 
in  doubled  and 
ands  of  vomen 
work  than  nail- 
■  or  not)    more 
J  of  the  S'.'wing- 
hhI  the  wcrkcrs 
leir  living.    The 


om  Hood  wrote 
nniemorate  their 

who  live  by  Uio 
igreeable  task,  is 
)n.     T'hc  'fnlted 
oting  the  welfare 
sewing-machine, 
the  nail-mailiine, 
Ired  discoveries, 
Charles  1'.  ^Vei- 
to  facilitate  the 
ere  made  in  the 
fore   American;; 
simply  the  honor 
dly  in  the  sewing 

;  pointed  at  both 


le 


ends,  with  an  eye  in  the  middle,  to  go  backward  and  forward  through  the 
cjoti),  was  never  utilized.  In  1790  Thomas  Saint  obtained  a  sainfs  in- 
patent  for  a  machine  "  for  quilting,  stitching,  and  sewing,  making  mention. 
shoes  and  other  articles,  by  means  of  tools  and  machines."  His  machine  was 
niostlv  of  wood,  with  an  overhanging  arm,  or  carrier,  into  which  was  inserted 
a  vertical  reciprocating  needle,  and  an  awl  to  go  before  it  and  punch  the  holes. 
On  tiie  top  of  the  arm  was  a  spool  for  giving  out  the  thread  continuously. 
I'he  stitch  was  the  same  as  Weisenthal's,  and  was  called  the  tambour  or  chain 
stitch.  A  loop  was  formed  by  thrusting  the  needle  through  the  cloth  or 
leather.  A  second  thrust  carried  the  bight  of  thread  through  this  loop,  making 
a  second  loop,  through  which,  in  turn,  the  needle  was  thrust  to  form  a  third,  the 
first  loop  being  drawn  up  taut  during  the  third  thrust.  This  variety  of  stitch 
is  still  in  use  to-day.  Saint's  idea  appears  to  have  been  to  lighten  the  labor  of 
heavy  sewing :  he  docs  not  seem  to  have  thought  of  the  plan  of  superseding 
the  hand  needle  for  general  work.     In  1804  John  Duncan  in- 

Duncan. 
vented  a  machine  to  make  the  tambour-stitch,  hooked   needles 

heing  used  below  the  cloth  to  catch  the  loop.     In  1807  James  Winter  patented 

a  device  for  sewing  leatiier  gloves  ;  the  leather  being  held  fast  by  iron  jaws,  so 

that  the  hands  of  the  operator  were  free.     About  the  same  time  a  contrivance 

was  brought  out  for  sewing  with  needlefuls  of  thread,  the  cloth  being  crimped 

for  tiie  operation,  and  the  needle  thrust  through  the  crimps  horizontally. 

riicse  machines  met  with  little  attention,  and  less  favor.    Working-men  in 
that  age  stood  in  dread  of  labor-saving  inventions,  and  strenuously 
foiiglit  against  their  introduction  with  all  the  resources  at  their  ^^^^    ^ 
command. 

The  first  American  machine  was  the  invention  of  the  Rev.  John  Adams 
Dodge  of  Monkton,  Vt.,  who  took  an  ingenious  mechanic  by  the  name  of 
John  Knowles  into  his  confidence,  and  with  his  help  built  a  invention 
practical  and  efficient  machine  for  sewing  the  back-stitch.  The  "»' D<"ige. 
needle  was  the  same  as  Weisenthal's,  being  pointed  at  both  ends,  having  the 
eye  in  the  middle,  and  going  entirely  through  the  cloth  in  both  directions.  It 
sowed  a  perfect  seam  straight  forward ;  but  woidd  not  allow  the  cloth  to  be 
turned,  on  accoimt  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  feeding-mechanism.  The 
nia(  hine  did  good  work,  and  might  have  been  perfected,  had  it  not  been  that 
Mr.  Knowles  was  overwhelmed  with  ministerial  work  (having  three  churches  on 
his  hands  at  times),  and  had  not  the  journe)men  tailors  opposed  it  bitterly  as  a 
violation  of  their  rights.  It  was  never  patented,  and  was  soon  abandoned.  A 
machine  was  patented  in  the  United  States  in  1826  by  Mr.  Lye;  Lye. 
hut  its  character  is  not  now  known,  the  records  of  the  Patent  Office  Thimonnier. 
bearing  on  the  subject  having  been  burnt.  The  next  machine  was  a  French- 
man's. It  was  brought  out  in  France  in  1830  by  Barthdiemy  Thimonnier,  and 
was  used  to  a  certain  extent  in  tiie  manufacture  of  army  clothing.  Its  peculi- 
arities were   the   overhanging   arm,  continuous   thread,  flat  cloth-plate,  and 


I'' 


I 


244 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


treadle  and  cord.  The  inventor  had  hard  hick.  He  made  eighty  machines 
for  sale  ;  but,  even  in  enlightened  France,  working-men  were  hostile  to  the  new 
idea,  and  the  stock  of  machines  was  destroyed  by  a  mob.  Nothing  daunted 
Thimonnier  made  another  lot,  this  time  chiefly  of  metal ;  but  again  they  were 
destroyed  by  a  mob.  The  inventor  patented  his  machine  in  the  United  States 
in  1850,  but  could  not  recover  from  his  reverses,  and  died  in  poverty. 

The  wits  of  American  inventors  were  now  fairly  at  work,  and  fresh  attempts 
were  made  to  solve  the  delicate  and  intricate  problem  of  a  machine  which 
would  relieve  woman  of  the  fatigue  and  wear  of  all  general  and 
continuous  sewing.  In  1832  Walter  Hunt  of  New  York,  a  skilful 
mechanic,  made  a  machine  which  did  so  well,  that,  in  the  following  year  or 
two,  he  sold  a  number  of  them  to  different  people.  He  was  the  first  who  used 
two  threads.  The  upper  one  was  carried  by  a  curved  needle,  with  the  eye  in 
the  point ;  and  the  lower  one  by  a  shuttle.  The  machine  maiie  the  lock-stiti  h, 
in  which  the  threads  are  made  to  interlock  as  nearly  as  may  be  in  the  centre 
of  the  stuff.  He  lost  an  opportunity  to  make  a  fortune  by  neglecting  to  take 
out  a  patent.  In  1834  G.  A.  Arrowsmith  bought  two  or  three  of  the  macliines, 
and  the  right  to  patent,  but  did  noti)erfect  his  patent ;  and  in  1852,  when  Hunt 
bought  back  the  right,  the  Department  at  Washington  told  him  that  his  ne,L,'lei;t 
had  made  the  invention  public  property,  and  they  could  do  nothing  for  him. 
A  patent  had  previously  been  given  to  J.  J.  (Ireenough,  who  in  1842  had 
perfected  a  machine  for  doing  leather  and  other  heavy  work.  It  was  like  Wei- 
senthal's  and  Dodge's  in  ha*  ing  a  needle  pointed  at  both  ends  to  go  throuf,'h 
and  through  the  fabric.  Like  Dodge,  he  never  made  more  than  one  machine. 
In  1843  patents  were  issued  to  H.  W.  IJean  of  New- York  City  for  a  running 
stitch,  and  to  (leorge  R.  Corlies  for  a  machine  similar  to  Greenough's,  with  two 
reciprocating  needles,  —  one  to  punch  the  holes,  and  the  other  to  sew. 

While  these  experiments  were  making,  Elias  Howe,  jun.,  of  Cambridge, 
Ma,ss.,  was  at  work  independently  upon  the  problem.  After  two  or  three  years 
of  study,  he  believed  that  he  had  mastered  it ;  and  in  1846  he  got 
a  patent  for  a  machine,  which,  while  covering  very  much  the  same 
ground  that  other  men  had  taken  possession  of  before  him,  was  still  so  novel 
in  its  combinations  and  forms  as  to  be  treated  at  Washington  as  a  now  inven- 
tion. He  used  a  curved,  eye-pointed  needle ;  a  shuttle  below  the  doth. 
driven  by  two  vibrating  mallets  ;  a  peculiar  baster-plate  to  hold  the  cloth,  and 
feed  it  forward,  the  plate  being  pushed  back  when  it  had  reached  its  forward 
limit,  the  cloth  again  fastened  to  jjoints  upon  it,  and  the  plate  again  fed  tor 
ward  ;  and  a  device  to  giv_  tension  to  the  upper  thread.  It  was  the  parent  ot 
our  modern  machines,  but  was  not  itself  a  great  success.  Howe  made  a  few 
specimen  machines :  but  tiiey  would  not  sell  at  first ;  and,  when  they  did.  the 
people  who  bought  them  could  not  make  them  work.  The  tension  was  not 
right ;  and  the  thread  formed  large  loops  in  one  part  of  the  seam,  and  was  too 
tight  in  another,     'i'he  vertical  susjiension  of  the  cloth  from  the  baster-plate 


OF    Tim    UNITED    STATES. 


345 


was  inconvenient,  and  the  stoppages  for  re-adjustment  of  the  cloth  tiresome. 
Howe  was  a  mechanic  of  small  means,  and  could  not  himself  raise  the  capital 
to  manufacture.  He  tried,  therefore,  to  interest  capitalists  in  the  invention. 
Hut  c  apital  is  timid  while  inventions  are  still  in  the  preliminary  stage  of  experi- 
ment ;  and,  though  Howe  even  went  to  luigland  to  look  for  the  money  which 
he  rould  not  raise  here,  he  did  not  succeed  in  inspiring  confidence  in  his 
nia(  bine.  It  is  said,  that,  in  order  to  get  back  to  America,  he  was  forced  to 
pawn  his  baggage  to  pay  for  his  wife's  passage,  and  to  work  on  the  ship  for 
his  own.  He  was  a  man  of  remarkable  perseverance,  however,  and  did  not 
al)anii()n  his  pet  idea  of  supplying  the  United  States  with  sewing-machines. 

Howe  did  not  have  the  inveuvive  genius  to  remedy  the  defects  of  his 
madiinos  himself.     The  theory  of  it  was  right;  but  he  could  not   Defects  of 
embody  it  in  the  proper  mechanical  forms  to  insure  its  prosperous  Howe's 
\vorl<ing.     He  was  indebted  to  other  men  for  the  devices  which  """  '"*" 
maili'  it  a  blessing  to  the  country. 

The  tension  of  tlie  thread  w"t  regulated  by  a  patent  brought  out  by  John 
ilradshaw  of  Lowell,  Mass.,  in  1848.  J.  B.  Johnson  and  Charles  Morey 
attempted  to  imi)rove  the  feeding-device  by  the  invention  of  a 

o  >  Bachelder. 

(ire ular  bastcr-plate  in  1849;  but  John  Hachelder  of  Boston  did 
better  than  that  the  same  year  with  an  automatic  arrangement ;  and  J.  S. 
Con  int  of  Dracut,  Mass.,  invented  still  another  feeding-device.  Blodgett  and 
Lerow  of  Boston,  also  in  1849,  obtained  a  patent  to  make  the  lock-stitch  by  a 
method  different  from  Howe's,  but  the  same  in  priw^.ple,  using  a  shuttle  which 
described  a  circle,  instead  of  moving  l)aik  and  forth.  That  was  a  prolific  year 
in  sewing-machine  inventions.  Applications  for  patents  for  improvements  and 
new  rlevices  began  to  pour  into  tlie  Department  at  Washington  from  all  parts 
of  New  England  and  the  Ivist.  Some  of  the  devices  were  never  used  ;  but 
now  and  then  one  would  be  brougiu  out  which  was  of  material  service.  In 
iS;i)  Allen  B.  \\  iison  of  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  received  a  patent  for  a 

r        ,   „        ,    •     1  •  .  ,      •  r  Wilson. 

"  two-inolion  feed,    which  was  atterwards  converted   into  a  "  four- 
motion  feed  ;  "  and  also  for  a  vibrating  shuttle  which  was  better  than  Howe's, 
liecause  it  made  a  stilt  h  at  every  movement,  which   Howe's  did  not.     This 
ile\  ice  was  abandoned   in   1851   for  a  rotating  hook,  which  completely  super- 
seded ilio  shuttle  in  his  machine. 

Mr.  Isaac  M.  Singer  of  New  York  came  into  the  field  in  1850.  He  had 
been  interested  in  lilodgett  and  Lerow's  machine  ;  and  he  now  offered  to  build 
one  Ibr  forty  dollars  which  would  work  perfectly,  and  sew  a  good 
seam.  His  offer  was  accepted,  and  he  made  the  machine  in 
twelve  days.  It  had  a  rigid  overhanging  arm,  vertical  needle,  shuttle,  and 
duul)le-acting  treadle,  and  is  saiil  to  have  been  the  first  machine  satisfactory  to 
manufacturers.  The  manufacture  of  this  machine  immediately  began.  It 
bore  a  close  resemblance  to  the  Howe  machine,  but  did  what  Howe's  had 
never  done,  —  it  worked  we'l.  Being  the  first  in  the  market,  and  very  popular, 
it  look  the  lead  in  sales,  and  kept  it  until  1854. 


»'    : 


246 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Orover. 


of  Howe's 
patent 


A  new  Style  of  machine  was  patented  in  1851  by  William  O.  Grovcr  of 
Boston,  in  company  with  Mr.  Baker,  for  making  a  double  louj)  by 
means  of  the  use  of  a  circular  rotary  needle.  It  used  no  shuttle, 
worked  well,  and  became  very  popular  from  1854  to  1S58,  taking  the  lead  in 
the  market  during  that  period. 

There  were  now  three  companies  busily  engaged  in  manufacturing  sewing- 
machines  for  die  general  market,  —  Singer  iS:  ("ompany,  (Jrover  &  Baker,  r ml 
Utility  of  Wheeler  &  Wilson.  Tlie  utility  of  the  new  invention  had  been 
sewing-  rccognized  even  by  journeymen  tailors,  and  the  machine  was  the 

mac  ine.  sensation  of  the  day.  Weary  women  hailed  its  advent  as  a  bless- 
ing, and  the  sewing-machine  became  the  most  charming  of  gifts.  The  three 
companies  above  named  pressed  their  sales  with  great  energy,  and  bee  anie 
extremely  prosperous.  But  these  companies  were  all  infringing  u|)on  tlie  |iaient 
Infringement  of  Mr.  Howe.  It  is  true  that  they  had  first  made  ills  idea  useful  to 
mankinil ;  but  the  patent  laws  of  the  United  States  ha\e  lieen 
wisely  framed  to  protect  intellectual  property,  and  jirevent  wialtliy 
men  and  corpoiations  from  taking  advantage  of  the  poverty  of  the  inventive 
geniuses  who  fill  our  workshops,  but  who  do  not  alwa\s  possess  the  means  to 
secure  to  themselves  immediately  tlie  j)rolils  of  their  own  talents.  Mr.  Howe 
sued  the  several  companies,  and  spent  a  great  deal  of  money  in  enforcing  his 
claims  against  them.  Having  won  a  test  suit  in  the  courts,  tlie  comimnics 
compromised  with  him,  and  entered  into  a  compact,  Oct.  10,  1S56,  whidi  is 
known  as  the  '•  Albany  agreement."  By  tiie  terms  of  this  compact,  it  w.ns 
stipulated  that  each  of  the  three  companies  should  i)ay  Mr.  Howe  five  dollars 
for  each  machine  made  (lie  had  previously  claimed  twenty-five  dollars),  and 
that  licensees  might  be  permitted  to  manufacture  the  several  machines  in  order 
to  assist  in  supplying  the  country  with  them  speedily,  and  that  fifteen  dollars 
should  be  exacted  from  the  licensees  for  each  machine.  I'rom  this  latter  roy- 
alty a  ten-thousand-dollar  fund  for  the  ))urpose  of  enforcing  the  patents  in  the 
courts  should  be  accumulated,  and  the  surplus  receipts  be  divided  among  the 
four  contracting  parties,  Mr.  Howe  getting  the  largest  sh.are.  Under  this  ai;ree- 
Wheeierand  ment  operations  were  resumed,  the  Wheeler  and  Wilson  machine 
Wilson.  taking  the  lead  in  the  sales  from   1858  to   186S,  and  tiie  Singer 

machine  thereafter.  The  first  agreement  lasted  until  i860,  uj)  to  which  time 
over  130,000  machines  had  been  sold  under  it,  —  55,000  by  V.}ieeleriS:  Wilson, 
40,000  by  Singer  iV  Company,  and  35,000  by  (Irov.'jr  iV  Baker.  The  agreement 
was  honorably  executed  :  so  Howe  had  no  more  reason  for  comi)laining  of 
these  com])anies.  Mr.  Howe  securing  an  extension  of  his  patent  in  1860  for 
seven  years,  the  Albany  agreement  was  renewed  for  seven  years ;  but  it  w.as 
stipulated  that  Mr.  Howe  should  receive  only  one  dollar  for  every  machine, 
and  that  licensees  should  pay  seven  dollars.  Mr.  Howe's  inconit  under  tiiis 
arrangement  was  very  large,  amounting  in  one  year  (1866)  to  $ifvOOo;  but 
the  ex])cnses  of  his  law.suits  consumed  his  estate,  and  he  died  in  corn[!.irative 
poverty. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


247 


Tlie  number  of  applications  for  patents  only  seemed  to  increase  as  time 
rollcil  on,  and  up  to  the  present  time  more  than  twelve  hundred  Number  of 
have  been  filed  in  the  Patent  Oftice  at  Washington.     They  have  Patents- 
avx'iaged  about  fifty  a  year  since  1S57. 

In  1857  the  Weeil  machine  was  invented. 

The  same  year  James  E.  A.  (iibbs  of  Millpoint,  Va.,  devised  an  entirely 
new  machine,  whose  object  was  to  reduce  the  cost  of  these  inventions  by 
simiilifying  the  meciianism.  Mr. 
(;il)lis  had  never  seen  a  sewing- 
machine,  but  iiad  heard  of  llicm 
through  the  newspai)ers.  On  read- 
ing,' about  the  use  of  two  threads,  it 
o((  Hired  to  him,  that,  if  sewing 
(uuKl  be  effected  by  a  single 
thread,  much  of  the  iron-work  of 
the  macliine  could  be  dispensed 
with.  He  set  his  wits  to  work, 
and  in  the  year  named  brougiif 
out  iiis  i)atent  for  a  twisted  loop- 
stittli,  made  with  a  single  thread 
liy  means  of  a  rotating  hook  un- 
derneath the  cloth.  It  was  a  step 
ill  advance,  and  its  value  was 
pronipUy   recognized.      In    1859 

James  and  Charles  H.  Willcox  of  Philadelphia  obtained  control  of  the  patent, 
and  began  the  manufacture  of  the  Willcox  and  (libbs  machine,   other 
This  is  one  of  the  most  silent,  swift,  and  easily  run  of  machines,  '"ventors. 
and  has  had  a  large  and  general  sale. 

Since  the  date  of  that  patent  there  have  appeared  —  in  1858  the  Empire, 
sin  e  joined  with  the  Remington  ;  the  Slote,  or  Elliptic,  since  bought  by 
Wlieeler  &  Wilson;  two  Iluwe  machines  (Elias  and  Amasa  B.)  ;  between 
i860  and  1864  the- American  Button-Hole,  the  /ICtna,  and  the  Domestic; 
the  Beckwith  in  iiS65  ;  and  the  Victor  anil  the  Remington,  both  recent  ma- 
thines. 

A  notable  event  occurred  on  the  8th  of  May,  1877,  in  the  history  of  the 
sewing-machine  manufacture.  At  noon  of  that  day  the  last  important  patents 
held  l)y  the  manufacturer  of  sewing-machines  expired,  leaving  the  Expiration 
market  open  for  all  who  wish  to  compete.  The  leading  makers  °'  patent*' 
ininiediately  j^ut  down  their  prices  from  forty  to  fifty  per  cent,  while  others  ex- 
jirossed  the  intention  of  speedily  following  suit ;  sixty-dollar  machines  being 
fixed  at  thirty  dollars,  and  seventy-dollar  machines  at  forty  dollars.  A.  B. 
Wilson's  invention,  used  in  the  four-action,  rough-surface  feeder,  was  the 
most  important  of  the  expiring  patents ;   the  others  being  the  vibratory  needle 


SINCEH  SEWING-MACHINE. 


'r 


f::i 


fU.'"  ^ 


Jto..^fcjv,.     \ 


248 


indu^ikjaj.  history 


and  reciprocating  shuttle,  and  the  rotating  hook.  There  are,  perhaps,  ;i 
thousand  patents  in  force,  and  now  held  by  the  various  manufacturers;  Imt 
the  above  were  the  last  of  the  "foundation  patents,"  —  the  patents  needful  in 
making  a  first-class  machine.  The  Singer,  Wheeler  &  Wilson,  drover  & 
Baker,  and  Howe  companies,  are  said  to  have  hold  the  monopoly  of  the 
Wilson  invention  ever  since  1850,  pooling  the  enormous  profits  of  its  luaini- 
facture. 

America,  if  not  the  birthplace  of  the  sewing-. nachine,  is,  at  any  rate,  now 
the  workshop  of  its  largest  manufacture.  No  oth^.r  country  in  the  world  lias 
Magnitude  SO  many  and  such  large  establishments  devoted  to  this  special  iii- 
of  industry,  dustry.  There  are  now  twenty-five  factories  engaged  in  making 
sewing-machines,  two  of  them  having  branches  in  Europe ;  namely,  the 
Singer  and  the  Howe.  The  Singer  factory  at  Elizabethport,  N.  J.,  is  probably 
the  largest  of  its  class  in  the  world.  The  immense  sales  of  the  Singer 
machine  caused  the  company  to  outgrow  its  very  spacious  quarters  in  New- 
York  City ;  and  it  accordingly  took  its  flight  beyond  the  borders  of  the  city. 


SINGF.K   SKWING-.MAClllNE   COMI'ANY. 


and  erected  the  magnificent  row  of  brick  buildings  by  the  side  of  the  railroad- 
track  running  out  of  New  York  to  Philadelphia,  which  are  the  wonder  of 
every  traveller  who  sees  them.  The  Wheeler  iV  Wilson  and  the  Howe  estah- 
lishments  at  Bridgeport,  Conn.,  are  now  both  great  concerns  also.  The  \  i^cir 
which  has  been  manifested  upon  this  continent  in  the  development  of  this 
important  industry  is  not  confined  to  the  United  States  alone.  Canada,  too. 
has  shown  true  Northern  fire  and  intelligence  in  taking  up  this  business.  At 
the  Centennial  Exhibition  at  Philadelphia,  in  iS 76,  Canada  was  represented 
there  by  eleven  different  manufacturers  and  some  valuable  machines,  making 
a  better  display  than  any  nation  except  the  United  States.  The  ( on(  erns 
exhibiting  were  Thomas  Piper  of  Hamilton,  Mr.  Raymond  of  (Juelph,  the 


m 


OF    THE     JNITED    STATES. 


249 


Gardner  Sewing- Machine  Compnn}  of  Hamilton,  Wilkie  ft  Osborne  of 
('iiil1|»Ii,  W'anzer  &  Company  and  I'le  Canada  Sewing-Machine  Company  of 
Hamilton,  James  Aurthors  of  Toronto,  (^.  St.  Aniand  of  (Quebec,  J.  1).  Law- 
lor  of  Montreal,  O.  Morrill  &  Company  of  Rock  Island,  and  the  \Villianis 
Maiiutactiiring  Company  of  Montreal. 

There  is  no  record  of  the  number  of  sewing-machines  made  and  sold 
prior  to  the  Albany  agreement  of  1.S56.     Since  that  date  the  record  has  been 
preserved.     The  sales  under  the  compact  ai  Albany,  from  1856   j^y^^er    f 
to  1 1^69,  amounted  to  1,500,000  machines,  divided  about  as  fol-   machines 
lows :   Wiiceler  &  Wilson,  450,000  ;    Singer,  350,000  ;    Grover  &   manufac- 
liaker,   235,000;    Howe,    140,000;    Willcox   &  Gibbs,  105,000; 
Wtrd,  70,000;  Florence,  60,000;  all  others,  100,000.     From  1869  to  1878 
the  sales  have  amounted  to  4,800,000,  making  6,300.000  machines  sold  by 
the  niap.ufacturer'i  of  the  United  States,  —  a  product  worth  $360,000,000  at  a 
reasoi'.able  estimate.     Since  1869  the  manufacture,  year  by  year,  has  been  as 
1  )llo\vs  :  — 

1S69 322,769 

1870 464,254 

1.S71 606,094 

!872 «5'.236 

>S73 667,506 

1874 •  528,918 

1875 528,755 

1876 525,000 

1877 400,000  (estimated.) 


Utility. 


The  success  which  has  attended  the  introduction  of  the  sewing-machine 
has  been  due  to  the  thorough,  rapid,  and  easy  manner  in  which  it 
has  iiccn  made  to  perform  its  work.     The  machine  has  been  im- 
jiroved  in  a  thousand  ways  itself;  and  various  attachments  have  been  invented 
to  l)c  operated  with  it,  by  means  of  which  a  variety  of  special   variety  of 
things,  such  as  basting,   folding   the    cloth    for  hemming,  button-   work  done. 
holiiit,',  <!v:c.,   are   now  Dcrfonned  in   addition  to  the  regular  work  of  sewing 
seams  of  every  character,  and  degree  of  strength.     Sewing  is  per-   Economy  in 
lormeil  five  times  as  fast  as  by  hand,  and  the  labor  materially   their  u.;. 
ii},'htened.     Nothing  except  the  best  metal  is  put  into  the  working  parts  of  the 
ma(  hines,  so  that  they  have  great  endurance  and   longevity  ;    ami  the  best 
talents  of  the  cabinet-maker  have  been  employed  in  fitting  the  machines  with 
a  (.asiiig  of   handsome  woods,   for   the    purpose  of  making   them    beautifiil 
objects  of  furniture,  as  well  as  blessings  to  the  household.     Competition  be- 
tween the  different  companies  has  also  promoted  the  sale  of  the   machines 
greatly.      It    has   both    reduced    the   cost   of  the    completed   machine,  and 
ameliorated  the  terms  upon  which  the  companies  have  been  willing  to  deal 


4    I    ;      '' 


iJQI 

I 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

Til 

11 

1 

1 

**' 


85° 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


with  their  customers.  The  large:  t  numlier  of  those  who  l)uy  tiicsc  niachiiKs 
are  peoi'l'j  without  capital,  who  arc  not  always  able  to  pay  cash  for  their  ]>iir- 
chases.  In  order  to  effect  sales,  and  to  accommodate  their  custonicrh,  ihu 
Modes  of  com])anies  have  ado  ;ted  vhat  is  called  "  the  instalment  jjlan,"  l)y 
•eiiinBthem.  nieans  of  . 'cli  '  ustomer  takes  a  machine,  and  pays  fur  it  in 
instalments  from  week  ■  .  or  month  to  month,  often  ..irning  with  the 
machine  itself  the  monc)  ti'  tkf:   ■.  the  cost  of  its  purciiase. 

In  additijn  to  all  thi>  Ims 
i)ecn  the  fa.t  of  persistent  ad- 
vertising of  the  different  ma- 
ciiines.  'Die  se\ving-nia(  liinc 
companies  have  been  the  lie^t 
advertisers    in   the 

Advertising. 

country,  excelling 
even  the  piano  and  stove 
makers  in  the  imflaggin.:,'  zeal 
with  whieli  their  inventions 
have  been  brougiil  lieloie  tlie 
public  eye.  'Die  newspapeis, 
tiie  old  board  fences,  the  direi  - 
tories,  the  fiagstafls, 'the  loiks 
of  tlie  field,  the  trees,  .aid 
every  other  contrivance  ui)()n 
which  a  description  of  the 
merits  of  a  sewing-macliine  i  an 
be  printed,  pasted,  or  iiung, 
have  been  pressed  into  the 
service,  and  emblazoned  by  the  manufacturers.  'Die  county,  state,  and 
meciianic:d  fairs  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  the  World's  Kxpositions 
here  and  in  Europe,  have  been  steadily  fretiuented  by  the  companies ;  and 
their  strifes  and  comi)etitive  displays  have  now,  for  twenty  years,  t'ornied  the 
steady  reliance  of  managers  for  one  of  the  attractions  of  these  ba/aars  of 
agriculture  and  industry.  Some  of  the  companies  are  able  to  show  almost  a 
basketful  of  bronze,  silver,  and  goiil  medals  won  at  the  different  fairs  of  tliis 
and  other  countries. 

The  world's  fairs  have  been  an  important  means  of  bringing  the  machines 
to  the  attention  of  people  abroad.  The  fruit  of  tiie  displays  at  those  fairs  is 
World's  seen  in  the  large  export  trade  enjoyed  by  the  companies.  The 
'""■"•  number  of  machines   sent  out   annually  now   amoimts   to  from 

40,000  to  55,000,  the  custom-house  valuation  ranging  from  $1,600,000  to 
^2,400,000  annually.  They  go  to  England,  France,  and  Germany  principally. 
England  distributes  them  to  all  the  world.  Many  machines  now  go  direct  to 
South  America  and  Australia. 


WARUWEUl.   .SliWlNG-MACHINE. 


OF  THE    UNITED   STATES. 


FIRE-ARMS. 


«5> 


It  is  one  of  the  peculiar  phenomena  of  American  life  that  the  manufacture 
of  weapons  siioiild  reach  such  a  remarkable  proficiency  in  a  country  wliich 
nbluii-i  war  and  armies  ;  wiiich  is  impatient  if  tlie  government  keeps  Progress  in 
mori'  than  twenty  thousand  men  under  arms  in  times  of  peace  ;  fife-a^ms. 
which  once  let  the  standing  army  run  down  to  eighty-six  men  ;  whicli  never 
kiicvi's  there  is  going  to  be  a  war,  and  never  prepares  for  one  until  it  comes ; 
mill  whose  ordinary  current  expenditures  for  all  military  purposes  do  not 
exixi-d  thirty-five  million  dollars  in  any  one  year.  It  woukl  be  natural  to  look 
lor  the  highest  development  in  this  line  in  Kurope.  Several  countries  there 
spLinl  a  hundred  million  dollars  annually  for  army  purposes.  The  best  mechani- 
cal laKnt  ill  the  army  and  in  the  private  workshops  is  kept  constantly  employed 
devising  new  and  destructive  weapons.  'The  rewards  to  the  successful  private 
inventor  are  great ;  for  he  is  certain  of  recognition  from  the  government,  and  a 
l.rm-  t)rd(;r  for  arms.  In  .America,  however,  the  whole  business  of  war  is  sc 
I'orcii^n  to  the  ])urposes  „.  our  i)eople  and  the  genius  of  our  institutions,  that 
hale  national  encouragement  is  given  to  inventors.  Congress  begrudges  tiie 
siiialicMt  api)ropriation  for  military  experiments  ;  and  inventors  must  look  to 
Ijirupc  and  .\sia,  and  the  world  at  large  generally,  for  the  markets  for  the  sales 
of  tlic  arms  they  make,  if  they  bring  out  any  worthy  of  particular  notice. 
In  sjiite  of  this  lack  of  home-encouragement  to  the  manullxcturers  of  fire-arms, 
.American  weapons  for  the  infantry  service  are  the  best  that  are  made  to-day. 
Tlic  needle-gun  of  Prussia  won  a  world-wide  fame  at  Sadowa ;  but  the  Ameri- 
can Remington  is  as  much  its  superior  as  a  Colt's  revolver  to  a  muzzle-loading 
hor^c-pistol.  'ihe  chassepot  of  France  has  proved  a  weapon  of  deadly  efti- 
cioiK  y  in  recent  European  wars ;  but  the  American  Sjjcncer  rifle,  witii  its 
manazine  of  cartridges  in  the  stock,  firing  fifty  balls  a  minute,  would  enable  two 
companies  of  .American  marksmen  to  annihilate  a  regiment  armed  with  the 
chassepot  in  less  than  three  minutes'  fire  at  easy  range.  American  small-arms 
have  long  been  celebrated  ;  and  there  has  not  been  an  important  war  in 
Kurope,  from  the  Crimea  to  tiie  last  bloody  struggle  between  Russia  and 
Turkey,  in  whicii  they  have  not  i)layctl  a  considerable  part.  .And  then,  in  the 
line  of  heavy  orilnance,  tlie  .Americans  have  not  been  a  whit  behind  the  rest 
of  the  world  in  a  thorough  ccmpreliension  of  the  principles  which  should 
govern  the  manufacture  and  use  of  ordnance.  We  have  not  needed,  and 
consecjuently  have  not  made,  such  tremendous  guns  as  Germany  and  England 
have  produced  ;  but  American  inventors  and  artillerists  have  given  to  the 
wodd  some  of  the  most  valuable  ideas  in  ordnance,  which  have  been  utilized 
by  military  nations. 

The  first  use  of  fire-arms  was  at  the  batde  of  Crdcy  in  1346,   First  use  of 
where  the  French  were  routed  in  tremendous  confusion  by  means  <*«■«-«""»■ 
of  the  astonishment  created  by  the  English  cannon.    The  cannon  did  little 


/6 


!■: 


ill 


M 


252  hXDUSTR/Al.    Ill  STORY 

of  any  consequence,  cxrci)t  to  roar;  but  it  brought  a  new  element  into  the 
din  of  battle,  and  struck  consternation  into  the  ranks  of  the  gallant  kni'lits    '^ 
of  France.     'I'hese  early  guns  were  made  of  wooden  staves^boundwiih  wire 
and  iron  hoops,  and  using  a  stone  or  a  leaden  bullet,  ^nctures  of  tliein  may 
be  seen  in   Froissart's  "  Chronicles  of  the    Middle  Ages,"  in  which  arc  pre- 
served some  rare  old  woodcuts  of  the  olden  time,  representing  battles  in  whidj 
wootien  cannon  bore  a  part.     It  is  one   of  the  thousand  illustrations  \vhi(  h^     ' 
every  art  supplies  of  the  fact  tiiat  progress  moves  in  every  age  with  slcnv  ;ni(|  ' 
measured  pace  from  the  old  to  the  new,  passing  only  from  the  crude  to  iln.- 
better  by  fme  shades  of  variation,  that  the  first  iron  cannon  was  made  \i|i()n 
identically  the  same  principles  as  the  wooden  ones.     They  were  compo^^e(l  ot' 
iron  bars  laid  together  like  the  staves  of  a  barrel,  and  bound  about  with  iruii 
wire  and  hoops.     They  were  afterwards  welded  together;   and  then,  tlv  i^un 
being  composed  of  a  solid  piece  of  iron,  the  idea  seems  to  have  occurred  to  \ 
military  men  for  the  first  time  to  cast  their  cannon  complete  in  one  operation.    | 


m 


?j 


%ii'\f^ 


M  O 


CANNON.      1390. 


It  was  the  explosion  of  one  of  these  early  wrought-iron  cannon  which  caused 
the  death  of  James  II.  of  Scotland  in  1460.  The  fact  is  interesting,  because  it 
has  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  United  States.  The  idea  of  making  wrou^iit-  / 
iron  gups  was  never  abandoned  ;  and  in  1-845  Commodore  Stockton  of  the  j 
United  States  navy  caused  a  gun  of  that  material  to  be  made  under  his 
supervision,  hoping  to  produce  one  which  would  excel  any  cannon  whicii  iiad 
yet  lieen  made.  The  piece  weighed  seven  tons,  antl  carried  a  ball  wei,i;iiiii,L; 
two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  It  was  a  great  gun  for  those  days.  It  was 
called  "The  Peacemaker."  After  it  had  been  fired  three  times,  a  brilliant 
company  of  people  in  official  life  at  Washington  were  invited  down  to  the  war- 
ship "  Princeton,"  lying  in  the  Potomac  River,  to  witness  the  firing  of  the  gmi. 
Secretary  Upshur,  who  feared  the  effects  of  the  discharge  of  such  a  tremendous 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


253 


\\         \ 


niece,  got  behind  the  mast  for  safety.     The  gtin  blew  up  at  the  first  discharge, 
killinu  Mr-  Upsiuir,  Secretary  (lihiier,  Commodorn  Kennan,  Mr.  Maxey,  and       \ 
Mr,  (lanlner,  ami  injuring  Col.  IJenton  and  several  otliers.     In  spite  of  this        I 
uiitdward  event,  military  men  are  still  experimenting  with  wrought-iron  guns;        \ 
ami  the  conijiarative  merits  of  cast  and  wrought  iron  may  still  be  said  to  be 
an  unsettled  iiuestion. 

The  first  use  of  small-arms  was  at  Arras  in  14 14,  when  the  Burgundians  A^/^ 
(Icliiuicd  their  town,  in  part,  with  the  aid  of  heavy  guns,  which  they  pointed    r^ 
over  tiie  walls.     The   guns  were   provided  with   hooks    near  the   pint  use  of 
inu//lts,  to  catch  on  the  wall,  and  prevent  recoil ;  and  were  there-   »»"■"•»"»'•. 
lore  1  ailed  anjuebuses,  or  hook-guns.     These  weapons  were  used  in  the  field 
somewhat  after  that,  but  not  with  great  success  at  first,  because  they  were  too 
Ikmw.     It  took  three  men  to  serve  them,  and  they  could  only  be  fired  by 
re^iiiij;  then)  on  trijKMls.     Furthermore,  they  could  not  be  fired  rapidly,  and 
were  at  the  mercy   of  the  archers.     An    luiglish  archer  of  that  day  would 
discharge  ts.'elve  arrows  a  minute,  piercing  two  inches  of  oak  at  a  distance 
of  two  hundred  and  forty  yards,  and  allowing  only  on^  arrow  to   miss   tiie 
mark.     It  has  taken  four  hundred  years  for  mankind  to  perfect  a  fire-arm 
whii  ii  would  allow  of  ecpial  practical  rapidity  and  accuracy  of  fire  with  that, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  United  States  produced  the  Spencer  rifle  that  a  more 
rai)iil  effective  discharge  of  missiles  on  the  field  of  battle  was  attained.     Fire- 
arms  ilid  not  come  into  general  use  in  war  until  after  the  battle  of  I'avia,  in/»^^ 
15J5.     On  that  occasion   Charles  V.  employed  a  large    number  of  muskets 
(M)  called  from  the  name  of  the  person  who  first  attached  the  ramrod  an9 
liarrel  to  the  wooden  stock).     His  bullets  ])ierced   the   best   armir  of  the 
kiiii,'lits  of  France,  which  the  arquebuse  had  not  done  ;  and  Francis  I.  sent 
olf  iiis  famous  message,  "  .All  lost,  save  honor."     That  battle  revolutionized 
the  art  of  war.     The  use  of  the  lance,  the  bow  and  arrow,  and  of  heavy 
armor,  was  discontinued  after  that  in  lOurope  by  successive  decrees  ;  and  in 
a  iuindred  years  the  ancient  trappings  of  chivalry  had  passed  off  the  stage 
forever. 

Ihe  flint-lock  musket  was  invented  in  France  in  167 1  :   it  was  called  the  ^,0- 
fusil,  from  the  steel  which  struck  down  sparks  into  the  priming-pan.     The 
Knglish  adopted  this  weapon  in  1686.     It  weighed  nine  pounds  runt-iock 
anil  a  half,  and  was  fired  from  the  shoulder.     The  bullet,  which  ">"»''«»• 
weighed  three  ounces  in  the  arquebuse,  was  diminished  now  to  an  ounce. 

In  the  days  of  the  early  settlement  of  the  United  States  the  weapon  in 
u>e  in  this  country  was  the  rifle.     It  had  been  invented  for  a  long  period, 
iiaving   made  its  appearance  in  the  target-matches  at  Leipsic  as 
eady  as  1498 ;  but  it  had  never  been  used  in  the  armies,  owing  to 


Rifle. 


the  length  of  time  it  took  to  load  it.  The  rifle  was  the  sportsmen's  arm,  and 
was  their  familiar  weapon  for  three  hundred  years.  America  first  brought 
the  rifle  into  military  use.     The  early  colonists  were  all  armed  with  the  rifle. 


It'rr^ 


^ 


354 


INDUSTRIAL    ///STORY 


Colonliti. 


They  were  dependent,  to  a  certain  extent,  upon  their  fire-arms  for  their  sub- 
sistence. Ik'lore  the  land  was  brought  under  cultivation,  their  tablis  were 
supplied  chielly  from  the  woods,  whi(  h  swarmed  witii  game  of  all  tlcscriiitimis' 
and,  after  the  soil  had  been  subdued  and  tilled,  they  still  continued  u>  lumt 
both  for  pleasure  and  the  benefit  of  their  tables,  and  also  from  the  absohiti'  ne- 
cessity of  diminishing  the  nimiber  of  squirrels,  deer,  raccoons,  and  bears,  which 
depredateil  upon  their  corn  and  wheat  and  other  crops.  Organized  hiiiiting. 
expeditions,  called  "  drives,"  to  kill  off  all  tlie  game  in  some  special  tract  of 
country,  and  to  meet  the  armies  of  squirrels  which  migrated  from  plai  c  to 
place,  were  of  constant  occurrence.  Now,  powder  and  shot  were  cosily 
articles  in  those  days,  and  the  colonists  coulil  not  afford  to  throw  them  aw.iy : 
they  conse(iuently  preferred  the  best  and  most  accurate  weapon,  on  tlijs 
account  alone,  if  on  no  other ;  and  the  rifle,  accordingly,  was  their  familiar 
and  favorite  fire-arm.  They  became  as  accustomed  to  it  as  to  the  axe.  When 
inilcpendence  was  declared,  the  colonists  were  illy  proviiled  with 
military  weapons ;  but  they  had  their  rifles,  and  they  used  them 
in  the  battles  of  the  Revolution  with  a  deadly  effect  which  has  become 
historic.  Some  of  the  fields  of  that  war  were  won  by  the  use  of  the  rill'.- 
alone.  The  slaughter  inflictetl  upon  the  soldiers  of  King  (leorge  in  the 
Revolution  was  doubtless  principally  due  to  the  marksmanship  of  the  .American 
pioneers,  and  not  so  much  to  the  weapon ;  but  the  weapon  got  the  credit 
of  it  chiefly ;  and  England,  in  1 794,  adopted  it  as  a  part  of  her  national 
armament. 

In  that  respect  Kngland  went  a  step  farther  than  the  United  States.  The 
rifle  was  not  the  official  arm  here  :  the  government  preferred  the  smooth  hore 
Napcieon  '"''  ^'^'-'  ^''"ly-  Napolcon  scoutcd  the  rifle,  because  he  coiilil  not 
icouted  the  obtain  a  rapid  fire  with  it.  'I'he  same  idea  prevailed  here  ;  and, 
*'  ''  while  the  rifle  remained  the  weapon  of  the  people,  it  was  not  at 

once  adopted  by  the  government.  The  objection  was  this,  —  that,  in  order  to 
make  the  bullet  fit  the  rifling  of  the  gun,  it  had  to  be  forced  into  the  gun  under 
pressure,  and  time  and  labor  were  consumed  in  ramming  the  ball  home.  In 
HaU'iinven-  1813  Hall  proposed  a  new  idea.  He  suggested  that  the  rifle  be 
*'"'"•  loaded  at  the  breech  ;  so  that  the  ball  and  powder,  united  in  one 

cartridge,  might  be  inserted  without  delay  and  trouble,  and  the  jiiece  loaded 
and  fired  as  rapidly  as  the  muzzle-loading  smooth  bore,  and  all  the  advantaj^es 
of  the  two  styles  of  weapons  be  thus  secured.  Hall  also  proposed  to  nianufar- 
ture  the  locks  and  other  pieces  of  the  guns  by  machinery,  so  as  to  make  the 
parts  of  the  different  guns  interchangeable.  He  was  employed  at  the  govern- 
ment armory  at  Harper's  Ferry  to  introduce  the  latter  idea,  an<l  experiment 
with  the  former.  The  "  interchangeable  "  system  of  manufacture  promised  a 
reduction  of  expenses,  and  that  was  accordingly  pressed  first ;  and  it  was 
V  soon  introduced  to  all  the  a.mories  of  the  United  States.  In  1827  a  hundred 
of  Hall's  guns,  which  had  been  sent  to  Springfield  in  1824,  were  brought  back 


Oh    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


255 


(()  Ilirper's  Ferry,  and  placed  with  a  hundred  giins  of  current  make.  The 
wliiiK'  two  hundred  were  taken  apart,  the  pieces  tlioroiiglily  uiin^'Icd,  and  the 
mills  tiien  remounted  from  pieces  picked  up  at  random,  i'he  wiiole  two 
hundred  fitted  perfectly.  I'his  method  of  manufacture  reduced  tlie  cost  onc- 
h.ilt'.  It  attracted  attention  aljroad,  and  Knj^lanil  afterward  obtained  machine- 
ry 111  tlie  United  States  to  introduce  the  system  to  iier  fat  tory  at  Knfield, 
I'ridi-  to  1853,  every  gun  made  in   luiglanil  was  manufactured  by       .  )l^  )lC^ 

hiiivi.     America  had  thus  already  ^;ivcn  two  ideas  to  the  world,  — 
the  \.ilue  of  the  ride,  and  a  new  system  of  manufacture.     The  latter  was  of 
jmiiu'iliate  benefit.     If  war  and  armies  were  inevitable,  and  the  people  had  to 
pay  lor  them,  the  cost  of  weapons  might  at  any  rate  be  reiluced  ;  and  Yankee 
invention  showed  one  imjjortant  way  to  do  it. 

The  percussion-cap  was  proposed  by  Shaw  of  Bordentown  in  1S17. 

Hall's  idea  of  a  breech-loading  rifle  did  not  .".'.tract  much  attention  first 
in  tlie  Ihiited  St.ates.     Ploughshares  and  railroads  were  of  more  importance 
iicre  than  m.nchincs  to  kill  off  regiments  of  men  in  the  shortest  Experimentt 
possilile  sp.ace  of  time.      France  and  (Jermany  began  to  experi-  o*  Fri.nco 
mcnt   with    breech-loaders ;    but    this    insouciant,   good-natured   „,ny  ^'^^ 
R'lniiilic  at  that  time  h.nd  other  things  to  attend  to,  and  paid  so   breech-ioad- 
little  attention  to  arms,  th.at,  when  it  went  to  war  with  Mexico  in  *"' 
1S47,  it  absolutely  h.id  to  send  out  troops  armed  chiefly  with  ancient  flint-   ^^- 
ioek  smooth  bores.      A  few  rifles,  and  a  few  of  Hall's  breech-loading  car- 
bines, were  put  into  the  hands  of  the  mounted  men  ;   but  the  army  carried 
flint-locks,  with  a  few  percussion  smooth  bores  of  recent  m.ikc  only. 

The  principal  weapon  of  a  new  type  brought  out  in  the  Mexican  war  was 
,1  imrcly  American  invention,  which  h.is  not  yet  been  mentioned  ;  namely,  the 
rejieater.     Samuel  C^olt,  a  seaman,  while  on  a  voy.ige  to  Calcutta  ./'^^ 

in  1829,  devised  a  six-barrelled  revolver  to  be  used  with  percus-  ^^ 

sion-cips.     In    1835   he  improved  upon  this,  and  perfected  a  six-barrelled    l^-^"' 
rotating  breech,  the  bullets  all  nLiking  their  exit  therefrom  through  a  single 
lon^'  l)arrel,  as  in  the  modern  revolver.     There  is  proof  that  the  idea  of  a  gun 
whicii  should  have  a  chambered  breech,  so  as  to  admit  of  discharge  several 
times  without  reloading,  was  th     ght  of  in  antitjuity  ;  but  such  a  piece  w.as 
impossible  until  after  the  invenlioi,  of  the  American  percussion-cap,  .and  the 
idea  was  never  utilized  until  Samuel  Colt  m.ifle  his  model  on  board  ship  on 
the  long  voyage  to  Calcutta.    Patents  were  issued  in  I'2ngland,  France,  and  the  ^- 
I'nited  States  ;  and  the  manufLicture  of  revolvers  was  carried  on  a  short  time 
.ifter  1835  at  Paterson,  N.J.     The  first  use  of  the  new  we.ipon  w.is  in  1S37,    i — 
when  Lieut.-Col.  Harney  employed  a  number  of  Colt's  carbines  in  fighting 
Indians,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  latter,  who  did  not  understand  how 
.1  soldier  could  fire  six  times  without  reloading.     A   thousand  of  them  were 
used  in  the  Mexican  war.     Colt's  idea  was  a  valuable  one ;  but  he  secured  no 
important  sale  of  his  weapons  in  this  country  until  the  discovery  of  gold  in 


!? 


1 


I 


•  1 


256 


IND  L  'S  J  'KJA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


f 


CCFT  of  Colt 

revolvers. 


'^)  *  i ' 


m  "% 


California  and  Australia.  'I'lie  rush  to  those  regions,  and  the  necessity  of 
Great  sue-  0"'"^  '"^'^  ^'''^  "'-'^^  country  armed,  created  an  extraordinary 
demand  for  ('olt's  revolvers.  Colt  was  overwhelmed  with  uhIlts, 
and  soon  decided  to  build  an  immense  factory  at  Hartford,  Conn., 
to  supply  the  demand  for  his  weapons.     He  put  up  buildings  which  cost  a 

million  dollars,  and  in   1858 
was  turning  out  sixtv  thou- 
sand weapons  a  year.      The 
World's   Fair  at   London,  in 
1851,  first  introduced  tiic  re- 
volving fire-arm  to  the  special 
notice  of  Europe.    Colt  inadf 
a  large  display  of   wea])ons 
there,  and  no  feature  of  tlie 
fair  excited  such  lively  interest 
among   military   men.      I  he 
I  )uke     of     Wellington     was 
(onstandy   in    the    .American 
department,    examining    tlie 
:     weapons  ;  and  Colt  was  in- 
2"     vited  to  read\T  pai)er  Ijcforc 
g     the   Institute   of  Civil   Mnj,'!- 
;     neers  on   the  subject  of  his 
-;"     arms.        The    revolvers    and 
S     carbines   were    subjected   to 
'■     all  sorts  of  tests,  and  endured 

j     them  all   successfully.      The 

!'l''<\jri|/.  jpSSM^lP^^H^^^M^^R  result  was,  that  they  secured 

a  large  sale  in  l^urope.  'i'hey 
were  used  in  the  Crimea,  and 
byCiaribaldi  in  Italy;  and.  in 
fact,  the  i)istols  found  theii 
way  into  every  army  in  tiial 
])art  of  the  world.  Colt  used 
the  interchangeable  system  of 
manufacture,  and  never  put 
any  thing  except  the  iiest 
cast  steel  into  the  barrels  and 
working-parts  of  his  arms. 
His  success  was  enormous. 
The  unusual  demand  for 
portable  fire-arms  caused  by  tlie  settlement  of  the  'I'erritories  was  sujiplo 
niented  by  large  orders  from  the  Sautliern  States,  where  the  revolver  became 


[lit 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


257 


a  popular  weapon.     The  large  sales  brought  other  manufacturers  upon  the 
scene ;   and  the  Allen,  Derringer,  Volcano,    Pettinger,  Whitney,   ^^^  ^^  ^^ 
Smitli  and  Wesson,  Lovell,  R'J^rtus,  and  other  revolvers,  were  voiversin 
introduced  to  the  public,  one  after  the  other,  and  have  all  had  a  Southern 
large  distribution.     They  are  made  of  a  wide  variety  of  i)atterns, 
from  tiic  iieavy  navy  revolver,  firing  a  half-ounce  bullet,  to  the  diminutive 
vcsl-i)ocket  piece,  with  scarce 
|)0\viT  enough  to  penetrate  a 
man's  clothing.    Suiletl  to  all 
tastes,  and  a  convenient 
means  of  jjrotcction  to  trav- 
ellers or  to  residents  in  large 
cities  from  the  lawless  (-lasses, 
they  arc  purcliased  in  large 
numbers  annually  by  people 
in  all  ranks  of  life.     Of  late 
a  passion  has  been  manifest- 
ed among   young  men  and 
hoys  to  own  one   of  tliese 
weapons,  wliicli.  though  ab- 
surd in  the  extreme,  has  ex- 
erted n  material  effect  u])on 
the  sales  of  the  manufactur- 
ers of  arms. 

Hall's  breech  -  loading 
weajions  never  came  into 
general  use.  His  idea  was 
valuable  ;  but  he  could  not 
give  it  practical  form,  Prus- 
sia   preceded    the    Ignited 

States,  therefore,  in  getting  a  breech-loader  into  tlie  hands 
of  its  army.  Dreyse  had  perfected  a  breech-  pruggi^n  in- 
loading  gun  in  1836,  in  which  a  long  slug-like  ventions  and 
Inillet  was  discharged  through  a  rincd  barrel  "?"""«"«»• 
by  means  of  a  cartridge  done  up  in  ])aper,  and  containing 
a  fulminate  at  its  base  ;  the  fulminate  being  exploded  by 
the  shock  of  a  blunt  needle  entering  through  a  small  hole 
in  the  breech- plate.  In  1841  Prussia  put  sixty  thousand 
ol  these  rifles  with  cast-steel  barrels  into  tiic  hands  of  her  army,  one  hun- 
dred men  in  each  battalion  being  ec]uij)pod  with  them.  In  1848  they 
were  distributed  to  the  whole  army.  The  king  called  them  in  his  decree 
"a  sjiecial  dispensation  of  Providencv  lor  the  strengthening  of  our  nati(uial 
resources,"  and  expressed  the  hope  "  that  the  system  may  be  kei)t  secret  until 


P 


'.rh.fr 


»■ 


1  !: 


y 


258 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  great  part  which  it  is  destined  to  play  in  history  may  couple  it  witli  the 

glory  of  Prussian  arms  and  the  extension  of  empire."     The  defeat  of  the 

Austrians  at  Sadowa  in  1866  gave  the  needle-gini  a  great  celcbritv 

Needle-gun.  i    •     i  i      n     i  ,-     t  ** 

and  induced  all  the  governments  of  the  world  to  change  tlieir 
muzzle-loaders  and  smooth  bores  for  a  more  modern  style  of  weapon.  A 
better  gun  than  the  ZUndnadelgewehr  of  Prussia  had,  however,  l^en  imontcd 
in  the  United  States  in  1852  by  Sharp  of  Philadelphia.  The  breech-pin  in 
Sharp's  this  weapon  was  jnilled  down  below  the  barrel  by  using  the  trigger- 

weapon.  '  guard  as  a  lever,  leaving  the  barrel  open  .it  the  breech.  The  hall- 
cartridge  being  inserted,  the  breech-jMn  was  thrown  back  to  its  place  by  dosing 
the  trigger-guard  to  its  i)lace.  The  sharp  upper  edge  of  the  breech-pin  cut 
off  the  pa])er  end  of  the  cartridge,  thus  leaving  tlie  powder  in  the  now  closed 
barrel  exposed  to  the  fire  from  the  percussion-cap.     'I'he  cap  used  was  not  the 


SlIAKl'S    HIFI.E    (.O.Ml'ANV,    BKIIX.I  I'UKT,    CONN. 


ordinary  thimble  cap,  but  was  the  Maynanl  prinuT.  in  whii  h  twenty  or  thirtv 
caps  were  arranged  along  a  small  strij)  of  paper  or  leather.  The  strip  was 
coiled  up  like  a  watch-spring  in  the  lo(  k  ;  and,  each  time  tf.e  piece  was  cocked, 
a  cap  came  forward  and  rested  upon  the  nipple,  thus  simplifying  and  shorten- 
ing the  whole  ojjeration.  The  Sharp's  rifle  was  an  cxceeilingiy  powerful  :nid 
efficient  weapon  :  it  speedily  became  a  favorite  with  sportsmen,  es]ie(  ially 
upon  the  plains,  where  it  freijuently  brought  down  an  antelope  at  the  distance 
of  a  mile.  Mr.  Sharp  hns  iu.;!  givat  success  with  his  rifle.  The  I'nited  State^ 
and  iMiglish  (lovernments  ordered  a  large  nunibei  for  the  use  of  their  armies, 
and  the  weapon  received  the  approval  of  military  men  in  se-.eral 

Successof  it.        ..,,,.  .    ,  I  ■'   I  ,-        ,  ,- 

of  the  leading  nations.  .'\  large  estalMisnment  for  the  manulai  lure 
w.is  erected  at  Bridgeport,  Conn.,  and  is  still  one  of  the  leading  Aiiicriian  I  u- 
tories  in  this  department   of  industry.     Its  rifles  and  pistols  appcBlr  rcgulariy  at 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES.  259 

all  the  world's  fairs,  and  occupy  an  important  place  in  all  competitions.  The 
rifle  has  been  improved  of  late  by  the  use  of  the  metallic  rim  fire  cartridge, 
thus  dispensing  with  the  use  of  percussion-caps,  and  still  further  simplifying 
the  weapon.     The  rifle  is  good  for  twelve  effective  shots  in  fifty  seconds. 

The  muzzle-loading  rifle  was  adopted  by  the  United  States  in  1855.  It 
was  called  the  "  Springfield  musket."  from  the  armory  at  which  it  was  brought 
out.  It  was  ten  pounds  in  weight,  iiad  a  caliber  of  .58  of  an  inch,  Springfield 
and  ( arried  a  ball  weighing  five  hundred  grains.  It  was  almost  as  '""s'tet. 
efficient  a  piece  as  the  Prussian  needle-gun,  from  the  fact  that  the  ball  used  was 
tiie  hollow-base  Minic  bullet,  which  could  be  loaded  at  the  muzzle  almost  as 
rapidly  as  the  needle-gun  at  the  breech  ;  and  it  had  a  range  of  two  thousand 
vards,  tiie  smooth  bores  iloing  execution  at  no  greater  distance  than  twelve 
hundred.  Tills  was  the  musket  with  which  the  Northern  army  were  chiefly 
sui)i)lietl  during  the  war  oi  1861.  That  war,  however,  gave  an  immense 
impetus  to  the  invention  and  improvement  of  fire-arms  in  America.  A  great 
nianv  new  ideas  were  brought  forward  in  breech-loaders  and  repeating-rifles. 
The  government  encouraged  invention  by  large  orders  to  private  factories,  and 
sui)i)lie(l  its  troops  as  fast  as  it  could  with  such  of  the  more  modern  styles  of 
giuis  as  were  apinoved  by  proper  military  authority.  The  end  of  the  war  found 
tlie  niuzzle-loadgf  virtually  superseded  forever.  Since  then,  nothing  Muzzle  load- 
exce|)t  breech-roaders  hue  been  issued  either  to  the  army  or  the  ersgoneby. 
militia.  Tiie  part  borne  by  different  styles  of  weapons  in  the  war  may  be 
seen  from  the  following  statement,  prepared  by  the  ordnance  tlepartment  of 
the  army  :  — 

limooth  bores 463,381 

JIuz/.le-loading  rifles,  United-States  pattern       ....  1,615,346 

Plii/zlc-loacling  rifles,  foreifjn 1,055,862 

I  ilios,  brceth-loacling  and  repeating 32,048 

li.cech-ioaiiing  carbines 398,251 

Revolvers 376.751 

i'istols,  muzzle-loading -I.951 

I'Ik  total  was  3,966,590,  of  which  1,158,907  were  lost  and  used  up  in  the  war. 

So    much   was    invention    stimulated    'ly  the    war,    that,    at    the    com- 
petition of  1869,  a  board  of  army-officers  ''xamined  thirty-four  invention 
different  varieties  of  breech-loading  muskets,   eight  of  carbines,   «timuiated 
Mv\  eight  of  pistols,  »'y  *"• 

The  new  inventions  were  all  the  product  of  private  factories.     These  estab- 
liViiments,  scattered  about  the  country,  but  principally  located  in 
New  I'lngland   and    New  York,  where   mechanical   ingenuity  had   JJo^',he'"' 
received    its   higlicst   development,  were  many  of  them  of  prior  product  of 
origin,  and  had  been  engaged  in  making  sporting-rifles,  shot-guns,   p"^'"^" 
and  ])istols.     When  the  war  broke  out,  they  simply  Uu-ned  their 
attention  to  military  weapons.      Others  of  the  number  came  into  being  with 


L 


m  • 


■     II,    'if,  I 


m    :■( 


',-  ■ht.jiU- 1, 


TTT'^f; 


•':  '      jit.  «    ','■' 


260 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  war.  They  have  all  continued  to  manufacture  both  military  and  s])onin!' 
arms  since  the  restoration  of  peace,  and  find  a  large  sale  in  supplyini;  the 
new  armament  of  the  militia  of  the  several  States  and  the  armies  of  other 
parts  of  the  world.  They  take  part  in  all  the  rifle-competitions  in  Europe. 
and  crowd  every  world's  fair.  Prior  to  1861  the  reputation  of  the  United 
States  for  small-arms  was  sustained  principally  by  Colt,  Sharp,  and  i;ii 
Whitney.  At  the  World's  Fair  of  1873,  where  the  leading  American  !lic- 
tories  were  all  represented,  nineteen  concerns  were  represented,  all  of  tiiem 
furnishing  highly  creditable  productions. 

The  first  of  the  new  class  of  rifles  to  come  into  notice  was  the  SiiuiKcr. 
This  remarkable  weapon  is  a  strong  and  serviceable  piece,  loading  at  tlie 
Spencer  breech,  and  holding  a  magazine  of  seven  cartridges  in  the  stock, 

rifle.  which   are   thrown    forward,  one   nt    a  time,  by  a   coiled   spring, 

when  tlie  breech  is  opened  to  receive  a  new  charge.  Tiio  lireechpin  is 
moved  down  below  the  barrel  by  the  guard-lever,  the  empty  copper  slu !!  - 1 
the  cartridge  last  fired  being  thrown  out  by  a  litUe  catch  in  the  ojVKaion, 
and  a  new  cartridge  then  thrown  forward  into  place  from  tlie  magazine.  A 
fair  marksman  can  discharge  the  seven  shots  witn  accuracy  in  twelve  seconds 
and  then  refill  the  magazine  from  his  cartridge-box  in  about  half  the  ti'  ic  i. 
wotdd  take  to  ram  and  cap  a  muzzle-loading  musket.  The  gnp  can  le  used 
as  a  single-loader  by  a  very  simple  arran"  nent,  which  prevents  a.  cartridge 
from  coming  up  from  the  magazine.  S !  t:  soldier  thus  can  load  frosn  his 
cartridge-box,  and  keep  the  magazine  in  re;.;rv  •  ;";it  ,'  .'-ritical  moment,  i'he 
Spencer  is  a  needle-gun,  the  firinj.  j  'n  lx'ir,.i;  in  the  !,ri;erhl)lock,  and  bting 
struck  by  a  hammer,  as  in  tiie  ordinary  rifle.  l!  pciiormances  at  Vienna,  at 
the  comi)etition  of  1866,  excited  wonder      The  magazine  principle  has  been 

applied  to  other  Americuin  guns,  prominently  to  the  Winchester. 

in  which  the  magazine  occupies  the  jjlace  of  the  ramrod.  l)el()w 
the  l)arrel,  and,  being  a  very  long  one,  enal)les  the  marksman  to  fire  twenty 
shots  without  reloading.  The  Winchester  rifle  is  admired  in  Kurope,  and  has 
been  sold  in  immense  quantity  to  the  Turkish  Government.  It  was  largely 
used  in  the  late  war  with  Russia. 

The  Snider  rifle  is  better  known  abroad  than  in  America ;  but  it  is  one  of 
the  recent  American  inventions,  and  loads  at  the  breech  upon  an  entirely 
navel  ^,-inciple.  The  breech-plate  is  fixed  in  the  gun  solidly;  but  between  it 
an.l  the  clKi.:v,)er  there  is  a  space  tlie  length  of  the  cartridge,  into  which  a 
solid  bolt  is  fitted  to  close  the  chamber,  and  transmit  the  recoil  to  the  hreeeh- 
j)!.:re.  Th's  bolt  swing"?  upwr  d,  and  over  to  the  right,  upon  a  hinge,  wlicii 
•'  gnn  'n  l)2ing  lo  .ded,  s^)  as  to  leave  an  open  space  in  rear  of  the  chamlier 
lof  lakiu;/  out  the  old  c.irtridge,  and  putting  in  the  new.  This  style  of  brcoc  li- 
i  lai'.-  ■  ns  b'^en  very  wel!  liked  in  Europe.  Dahlgren  gave  it  great  praise. 
Engb^^rl  ipyjlieri  it  to  her  Enfield,  Whitworth,  Lancaster,  and  other  rifles; 
arid    'iC  1/  'tch  and  other  governments  have  used  large  (juantities  of  arms 


Winchester. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


261 


Remington. 


with  the  Snider  breech.  The  Snider- F^nfield  has  had  astonishing  success  at 
the  Wimbledon  matches  in  England.  England  converted  several  hundred 
thousand  of  her  Enfields  to  the  Snider  system.  The  peculiar  snider- 
])rinci|)ie  on  which  this  gon  is  made  is  now  a  favorite  with  Ameri-  Enfieids. 
(an  makers  of  breech-loading  shot-guns.  It  is  one  of  the  two  leading  meth- 
ods in  use  for  that  class  of  fire-arms ;  the  other  being  the  system  of  unhook- 
iii!,'  tlic  rear  of  the  barrel,  and  letting  the  barrel  swing  vertically  on  a  pivot, 
so  as  to  bring  the  chambers  up  to  view  above  the  breech-plate,  and  then,  after 
loading,  bringing  the  barrels  to  their  place  again,  and  locking  them  with  a 
spriii!,'  catch. 

Various  other  .'\merican  rifles  have  at  different  times  occupied  attention 
at  ilie  competitive  trials  in  Europe,  including  the  Berdan,  I'eabody,  Ham- 
mond, Maynard,  Joslyn,  Sharp,  and  Remington,  but  none,  per- 
ha|)s,  to  so  great  an  extent  as  the  Remington.  This  gun  is  the 
|iro(iuct  of  a  factory  at  Ilion,  N.Y.,  which  was  founded  in  1825  by  Eliphalet 
Remington,  a  young  mechanic  who  had  been  making  gun-barrels  in  Herki- 
mer County,  New  York,  with  some  success  for  several  years,  and  who,  in 
1S25,  moved  to  Ilion,  and  started  a  gun-factory.  This  establishment  grew  by 
successive  enlargements  until  it  represents  to-day  an  investment  of  at  least 
three  million  dollars  in  machinery,  buildings,  and  stock.  Mr.  Remington  took 
his  two  sons  into  i)artnership,  and  has  devoted  his  factory  to  the  manufacture 
hotli  of  arms  and  various  other  inventions,  a  sewing-machine  and  a  mowing- 
maciune  being  among  them.  The  breech-loading  rifle  invented  at  this  factory 
has  tiie  simplest,  strongest,  and  best  mechanism  at  the  breech  ever  yet  dis- 
covered. When  the  hammer  is  cocked,  the  breech-pin  swings  upon  a  heavy 
pivot  down  into  the  lock,  opening  the  breech  for  the  cartridge,  and  jjul'.ing 
out  the  old  shell.  The  breech-plate  is  then  swung  up  by  the  thumb  to  its 
place,  and  the  trigger  pulled.  Though  the  breech-})late  is  entirely  unsupported 
wlien  the  hammer  is  set  free,  yet  the  heavy  shank  of  the  hammt  r  j)resents  a 
solid  shoulder  to  the  plate  in  its  descent ;  and,  before  the  hammtr  reaches  the 
liring-pin,  the  plate  is  lock  'd  firmly  in  its  place.  Tlie  shock  of  the  recoil  is 
transmitted  to  the  shoulder  presented  iiy  the  hanuner,  and  is  sustained  by  the 
heavy  pivot  on  which  the  hammer  works  bac^  and  forth.  Nothing  so  simple 
ami  scientific  has  ever  been  invented.  This  gun  is  in  every  way  the  superior 
of  the  Prussian  needle-gun.  The  latter  is  easily  disabled  by  moisture  and 
dust  ;  whereas  the  Remington  will  work  perfectly  while  entirely  coated  with 
rust  (breech-plate  and  all),  and  covered  with  dust.  One  of  the  guns  at  Vienna 
in  1 806,  chosen  at  random,  was  tested  by  firing  two  thousand  rounds.  It  was 
left  out  on  the  ground  over  night  ;  water  was  poured  into  it,  and  it  was  left 
wet ;  the  wiiole  breet  h  was  covered  with  road-dust,  and  then  roughly  shaken 
out ;  and  the  gun  was  fired  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  trial  without  clean- 
ing. It  went  through  the  whole  test  perfectly,  the  only  trouble  occurring 
at  any  time  being  caused  by  sand  which  had  got  between  the  spring  and  the 


J' 


w.i 


ra^iv,. 


iafr 


III' 


■ 


262 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


hammer,  making  it  difficult  to  get  the  hammer  at  full  cock.  Those  few  grains 
of  sand  were  taken  out,  and  the  gim  was  put  to  work  again  without  further 
cleaning  of  the  breech.  The  average  speed  of  the  gun  was  thirteen  rounds 
a  minute.  The  gun  has  excited  the  greatest  admiration  throughout  the  world 
since  that  time.  It  has  been  adopted  by  the  United  States,  England,  Sjiain, 
Denmark,  Sweden,  and  other  governments,  and  is  probably  the  most  effec- 
tive single-loading  arm  of  the  present  day.  It  is  the  principal  style  of  ritlL- 
which  is  being  put  into  tiie  hands  of  the  militia  of  the  several  States  of  tjijs 
republic.  Its  accuracy  is  so  great,  that  it  has  enabled  American  riflemen  t(j 
Great  sue-  ^'"  ^^  great  matches  of  DoUymount  in  1876,  and  Creedmoor 
cesBof  this  in  1 877,  against  the  best  shots  of  (Ireat  Britain.  Fulton  prefers 
weapon.  ^^^  muzzle-loading  Remington,  and  with  it  made  a  score  of  171 

out  of  a  possible  180  at  the  800,  900,  and  1,000  yard  ranges  at  Creedmoor 
in  1874  ;  which  is  the  highest  ever  known. 

The  Peabod}  rifle,  with  a  breech-plate  dropping  below  the  barrel,  o])erate(l 
by  the  guard-lever,  is  also  a  good  gun.  A  i)art  of  the  Turkish  troops  were 
armed  with  it  in  the  late  war. 

The  barrels  of  American  small-arms  are  genert'y  made  of  wrought  iron, 
chosen  with  reference  to  its  toughness  and  tenacity  ;  tliough  of  late  years 
makers  have  begun  to  use  steel  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  in  combination  with 
iron.  At  one  time  bars  made  from  old  horseshoe  nails  were  largely  used,  and 
the  "stub  and  twist"  barrels  were  <  onsidered  the  toughest  and  best  in  the 
market ;  but  they  have  been  superseded  by  later  ideas  in  laminated  iron  and 
steel.  For  revolvers,  cast-steel  alone  is  used  for  the  chambers  and  barrels.  In 
gun-making,  the  bars  which  are  to  compose  the  barrels  are  heated  to  a  white- 
heat,  their  edges  fi^st  having  been  bevelled,  and  are  then  bent  by  machinery 
into  a  barrel,  the  ed{.":s  being  carefully  welded  either  by  machinery  or  by 
hand.  The  barrels  are  then  straiglitened  by  machinery.  Sometimes  the  bar 
is  the  length  of  the  barrel  which  it  is  to  make  ;  hut  often  it  is  only  one-third 
the  length,  and  is  drawn  out  in  welding.  The  locks,  springs,  sights,  and  other 
small  mtial  parts  of  the  gun,  are  stamped,  bored,  and  shaped  by  madiinery. 
There  are  often  eighty  different  jjieces  in  the  construction  of  the  piece,  besides 
the  stock  and  barrel.  The  production  of  all  of  these  by  machines  s])e(  ially 
adapted  to  the  purpose  has  brought  about  an  immense  reduction  in  the  (ost 
of  manufacture,  and  has  added  materially  to  the  resources  of  the  rei)ul)lir 
by  insuring  a  speedy  supply  of  weapons  whenever  wanted.  This  system  of 
forging  small-a'ms  with  swages  and  die:i,  and  of  finishing  them  with  null 
ing  machines,  was  first  brought  to  success  a  the  governnifm  armories  of 
the  United  States ;  but  it  has  since  iound  its  way  into  all  the  urivat  • 
factories. 

In  the  manufacture  <i\  cannon  the  United  States  has  not   n  1  u- 

pied  so  distinguished  a  position  as  in  referent  e  lo  small-arm      but 

its  artillery  has  always  been  of  a  good  quality.     The  cannon  made  <lunnu  tiif 


Revolution  were 
ships.    A  numb 
parts  of  the  coui 
land,  whence  th 
the  country.     Tl 
but  were  mostly 
majority  of  facto 
The  factories  wt 
during  the  Revol 
ronsidering  the  s 
tion,  plain  and  ui 
the  splendidly-dc 
The  gun  present 
Virginia,  and  nov 
iiisly.  "  Ultima  I 
perfection  of  the 
mcnt  touched  an 
well  as  in  |)eace. 
bound  with  hoopi 
In  the  war  of 
of  native   manuf; 
out  ships  to  cruis 
for  long  and  effi( 
founderies  were  s 
(ai)al)le  of  borinj 
a  year.     (>ne  at 
of  Lake  Erie  am 
No  long  gur 
country  :  the  she 
itzer.    In  1814  e 
ed  a  long  gun 
became  a  favorit 
duced  to  the  fo 
imjiortant  resourc 
to  Irance,  and 
The  principle  of 
nations. 

.'Uthough  the 
lions  or  a  navy 
;'a\e  slight  encoi 
iiad  i)een  broug 
1S61,  which  were 
use.      One  was  t 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


263 


Revolution  were  all  of  a  small  size,  adapted  for  field-service  and  for  use  on 
ships.  A  number  of  fountleries  were  employed  in  casting  them  in  different 
parts  of  the  country,  but  ])rincipaily  in  New  Knglanil,  Pennsylvania,  and  Mary- 
land, whence  the  guns  were  distributed  to  the  different  parts  of  cannon  o( 
the  country.  They  ranged  in  size  from  four  to  thirty-two  pounders.  Revolution. 
liut  were  mostly  of  the  smaller  sizes.  A  few  of  then\  were  cast  hollow  ;  but  the 
majority  of  factories  cast  them  solid,  and  bored  out  the  caliber  by  machinery. 
The  factories  were  prolific ;  and  Washington  had  all  the  artillery  he  wanted 
durini;  the  Revolution,  —  more,  at  times,  than  he  could  profitably  use,  in  fact, 
ronsiiiering  the  scarcity  of  powder.  The  guns  were  of  very  simple  construc- 
tion, jilain  and  unornamentcd,  and  in  this  respect  bore  a  marked  contrast  to 
the  splendidly-decorated  pieces  employed  by  our  French  allies  in  that  war. 
The  gun  presented  by  Lafayette,  and  long  owned  by  a  well-known  family  of 
Virginia,  and  now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  at  New  York,  inscribed  humor- 
msly,  "  Ultima  Ratio  Regum,"  and  otheruisc,  is  a  .striking  illustration  of  the 
perfection  of  the  arts  in  France  at  that  day,  and  the  manner  in  which  refi"x 
ment  touched  and  glorified  every  thing  used  by  the  French  people  in  w»ir  a; 
well  as  in  peace.  One  gun  used  in  the  Revolution  was  of  wrought-iron  staves 
bound  with  hoops ;  but  it  attracted  little  attention. 

In  the  war  of  181 2  the  United  States  began  to  use  a  better  style  of  cannon 
of  native  manufacture.  The  government  jjermitted  its  private  citizens  to  fit 
out  ships  to  cruise  against  Phigland's  conmierce,  and  th.erc  was  a  great  demand 
for  long  and  efficient  guns  of  all  calibers  for  use  on  shijiboard.  Some  large 
founderies  were  started  during  this  war.  At  Richmond  three  wen:  estalflished, 
capable  of  boring  the  heaviest  ordnance,  and  of  making  three  hundred  pieces 
a  year.  One  at  Pittsburgh,  Joseph  McClurg's,  made  the  cannon  for  the  battles 
of  Lake  Erie  and  New  Orleans. 

No  long  guns  for  shells  had  been  used  until  the  war  of  1812  in  any 
country :  the  shell  had  only  been  discharged  from  the  mortar  and  the  how- 
itzer.   In  1814  Col.  IJomford  of  the  Ordnance  Department  invent-   „, 

*  First  manu- 

ed  a  long  gun  for  shells,  which  he  called  "  the  Columbiad."     It   f«ctv«re  of 

became  a  favorite  gun  with  military  men  at  once.     It  was  intro-  e""«'<" 

shells. 

duced  to  the  fortifications  and  ships  of  the  United  States  as  an 

important  resource  for  attack  and  defence  ;  antl  (rtjn.  Paixhans  carried  the  idea 

to  [■  ranee,  and  brought  out  the  gim  there  uncu-r  his  own  name. 

The  principle  Kii  a  long  gun  for  shells  wai  adopted  by  ail  military 

nations. 

.•\;though  the  Ussied  States  were  at  pearar.  and  cared  nothing  for  fortifica- 
tions or  a  navy  except  to  insure  protection  to  commerce,  arul  consequently 
f;ave  slight  encouragement  to  the  invention  of  new  implemcDts  of  war,  two  guns 
had  been  brought  out  by  federal  officers,  previous  to  the  war  of 
186 1,  which  were  decided  improvements  on  all  the  cannon  then  in 
uic.      One  was  the  gun,  invented  by  Capt.  Dahlgren  of  the  navy,  for  nine  and 


Paixhans. 


Dahlgren. 


\ 


ii'i 


'%^ 


.2 


264 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


eleven  inch  shells.  It  was  cast  solid,  and  bored  out  by  machinery,  and  in 
shape  was  very  much  like  a  champagne-bottle,  having  a  great  weight  and 
thickness  of  metal  around  the  chamber  of  the  gun,  and  then  rapidly  taptrini' 
away  forward  of  the  trunnions,  exactly  after  the  fashion  of  a  champagne  In Jiilc. 
The  eleven-inch  guns  of  this  pattern  are  a  hundred  and  seven  inches  luiii  in 
th"  bore.  They  were  great  flivorites  during  the  late  war,  and  were  extensively 
enij>ioyed  in  the  operations  along  the  coast  anil  on  the  Western  rivers.  I'iitcen 
and  twenty  inch  guns  have  latterly  been  made  of  Dahlgren's  pattern,  l)ut  are 
cast  hollow,  and  cooled  from  the  interior.  The  idea  of  casting  a  gun  IkjIIow, 
and  cooling  it  by  a  current  of  water  made  to  flow  into  and  out  of  the  bore,  so 
as  to  gain  density  nf  metal  on  the  interior,  is  the  invention  of  Capt.  Rodman 
of  the  Ordnance  Department.    The  pieces  of  heavy  American  ord- 

Rodman.  ,      .       ,  .  ,,     ,       ,        , 

nance  made  m  this  manner  are  called  "  Rodman  guns."  i'lie  gun 
differs  little  from  Dahlgren's  in  shape  ;  but  it  is  generally  considered  mure  beau- 
tiful on  account  of  its  more  flowing  lines.  For  the  same  size  of  ijore  it  is  of 
smaller  size  and  weight,  owing  to  the  strength  gained  by  the  peculiar  uiutiuHl 
of  cooling.  The  largest  cannon  ever  made  in  any  country,  prior  to  1861,  was 
■  a  Rodman  gun  cast  at  the  Fort-Pitt  Foundery  in  Pittsburgh,  and  placed  in  ihc 
works  at  Fortress  Monroe.  It  was  a  sixteen-inch  gun,  with  a  bore  fifteen  feet 
jJeep,  and  weighed  45^999  jiooiaila.  This  style  of  gun  has  been  greatly  admired 
in  Europe.  A  twenty-ton  Rodman,  fifteen-inch  bore,  with  a  shot  of  four  inin- 
dred  and  fil'v  pounds,  was  tried  in  ICngland  shortly  after  our  late  war,  ami 
produced  an  ur.wonted  sensation  there.  England  had  long  been  exi)eriment- 
ing  in  the  direction  of  seven  and  nine  inch  rifled  cannon  ;  but  the  .Xmerican 
fifteen-inch  smooth  bore  did  what  the  best  English  guns  did  not,  and  it  i)ro- 
duced  such  a  terrible  effect  on  the  eight-inch  Wamis  target,  that  Kngiish 
military  men  candidly  confessed  that  the  American  gun  could  certainly  hull 
their  best  ships.  The  twenty-ton  Rodman  was  compared  at  the  exhibition  of 
[■  1867  at  Paris  with  the  forty-ton  French  smooth  bore.  That  was  the  largest 
gun  F"rance  had  ever  made  :  its  bore  was  sixteen  inches  and  a  half,  and  it 
carried  a  shot  of  six  hundred  and  fifty  jjounds.  The  comparison  made  was 
favorable  to  the  Rodman  gun.  Making  all  allowances  for  differences  in  bore, 
&c.,  it  was  held  that  the  Rodman  gun  would  do  the  same  work,  with  twenty 
thousand  jrounds  less  of  metal  consumed  in  the  construction  of  the  gun. 
Rodmans  have  been  made  since  the  war  for  sea  coast  defence,  and  for  iron- 
r    j  —  clads  of  twenty-inch  caliber.     They  weigh  fifty-eight  tons,  and  throw  a  shot 


i^ 


weighing  1,060  pounds.     The  first  twenty-inch  gun  was  made  in  1863. 

The  war  gave  an  impetus  to  invention  in  the  way  of  cannon  as 
it  did  to  the  manufai  ture  of  small-arms.  A  vast  munber  of  guns 
were  recjuired  for  the  different  purposes  of  the  war.  The  most 
extensive  set  of  fortifications  known  in  history  was  thnnvn  uj) 
around  the  city  of  Washington,  and  eight  hundred  and  seven  guns 

and  ninety-eight  mortars  were  reqi;     d  for  its  defence.     There  were  employed 


War  gave 
impetus  to 
improve- 
ment of 
cannon. 


in  the  war,  on  th 
dred  siege-^uns. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


J65 


Parrott. 


in  the  war,  on  the  part  of  the  North,  fifteen  hundred  field-guns  and  twelve  hun- 
dred siege-guns.  The  government,  being  without  the  means  to  produce  these 
rcailily,  depended  largely  upon  private  makers ;  and  iron  founders  and  in- 
ventors, in  turn,  stood  ready  to  supply  the  government  with  a  large  number  of 
new  Ktins,  which  were  conceived  by  them  with  the  first  alarm  of  war.  Three 
of  these  new  guns  proved  of  service,  and  became  i)rominent.  One  was  the 
i'arrott,  a  cast-iron  rifled  gun,  long,  ami  almost  straight,  but 
rccnt'orced  at  the  breech  by  heavy  coils  of  wrought  iron  wound 

arounil  the  piece.    The  first  one  was  cast  in  1861  at  the  West- Point  Koundery. 

During  the  war  they  were  made  of  ail  sizes,  from  the  three-inch  ten-poundoi  for 
t'leki-service  to  a  ten-inch  gun  with  a  three-hundred-pound  shot  for  ship-siege 

and  ( oast-service.     Another  of  the  new  guns  was  tiie  Wiard,  made 

wiard. 
at  Trenton,  N.J.,  of  cast-steel.     This  metal,  us  is  well  known,  is  the 

favorite  with  the  Germans,  who  employ  it  in  small-arms  as  well  as  in  artillery. 
Mr.  Wiard  made  guns  of  this  material  for  the  first  time  in  this  country,  and 
sjcured  large  orders  from  the  government.  He  fitted  out  the  Burnside  expe- 
dition with  very  nearly  its  entire  armament.  The  third  gun  referred  to  above 
was  the  Galling  Battery,  an  automatic  machine-gun.  with  six  steel  barrels. 
Cartridges  are  i^^K  to  the  battery  from  a  hopjjer,  and  are  discharged  l)y  turning 
a  crank.  An  incessant  and  steady  fire  <'an  be  kept  up  with  this  battery,  and 
about  a  hundred  cartridges,  containing  a.iluiuaand  riiissjjes,  disch^rgej)  per  V 
minute.  Its  performance  is  equal  to  that  of  fifty  good  riflemen  armed  with 
hreedi-loaders.  A  hundred  batteries  of  this  gun  were  ordered  by  the  govern- 
ment from  the  Colt's  Fire-.Arms  (/oini)any.  One  of  them,  sent  to  i'aris  in  1  S67, 
was  the  sensation  at  the  Workl's  I'air.  It  has  a  large  sale  abroad  since  that 
time. 

The  best  material  for  large  guns  is  iron  ;  though  whether  in  the  form  of 
last-steel,  cast-iron,  or  wrougiit-iion,  or  a  combination  of  these  several  varieties, 
h  not  yet  decided.  Germany  prefers  cast-steel  for  breech-loaders  :  Best  material 
all  her  guns  are  made  on  that  metal.  Krupp,  the  principal  maker,  'or  guns- 
has  turned  out  several  liiousand  su(  li  field-guns,  and  two  thousand  of  the  six, 
seven,  eight,  nine,  eleven,  twelve,  and  fourteen  incli  guns.  The  latter  are-fifty- 
ton  guns,  costing  a  hundred  and  teji  thousand  dollars  each.  Two  only  have 
been  made.  England  employs  cast-steel  with  wrought-iron  re-enforcement  at 
the  l)reech,  wrought-iron  tubes  with  wrought-iron  coils,  and  cast-iron  ;  and  is 
going  back  to  muzzle-loaders.  France  uses  iron  lubes,  with  steel  rings  at  the 
ureech.  The  whole  question  of  material  may  be  said  to  be  open  at  present, 
and  can  only  be  solved  by  years  of  further  experiment.  Possibly  it  may  never 
l)e  solved :  that  depends  largely  on  the  amount  of  war  in  the  future  of  the 
world.  For  field-guns  the  best  material  is  bronze :  it  is  expensive ;  but  it  is 
1  l)eautiful  metal,  and  very  tenacious. 


I 


%t 


« 


366 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


IRON-WORKING    MACHINERY. 

There  are  those  who  consider  tlie  goUlen  age  of  the  world  to  lie  in  tlic 

future.     They  do  not  look  for  it  in  the  simjjle  times  of  the  past,  in  the  days 

Ooiden  a  e     °*^  ^^^  shepherd's  pipe,  the    stage-coach,  the  sun-dial,  ami  liic 

hand-loom  ;  for,  with  all  their  romance,  those  were  ill-rcgulatcd 

times  in  many  respects,  tyrannical,  disobedient  to  law,  and  ignorant,  with 

poverty  and  deprivation  among  liic  jno- 
pie.  'I'hey  believe  that  the  better  times 
lie  in  the  future,  —  in  an  age  when  man 
shall  have  been  released  from  the  greater 
part  of  the  depressing  muscular  toil  now 
imposed  upon  him  ;  when  there  is  a  more 
general  diffusion  of  education,  comfort, 
and  content  among  the  peoi)le  ;  wlieii  the 
higher  faculties  and  (|ualities  tome  more 
generally  into  play  in  even  tiie  humlilest 
occupations,  and  toil  itself  becomes  a 
])leasure. 

If  ever  there  dawns  for  man  a  golden 
age  of  this  description,  (and  who  will 
deny  its  probability?)  the  change  will 
come  about,  in  i)art,  through  the  larger 
employment  of  machinery,  whereby  man, 
Employ-  instead  of  struggling  with  the 
ment  of        forces  of    Nature  as   of  old, 

machinery,     ^.j^^,,    ^^^^^    ^^^^^    ^^    ,^j^   ^^^^.^^ 

use,  and  compel  them  to  labor  for  him, 
and  shall  thus  throw  off  a  part  of  his 
burden  of  physical  toil,  and  gain  oppor- 
tunity for  cherishing  and  employing  the 
mind.  The  present  century  is  already 
distinguished  by  the  extent  to  whidi  it 
has  utilized  machinery  in  all  the  indus- 
trial arts.  It  is  already  called  the  age 
of  machinery ;  and  orators  and  writers  have  more  than  once  called  atten- 
tion to  the  additional  comfort,  luxury,  and  content  it  has  brought  to  the 
people.  There  seems  no  limit,  however,  to  the  extent  to  which  machinery  can 
be  employed.  A  thousand  new  uses  are  found  for  it  every  year,  and  its 
ameliorating  influences  are  capable  of  being  extended  almost  indefinitely  in 
all  departments  of  labor. 

Development  has  been  the  most  remarkable  in  the  field  of  machinery  for 
the  working  of  iron,  and  especially  in  the  United  States,  where  the  progress 


BREAST   DRILL. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


2(fJ 


has  I'ocn  the  most  sweeping  and  electrifying.     'I'he  high  cost  of  labor  hore, 
and  die  desirability  of  rendering  this  country  independent  of  the  Old  World 
for  its  supplies  of  iron-manufactures,  gave  a  powerful  stimulus  to 
American  invention  in  this  field  of  effort ;    and,  from  the  days  of  ^'^*  °,^ mm- 
the  niil-Miaking  machine  to  the  present,  it  has  been  busily  em-  chinery for 
liloyud  in  devising  means  for  the  fashioning  of  iron-manufactures  l^pn"*'"' 
liy  mac  hinery,  and  dispensing  with   the  old   processes  of  doing 
ilu'  work  by  hand.    The  success  has  been  wontlerful.     Our  factories  and  shops 
arc  lilli'd  iu)\v  with  machinery,  rather  than  with  toiling  human  beings  ;  and  nine- 
tenths  i)f  all  the  old  operations  which  recjuircd  any  particular  expenditure  of 
liiiman  toil  are  now  jjcrformed  by  machinery,  and  better  and  faster  jjerformed 
also.      Tiie   difference   between   an  .American  and  a  foreign  factory  in  this 
aspcc  t  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  Baldwin  Locomotive  Works  with  its 
three  thousand  men  and  the  great  locomotive  works  at  Berlin  with  its  ten 
thousand  men,  the  latter  turning  out  less  work  in  the  year  than  the  former. 
The  (lilTercnce  is  caused  by  the  machinery  of  tlio   Baldwin  Works,     'i'he  same 
(omiiarison  could  be  made  between  an  American  and  a  British  iron  ship-yard. 

i'lic  general  application  of  machinery  to  the  working  of  iron  has  called 
into  existence  a  special  class  of  establishments  devoted  to  the 
making  of  iron-working  tools  and  machinery,  adding  a  re- 
ciifori  ement  of  about  fifteen  hundred  shops  to   jrgj.,o,jg,  ,„, 
the  thousands  of  those  devoted  to  the   manu-    making  iron- 
facture  of  iron  and  steel  for  the  ordinary  pur-   ^"''•'"k 
|K)ses  of  life.     These  fifteen  hundred  shops  em- 
ploy about  a  hundred  thousand  men.     Many  of  them  are, 
in  part,  founderies,  and  carry  on  the  manufacture  of  general 
inadiinery ;  but  they  all  make  iron-working  tools  and  ma- 
( hines  as  a  regular  feature  of  their  business. 

In  general,  iron-working  machinery  may  be  classified 
iiniler  the  following  heads,  —  turning-lathes,  borers,  drills, 
planes,  shears,  rolls,  hammers,  dies,  punches  for  making 
lioles,  screw  and  bolt  cutters,  riveting  and  welding  machines, 
cranes,  grooving,  slotting,  and  milling  machines,  and  polish- 
ers. I'he  variety  of  forms  under  each  of  the  above  heads 
is  infinite.  Obviously,  the  metal  parts  which  go  to  make  up 
a  watch,  and  those  which  enter  into  a  locomotive,  a  steam- 
engine,  or  an  iron  ship,  must  differ  in  extraordinary  re- 
spects ;  and  these  differences  in  the  size,  purpose,  and  strength  of  the  thou- 
sand objects  into  which  iron  and  steel  are  fashioned,  and  the  complexity 
of  the  i)arts  which  sometimes  go  to  make  up  single  inventions,  give  rise  to  an 
extraordinary  variety  of  iron-working  machines.  Some  of  these  machines 
attract  attention  from  their  size  and  power ;  as,  for  instance,  the  planers,  which 
have  been  made  large  enough  to  plane  a  horizontal  iron  plate  forty-two  feet 


HAND   DRILL. 


^. 


.«:^ 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


1.0 


1.1 


ttilM    12.5 

itt  3ii  12.2 


11.25  i  1.4 


■  L8 

RRMH 


^ 


/: 


^ 


I^iotQgiBphic 

ScMices 

Carporation 


23  WKT  MAM  STRIIT 

WIISTIi.N.Y.  14SM 
(716)l7a-4S03 


*^% 

^^> 
'^' 

^ 


i 


'f:«rT'T''' 


268 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


Planers. 


long  by  twenty-five  wide,  the  plate  being  carried  slowly  backward  and  fonvard 
under  a  sharp  chisel  which  cuts  only  one  narrow  paring  at  a  time  from  its 
rough  surface.  Planers  have  been  made  to  smooth  vertical  sur- 
faces twelve  feet  long  and  eight  feet  high.  Lathes  are  made  to 
turn  a  piece  of  work  eight  feet  and  a  half  in  diameter,  and  boring-machines 
to  smooth  the  interiors  of  steam  cylinders  of  the  same  size.  Drills  are  made 
to  bore  a  hole  twenty-two  inches  in  diameter  through  solid  iron.  At  the  iron 
ship-yards,  shears  are  used  to  cut  up  solid  iron  plates  two  inches  tliick. 
Steam  hammers  are  used  which  strike  a  fifty-ton  blow,  which  could  easily  be 
increased  to  seventy-five  tons ;  while  the  hammers  are  so  tractable,  that  they 
can  be  used  to  crack  walnuts.  Crai  es  easily  handle  whole  boilers  and  pieces 
of  machinery  weighing  twenty-five  tons.  Rolling-mills  are  made  of  such 
power,  that  at  Chester,  Penn.,  iron  plates  are  made  six  inches  thick  for  the 
armor  of  men-of-war.  Squeezers  are  often  employed  in  our  rolling-mills 
capable  of  taking  a  thousand-pound  bloom  from  the  puddling-furnace,  and 
squeezing  it  into  a  compact  pig  of  wrought  iron  in  less  than  a  minute.  The 
power  and  size  of  this  variety  of  machinery  appear  to  be  limited  only  by  the 
demands  of  the  country  for  its  employment. 

Other  machines  are  noteworthy  for  their  special  adaptation  to  the  perform- 
ance of  some  process  and  for  their  labor-saving  qualities.  Such  are  the  small 
Trip-  trip-hammers,  striking  from  forty  to  a  hundred  blows  a  minute,  for 

hammers.  drawing  out  the  tines  of  a  pitchfork  from  the  little  chunk  of 
metal  two  inches  long  from  which  the  fork  is  made.  Such  are  also  the 
Invention*  countless  inventions  for  stamping,  twisting,  boring,  and  shaping  of 
for  borinK,  the  whcels,  springs,  and  pieces  of  metal  which  enter  into  watches, 
twisting,  Ac.  j^jg_arms,  tools,  and  small  machines  of  all  kinds.  Others  are  the 
grooving  and  mortising  machines,  those  for  turning  the  rims  of  pulleys,  for 
cutting  the  teeth  of  wheels,  for  paring  and  bevelling  the  edges  of  boiler-plates, 

for  planing  the   edges   of  locomotive 
frames,  for  bending  carriage-springs,  for 
cutting  the  threads  of  screws  and  bolts, 
&c.     The  system  prevalent  in  the  best 
American  shops  leads  to  the  multiplica- 
tion of  this  class  of  machines  year  by 
yeir.      Invention  is  encouraged ;  and  the  workman  is  given  a  part  of  the 
benefit  of  his  invention,  if  he  will  suggest  a  machine  which  will  save  manual 
labor,  and  facilitate  the  operations  of  the  shop. 

Still  another  class  of  machines  is  remarkable  chiefly  for  accuracy  of 
M  hiner  operation :  these  are  the  ones  used  in  all  fine  machine-work. 
for  making  Before  the  general  application  of  machinery  to  iron-working, 
inaccuracies  of  a  hundredth  part  of  an  inch  might  be  detected 
by  a  '.  .ry  experienced  workman,  but  no  smaller  defects  than  that. 
Fine  machine-work  was   almost   impossible,  because   mechanism  which  was 


minute 
things. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


2  69 


below  a  certain  size  was  sure  to  be  full  of  inaccuracies,  and  work  badly.  All 
machinery  was  clumsy.  American  ingenuity  first  insured  absolute  accuracy  by 
the  general  use  of  machinery  in  the  making  of  the  small  parts  of  complicated 
mechanism,  and  thus  made  fine  and  delicate  mechanism  possible  by  supplying 
tiie  means  to  detect  and  measure  differences  of  a  ten-thousandth  of  an  inch. 

Tiie  steam-riveting  machine 
is  one  of  the  new  inventions. 
It  weighs  eighteen  tons,  and  con- 
tains one  forging  ot  steam  rivet- 
five  tons.  It  rivets  J^e-machine. 
the  bolt  with  a  single  blow,  and 
does  its  work  so  silently  and  rap- 
idly as  to  obviate  the  fearful  din 
of  boiler-shops  in  general,  and 
greatly  reduce  the  cost  of  opera- 
tion. 

Another  late  invention,   and 
one  which  carriage-spring  makers 
have   been    studying  Machine  for 
for  twenty  years  how  bending  and 
to  construct,  is  a  ma-  ^'n^P'rinK 
chine  for  bending  and 
tempering  springs  at  one  opera- 
tion.    It  weighs  less  than  a  ton, 
and  is  a  simple,  straightforward 
device  for  performing  a  process 
until  now  always  done  by  hand. 

Special  machines  are  now  made  for  most  of  the  operations  of  locomotive 
and  iron  ship  and  engine  building,  for  car-shops,  rolling-mills,  cloth  and  gun 
shops,  the  sewing-machine,  tool,  and  other  factories,  in  large 
numbers.  A  great  many  of  these  machines  are  sent  abroad, 
where  they  give  emphatic  pleasure,  and  receive  a  great  deal  of 
praise  on  account  of  the  originaUty  of  idea,  and  high  constructive 
ability  displayed  in  their  manufacture. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  construction  of  iron-working  machinery 
and  of  machinists'  tools  underlies  all  other  branches  of  manufac-  utmty  ^f 
ture.    Take  any  finished  product,  whatever  it  may  be,  and  trace  »uch  initru- 
backward  the  means  by  which  it  has  been  produced.    We  shall  ""'"*•• 
inevitably  reach   at   length   the   hammer  and  the  cutting-tool  of  the  lathp, 
plane,  or  borer.     Upon  the  efficiency  and  accuracy  of  iron-working  tools  and 
m.achiius,  therefore,  depends  a  great  deal  more  of  human  progress  and  comfort 
than  one  would  imagine  upon  a  superficial  examination  of  what  it  is  that  pro- 
mot'is  these  things. 


MILLER  S-FALLS  VICE. 


Machines  for 
making  part* 
of  locomo- 
tives, iron 
ships,  &c. 


tio 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


AXES    AND    SAWS. 


;f  -t-i 


Wood-axe 
and  cross- 
cut saw. 


The  broad-axe  and  the  cross-cut  saw  are  the  typical  agencies  for  the 
working  of  wood.  The  former  lays  low  the  great  tree  in  the 
backwoods :  the  latter  cuts  it  up  into  logs  which  can  be  rafted 
down  stream  to  market.  All  the  tools  which  touch  it  after  that 
from  the  saw-mill  to  the  last  operation  in  the  shop  of  the  carpenter  and  joiner, 
are  only  modifications  of  the  parent  cutting  and  sawing  edges. 

No  implement  has  had  such  universal  use  as  the  axe :  it  was  foremost  in 
war  and  in  peace  from  the  beginning  of  history  until  gunpowder  was  invented. 
Universal  Gunpowder  swept  the  blood-stained  battle-axe  from  the  stage  of 
use  of  axe.  civilized  warfare,  and  the  implement  became  then  devoted  onlv 
to  the  purposes  of  peace  ;  but  its  use  has  only  increased  as  time  has  rolled  on. 
The  axe  is  the  indispensable  adjunct  of  pioneer  life  in  the  woods :  it  deared 
the  fields  and  built  the  houses  of  our  forefathers.  Wherever  ])opulation 
crowds  the  plains,  and  the  waste  timber-lands  must  be  reclaimed  to  make 
room  for  man,  the  broad-axe  is  found  SAinging  in  thousands  of  hands  for  the 
cQjiversion  of  the  wiklerness  to  a  i)lace  fit  for  the  abode  of  humanity.  I.ven 
in  the  United  States,  where  there  is  plenty  of  room  in  the  open  country  and 
to  spare,  the  axe  is  still  vigorously  wiekled  by  thirty  thousand  lumbermen, 
who  are  Kent  into  the  woods  every  year  to  get  out  the  timber  for  which  ship- 
ping, buiUling,  and  manufacture  has  created  such  an  extraordinary  demand. 
The  axe  plays  a  ])art  on  every  farm.  It  lays  low  an  oak  or  a  big  maple  wlien- 
ever  the  farmer  wants  money,  and  it  gathers  the  winter's  stock  of  fire-wood 
when  the  labors  of  the  harvest  are  over.  It  enters  into  the  economy  of  the 
household  under  every  roof  in  the  whole  wide  land. 

Until  within  fifty  years,  the  axes  used  in  America  were  imported.  .\  few 
rude  blades  were  forged  at  the  blacksmith-shops  by  village  greens ; 
ported  until  but  the  busiuess  was  of  so  little  account,  that  it  was  not  thought 
within  fifty  worthy  of  protection  by  Congress.  During  the  Revolution  and 
the  war  of  1812,  when  the  United  States  were  cut  off  from  their 
principal  source  of  supply  for  manufactures  of  iron  and  steel,  axes  were  hugely 
made  by  the  American  blacksmiths ;  but  the  return  of  peace  brought  fresh 
importations,  which  checked  the  industry  again.  No  tax  was  levied  by  Con- 
gress on  an  article  of  such  extended  use  in  the  United  States,  and  so  indis- 
pensable to  the  development  of  the  country.  The  first  axe-slio])  in 
the  country  was  started  by  Samuel  W.  and  I).  C.  Collins  of  Hart- 
ford, Conn.,  in  1826.  They  thought  that  there  was  a  field  for  the  manufacture 
of  axes  here  ;  and  they  put  up  a  little  stone  trip-hammer  shop,  with  a  capacity 
of  eight  axes  a  day,  and  began  drawing  patterns,  and  forging  and  tempering 
blades.  In  1828  Congress  levied  a  duty  of  thirty-five  per  cent  on  axes  to 
assist  the  dawning  industry.  The  Collinses  moved  to  Collinsville,  Conn.,  and 
opened  a  large  factory,  which  after  some  years  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  com- 


Collins. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


271 


WORKS   OK  nOi:GLASS  AXK   tOMI'ANV,  EAST   IX)I  (iLAPS,  MASS. 


pany,  called  Collins  &  Company.  The  business  has  since  grown  to  gigantic 
proportions  and  world-wide  celebrity.  After  the  Collinses'  shops  were  opened 
others  were  started,  the  principal  ones  of  which   are   now  the 

Douglati. 

Douglass  Axe  Company  of  East  Douglass,  Mass.,  and  the  con- 
cern at  Cohoes,  N.Y.     A  number  of  small  factories  are  scattered  through  the 
country :  two  of  them  are  in  New- 
ark, N.J.    The  Collins  Factory  is 
the  largest  in  the  world :  it  em- 
ploys from  four  himdred  and  fifty 


to  five  lumdred  and  fifty  men,  pro- 
duces two  thousand  axes,  sledge- 
hammers, and  cast-steel  tools  a 
day,  and  consumes  in  the  course 
of  the  year  eighteen  hundred 
tons  of  iron,  three  hundred  and 
fifty  of  cast-steel,  and  seven  thou- 
saml  of  coal. 

The  process  of  axe-making  is 
lull  of  interest ;  indeed,  is  exciting 
during  some  stages  of  the  manu- 
facture.   The  first  operation  con- 
>ists   in  clipping  from  long,   flat 
bars  a  lialf-foot  of  American  iron,  which  is  cpuckly  transformed  into  the  poll 
of  an  axe,  which  is  merely  the  head  and  eye,  and  about  half  the  process  of 
blade  ;  the  balance,  or  cutting  part  of  the  blade,  being  composed  Me-making. 
of  nearly  a  pound  of  the  best  Jessop  steel,  so  inlaid  with  the  iron  that  tlie 
tool  may  endure  years  of  grinding,  and  still  retain  its  fine  steel  edge.     Other 
kinds  in  the  market  can  boast  of  a  greater  spread  of  steel  surface ;  but  they 
are  entirely  innocent  of  that  sort  of  "  northern  iron,"  as  the  Prophet  Jeremiah' 
terms  it,  in  the  centre  of  the  tool,  which  will  enable  it  to  stand  the  hard  usage 
in  store  for  it.     The  real  difference  between  the  two  metals  is  finely  brought 
out  in  the  polishing  process,  in  which  no  amount  of  furbishing  can,  leave  that 
fine  surface  on  the  iron  which  the  steel  readily  takes,  and  which  forms  a  per- 
fect mirror  in  the  finished  implement. 

Passing  over  a  variety  of  intermediate  handlings,  in  which  the  essential 
objects  obtained  are  complete  welding  of  the  two  metals  and  perfect  symmetry 
in  the  several  patterns  made  (all  of  which  are  accomplished  amid  the  distrac- 
tions of  an  army  of  large  and  small  trip-hammers,  whose  din  at  times  is  well- 
nigh  deafening  to  an  outsider),  we  reach  the  tempering- room,  where  a  score  or 
so  of  men  are  occupied  in  bringing  the  steel  to  the  proper  degree  of  hardness, 
-a  point  requiring  the  utmost  nicety  of  attention.  Small  furnaces  are  kept 
Iniriiing  on  the  iron  tables  of  the  workmen  (or  watchmen,  rather ;  for  about  all 
the)'  do  is  to  keep  a  keen  eye  on  the  c;olor  assumed  by  the  iron) ;  and,  the 


'        '  ;  I  •. ,  1 . ' . 


nil    I 


I 


272 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


instant  the  right  hue  is  developed,  the  axe  goes  into  a  salt-water  bath,  which 
fixes  the  carbonized  state  of  the  iron  forever,  unless  again  put  through  the 
fiery  torture. 

The  next  stage  in  the  progress  of  the  axe  toward  completion  brings  us  to 
the  grinding  and  polishing  departments.  Some  idea  of  the  relative  importance 
of  this  branch  of  the  manufacture  may  be  had  from  the  fact  that  it  costs  one 
hundred  dollars'  worth  of  grindstones  daily  to  bring  the  axe  to  the  ma'-kctable 
stage,  to  say  nothing  of  the  immense  expenditure  of  emery  in  polishing  after- 
ward. Huge  stones  from  Nova  Scotia  and  the  West  lie  about  the  shop-yards 
full  seven  feet  in  diameter  many  of  them  ;  and  in  no  longer  than  three  weeks' 
time  they  are  used  up.  Many  of  the  men  ride  on  "  horses  "  while  grinding, 
thus  enabling  them  to  bring  their  whole  bodily  avoirdupois  to  aid  the  pro- 
cess of  abrasion  ;  while  the  fine  dust  flies  in  clouds  from  the  stones  in  cverv 
direction,  notwithstandiiig  the  stones  are  all  the  time  completely  deluged  with 
water. 

The  men  in  this  section  are,  from  their  peculiarly  hazardous  work,  ruled  out 
of  all  the  life-insurance  companies ;  since  the  constant  inhalation  of  the  grit 
and  bits  of  steel  thrown  off  in  the  process  induces  the  "  grinders'  consump- 
tion," as  it  is  rightly  termed,  from  which  a  premature  death  is  rarely  averted, 
It  is  said  that  Americans  will  not  work  in  these  rooms,  which  are  filled  i,y 
French  Canadians,  who  stop  a  few  years,  and  then  go  home  to  linger  a  wiiile 
and  die. 

But  sometimes  the  peril  to  life  is  of  another  kind  altogether,  arising  from 
the  rapidity  with  which  the  stones  must  be  made  to  revolve.  A  flaw  in  the 
scone,  or  possibly  a  loosening  in  the  clamp  holding  it  upon  the  shaft,  sends  the 
flying  fragments  furiously  hither  and  thither,  —  perhaps  through  the  grinder's 
body,  or  throws  him  through  the  roof.  It  is  but  justice  to  add,  however,  that 
such  casualties  happen  only  at  rare  intervals. 

There  yet  remains  the  bevelling  of  the  poll  of  the  axe  near  the  eye,  which 
the  trade  insist  upon  in  their  orders,  and  which  was  formerly  done  by  the  slow 
process  of  grinding  out  on  the  stones.  This  is  done  by  an  iron  wheel  thirty 
inches  in  diameter,  its  periphery  being  an  inch  tire  of  softest  iron.  Revolving 
with  great  velocity,  it  does  the  bevelling  almost  instantly,  literally  melting  that 
portion  of  the  axe  away. 

The  American  broad-axe  is  a  handsome  blade.  It  has  a  thick,  flat,  hroad 
iron  head,  with  a  cast-steel  blade  shghtly  flaring  as  it  approaches  the  edge,  and 
American  a  crescent-shaped  edge.  The  eye,  or  hole  for  the  wooden  handle, 
broad-axe.  gQgg  straight  through  the  head.  In  this  the  axe  differs  from  the 
less  convenient  Spanish  implement,  in  which  the  handle  is  fitted  into  a  loop  ai 
the  back  of  the  blade,  on  the  principle  of  a  plantation  hoe.  Nearly  all  the 
processes  of  manufacture  are  carried  on  by  machiner)'.  The  head  is  cut  from 
a  bar  of  iron,  the  eye  punched  out,  and  the  head  flattened  and  pressed  into 
shape  while   hot,   by  machines  made   for  the  purpose.      The  edge  of  the 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATED. 


^n 


head  is  grooved,  and  a  narrow  piece  of  cast-steel  welded  to  it  at  a 
heat,      lilt:   St'-"'-"'    is   drawn   out   to   form   the 
tion,  the  steel  being  thoroughly 


)lade   in   the  welding 


white- 
opera- 


WORKS  OP  DOL'GLASS  AXE  COMPANV. 


sniitln-'d  to  condense  the  metal, 
and  render  it  tough.  The  axe 
is  tempered  very  hard  ;  and  the 
hardness  is  then  drawn  down  to 
what  is  called  a  blue  temper, 
when  it  is  ground,  polished,  the 
head  painted  red  or  black,  antl 
the  axe  sent  to  the  packing- 
room.  In  old  times  the  axe 
was  not  sharpened  at  the  fac- 
tory :  every  purchaser  ga\e  it 
an  edge  on  his  own  grind- 
stone at  home.  Dif-  Different 
erent  styles  of  axes  kinds  of 
are  made  for  differ- 
ent purposes  and  different  tastes. 
Some  are  made  for  the  foreign 

market  exclusively.  American  heavy  edge-tools  have  a  great  reputation 
abroad,  and  they  form  a  prominent  feature  in  the  shipment  of  hardware  to 
Ijigiand,  Germany,  Australia,  Cuba,  and  South  .America.  Among  the  varieties 
made  are  hatchets,  axes  for  turpentine-making,  ad/cs,  machetes,  cleavers, 
broad  square,  and  crescent  blades,  ivc. 

The  consumption  of  axes  is  enormous.  From  thirty  thousand  to  forty 
t.hoiisand  men  go  out  annually  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  to  cut  lumber, 
the  area  cut  off  every  season  amounting  to  between  three  hundred  and  fifty 
and  four  hundred  and  fifty  square  miles.  .\n  axe  seldom  lasts  a  month.  A 
handle  lasts  only  three  weeks.  The  axes  are  ground  every  day,  consumption 
and  the  blade  soon  becomes  so  worn4hat  it  is  thrown  away.  The  *•'  ■""• 
old  axes  are  not  utilized  afterward.  But,. besides  the  lumbermen  of  America, 
the  United  States  now  supply,  in  part,  the  pioneers  of  the  vast  forests  of 
Soutli  .\merica,  where  the  harder  woods  —  the  mahogany,  rosewood,  and  other 
cabinet  timber  —  create  a  still  more  prodigious  consumption  of  blades.  Ther? 
is,  besides,  a  constant  demand  for  general  purposes  all  through  the  populatiop 
of  the  countries,  which  the  American  makers  supply. 

The  style  of  axe  preferred  varies  in  different  parts  of  America.  The  lum- 
bermen are  the  true  connoisseurs  of  blades.  A  Maine  backwoodsman  selects 
a  long,  narrow  head,  the  blade  in  crescent  shape,  the  heaviest  part  of  the  axe 
being  in  the  head  above  the  eye.  New- York  cutters  choose  a  broad,  crescent 
blade,  the  head  rather  short,  the  weight  evenly  balanced  about  the  eye. 
A  Western    lumberman    selects  a,  long    blade,   the   corners    only   rounded 


?■•/  -7''?, 


«74 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


off,  the  eye  holding  the  weight  of  the  axe.     The  Canadian  chopper  pre- 
fers a  broad,  scpiare  blade,  with  the  weight  largely  in  the  blade,  the  handle 

being  short  and  tliick. 
The  difference  in  taste 
in  regartl  to  the  slia])e 
of  the  axe  extends  also 
to  the  manner  in  wiiich 
the  cutter  flings  iiiniself 
at  a  tree.  An  expert  in 
the  woods  can  tell  the 
state  or  the  nationality 
of  a  man  by  glancing  at 
his  axe,  and  seeing  him 
strike  one  blow.  The 
swinging,  graceful  cut  of 
the  Down-easter,  flung  at 
the  tree  from  over  the 
left  shoulder,  with  both 
hands  at  the  extreme 
end  of  the  handle,  is 
the  mode!  blow.  It  is 
claimed  that  a  Yankee 
cutter  will  do  one-fifth 
more  work  in  the  same 
length  of  time  than 
either  the  direct-hitting 
^^^^m  n  "^j^^^S^H^^^^^    Westerner,   or   the    Ca- 

^^K^f^tBfk    ^^    ^^^^P^^^^^^^Hi^^^H  nuck  (who  strikes 

w^lBB^    W^^^^       ^■•♦^^Jjg^^^^B    from    over    the    head), 

and  with  less  fatigue. 
The  saw  followed  the 

early  settlers  cf  .\nierica 
into  the  forest  almost  from  the  start.  It  was  the  hand  or  cross-cut  s.a\v  at  first, 
Saw  and  — a  long,  Straight  piece  of  flat  steel  toothed,  fitted  with  a  handle  at 
■awmin.  e^j.]^  ejj(]^  jj^fj  ^vorked  back  and  forth  by  two  persons,  —  or  else 

a  shorter,  stiffer  saw,  designed  to  be  used  by  one  person  by  means  of  a  handle 
at  one  end.  But  sawmills  were  in  use  extremely  early.  The  first  of  which 
there  is  any  record  was  put  up  at  New  York  in^ids^,  and,  in  the  ahsemc 
of  water-power,  was  driven  by  th  vanes  of  a  windmill.  One  was  also  l)uilt 
Bariy  eitab- '  "'^  Governor's  Island  in  the  harbor,  and  in  1639  was  loaned  for 
lUhment  of  a  Consideration  of  five  hundred  merchantable  boards  yearly,  lialf 
""■  oak,  half  pine.     Another  sawmill  was   in  operation   as   eady  as 

1634,  at   the  Falls  of  the  Piscataqua  at  Berwick,  Me.,  l)y  English  settlers. 


LESTER  SAW. 


\ 


X. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


'75 


Another  was  built  at  Scituate,  Mass.,  in  1656",  under  a  stipulation  by  the 
authorities  that  the  owners  should  saw  for  the  public  before  sawing  for  them- 
selvi  and  should  have  one  half  the  lumber  for  sawing  the  other  half.  Others 
were  l)iiilt  on  the  Delaware,  by  the  Dutch  and  Swedes,  before  Penn  arrived. 
Amcric  a  was  a  hundred  years  in  advance  of  Kngland  in  the  employment  of 
the  sawmill.  The  liberal  Dutchmen  employed  it  in  Holland,  and  introduced  it 
loth  to  Kngland  and  America ;  but  there  was  so  much  opposition  in  England, 
that  Parliament  prohibited  its  use,  and  as  late  as  1760  a  sawmill  was  de- 
stroyed by  a  mob.  In  America  sawmills  were  a  great  boon,  and  were  gladly 
welcomed.  They  soon  came  jnto  general  use  throughout  the  colonies. 
I'hey  followed  the  pioneer  everywhere,  and  formed,  with  the  gristmill,  the 
nucleus  of  every  settlement  and  neighborhood.  The  saw  in  these  mills  was 
a  straight  blade  until  about  1 790,  when  circular  plates  were  invented. 

Tlie  saws  of  early  times  were  all  imported,  large  and  small.     There  was 
both  a  lack  of  capital  and  skill  for  making  them  here.     The  oldest  instance 
of  an  attempt  to  make  saws  in  the  United  States  is  the  case  of  Fir»ti«w» 
Wilham  Rowland  of  Philadelphia  in  1802.     Other  attempts  were  wereim- 
made  :  they  all  failed.     About  forty  years  ago  the  manufacture  was   ''**'*'  ' 
finally  established  by  an  English  mechanic  named  Henry  Disston,  who  had 
scr\c(l  an  apprenticeship  in  a  shop  in  Philadelphia,  and  finally  became  foreman 
of  it.    He  was  ingenious,  and  resolved  to  try  to  make  saws.     His   Henry 
early  efforts  were  on  a  small  scale.     The  plate  steel  had  to  be  im-   d'»»»<>"- 
ported  from  England,  and  was  expensive  ;   and  there  was  a  prejudice  against 
American  work  of  this  description.     Disston  managed  to  get  his  saws  at  length 
into  the  hands  of  rxierchants,  and  built  up  a  considerable  business.     All  his 
steel  was  imported,  the  precious  scraps  of  it  being  saved,  and  sent  back  to 
Kngland  to  be  rolled  into  plates  again.     In  1S61   Mr.  Disston  resolved  to  cut 
loose  from  iMiglish  steel,  if  possible,  and  make  his  plates  himself.    The  tariff 
of  that  year  gave  him  protection,  and  he  fitted  up  his  shop  for  the  experiment. 
He  succeeded,  and  soon  became  an  independent  manufacturer.    The  estab- 
liiihment  he  built  up  is  now  the  jirincipai  factory  of  its  class  in  America.    Other 
s.w-factories  have  b^en  started,  however,  and  the  industry  is  a  large  and 
rapidly-growing  one.     All  sorts  of  saws  are  now  made.    They  range  in  size 
and  power,  from  the  delicate  watch-maker's  and  dentist's  tool  to  Kind*  of 
the  heavy  circular  plates  for  wind  and  steam  sawmills,  and  the   ■■**•• 
still  larger  ones  for  working  the  gigantic  trees  of  the  Pacific  coast.     Chain 
saws  for  surgeons  are  also  made.     At  the  factory  of  R.  Hoe  &  Company,  in 
New  V'ork,  circular  saws  ^k  produced  eighty  inches  in  diameter,  and  cross- 
cuts more  than  ten  feet  long.     American  saws  are  now  regularly  exported. 
Shetitield  makers  have  lost  several   important  markets  on  account  of  them 
within  the  last  five  years. 

Saws  are  made  from  ingots  of  steel,  hammered  to  condense  and  toughen 
Oie  metal,  and  then  rolled  out  into  plates.    The  sheets  are  slit  up  into  the 


2'jO 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


proper  sizes  and  shapes  for  the  difTcrcnt  saws.  The  cutting  edges  being 
Procettof  ground  true,  tlie  teeth  arc  punciied  out  by  a  fly-press  :  the  rouirli 
making.  cilges  are  then  filed  down,  and  the  teeth  siiarpened.    'i'iie  blades 

heated  to  redness,  are  plunged  into  a  trough  of  oil,  mixed  with  tallow,  beeswax 
and  rosin,  to  iiarden  them  ;  and  then  the  hardness  is  drawn  down  to  the  rielu 
point  by  wiping  off  only  a  part  of  the  composition  from  the  blade,  and  setting' 
fire  to  the  residue.  This  is  called  "  i)lazing  off:  "  it  softens  the  blade  to  tlic 
right  point,  leaving  it  elastic,  and  the  teeth  hard.  The  saw  is  then  well  smithed 
on  an  anvil  of  jjolished  steel  to  give  tmiforin  density  to  the  plate  ;  and  tln' 
blade  is  then  ground  away  back  of  the  teeth  upon  grindstones,  this  thinning,'  of 
the  plate  being  one  of  the  means  resorted  to  to  prevent  the  saw,  in  operation 
from  being  clogged  with  sawdust.  The  teeth  of  the  saw  are  generally  pointed 
forward.  In  the  cross-cut,  which  is  designed  to  cut  both  ways,  no  piteli  is 
given  to  them  cither  way.  In  the  circular  saw  a  tooth  has  been  introduced 
by  Mr.  Disston,  pointing  about  straight  forward,  the  imder  part  l)eing  wuil  tut 
away,  its  outline  strongly  resembling  that  of  a  fish-hook.  Its  advantaj;es  are 
facility  of  sharpening,  and  long  wear,  without  diminishing  the  diameter  ol  the 
saw.  In  all  small  saws  a  set  is  given  to  the  teeth  ;  that  is,  they  are  bent  out- 
wards to  right  and  left  alternately.  This  causes  the  teeth  to  make  a  cut  wider 
than  the  blade,  and  so  gives  the  latter  free  play. 


\\\  :  =  ^i  ill 


loned  firC' 
place. 


STOVES. 

The  old-fashioned  fireplace  will  never  cease  to  be  loved  for  the  beautiful 
atmosphere  it  imparts  to  a  room,  and  the  snug  and  cheerful  effect  of  an  open 
Old  fa»h.  wood-fire.  When  stoves  were  first  introduced,  a  feeling  of  un- 
utterable repugnance  was  felt  by  all  classes  toward  adopting  them ; 
and  they  were  used  for  a  generation  chiefly  in  schoolhouses,  court- 
rooms, bar-rooms,  shops,  and  other  public  and  rough  places.  For  the  home, 
nothing  except  the  fireplace  would  do.  'ITie  open  fire  was  the  true  centre  of 
the  home-life,  and  it  seemed  perfectly  impossible  to  everybody  to  bring  up  a 
family  around  a  stove.  It  was  once  thought  that  the  fireplace  was  an  insuffi- 
cient means  of  warming  a  house,  and  the  impression  had  its  influence  in  secur- 
ing the  introduction  of  stoves.  But  it  is  now  understood  that  the  trouble  in  old 
times,  which  made  it  possible  to  see  one'i  breath  upon  the  air  sitting  by  the 
fireplace,  and  find  apples  frozen  upon  the  lable  in  the  centre  of  the  room  when 
the  family  were  roasting  in  the  blaze  of  the  log-fire,  was  not  due  to  the  ineffi- 
ciency of  the  fireplace,  but  to  the  bad  constructiojk  of  houses,  which  allowed 
the  cold  air  to  penetrate  to  the  interior  in  gales.  With  better  built  houses  the 
huge  fireplace  of  colonial  times  became  too  large  and  too  hot,  and  had  to  be 
reduced  in  size.  The  convenience  of  the  stove  for  cooking  had  more  influ 
ence  on  its  eventual  popularity  than  all  other  causes  combined.  Food  was 
better  cooked  in  the  old-fashioned  fireplace,  but  not  so  iconveniently  :  in  fact, 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


'4^^ 


the  operation  was  a  very  slow  and  laborious  one  until  the  cooking-stove  was 

invented. 

One  of  the  first  attempts  at  a  stove  or  closed  fireplace  was  made  by  Cardi- 
nal I'olignac  in  France  al)out  1709.     The  cardinal's  little  treatise  on  the  sub- 
ject shows  I)y  its  title  why  Kuropcans  could  be  easily  interested  Poiignac'* 
in  every  new  style  of  heating-apparatus.     It  was  called  "  La  Mt'-  •*'*^*' 
c:ini(|ue   du  Feu,  ou  I'Art  d'cn  augmenter  les  Effets,  et  d'en  diminuer  la 
Ik'peiise."    Wood  was  becoming  scarce  in  Europe,  and  fuel  dear.     Holland 
imented  the  plain  box-stove,  with  a  single  door  in  front  to  intro-  other  Euro- 
(liire  tlio   fuel,  a  single  hole  in  top,  and  a  small   smoke-pipe,  peaninven- 
liodi  the  Holland  and  the  I'olignac  stoves  saved  fuel;  but  the  *""*■ 
people  (lid  not  take  to  them  for  the  same  reasons  that  retarded  their  intro- 
(lurtion  in  America.     Franklin  paid  a  great  deal  of  attention  to  stoves.    That 
philosopher  made  some  very  valuable 
suggestions.     In  1745  he  invented  a 
fireplace,   capable   of  being  closed 
completely,  in  which  the  current  of 
flame  and  air  from  the  fire  passed 
throii^ii  air-boxes  in  the  sides ;  by 
which  means  nearly  all  the  heat  was 
saved,  and  radiated  into  the  room. 
Tile  stove  had  a  damper,  and  would 
have  t)een  air-tight,  except  that  cast- 
ings could  not  be  made  at  that  time 
to  fit  close  enough  to  be  air-tight. 
In  1 77 1   Franklin  invented  a  stove 
for  bituminous  coal,  with  a  down- 
ward draught,  and  consuming  its  own 

smoke.  Count  Rumforcl,  an  .American,  devised  many  improve- 
ments from  1785  to  1795.  He  invented  cooking-ranges,  lined 
with  fire-brick  and  soapstone,  with  ventilating-ovens,  which  were  used  in  New 
York  in  1798,  and  in  Boston  in  1800.  The  stoves  made  in  Vermont  and 
other  places  at  that  day  were  mainly  of  the  Rumford  patterns.  Stoves  made 
very  little  headway  in  popular  estimation,  however,  for  a  long  period. 

Up  to  1835  stoves  were  made  at  the  bog-iron  and  other  blast-furnaces,  the 
plates  for  them  being  cast  directly  from  the  iron  in  the  smelting-  g 
furnaces.     The  principal  makers  were  in  Salisbury  and  Canaan,   facturein 
Conn.,  Rutland  County,  >%  Cold  Spring,  N.Y.,  and  in  Pennsyl-  s",*,","""* 
vania  and  New  Jersey.    The  first  furnace  to  cast  stoves  from 
pig-iron  was  built  at  New  York  in  1835  by  Jordan  L.  Mott,  who  had  been 
making  self-feeding  soft-coal  stoves  since  1827,  and  anthracite-  First ca«t- 
coal  stoves  since  1833.     In  1835  Mott  bought  some  immense  '«■»«»  •tove«. 
refuse-heaps  in  the  Schuylkill  coal-yards,  and  screened  them  for  nut  and 


STOVB. 


Rumford. 


I  I 


HB 


INDUSTRIAL    II I  STONY 


pea  coal  for  his  stoves,  and  sold  it  in  New  York  to  tlio  owners  of  his  stoves. 

Mott's  success  was  so  great,  that,  bctbre  the  end  of  1X^5,  other  stove  I'utdrii's 

•       were  started  in  New  York  and  in  Albany;   Joel  Kathlioiu:  Imy. 

ing  an  old  furnace  in  the  latter  place  for  the  piirpo-ii',  anil 
thus  beginning  the  stove-business  as  a  regular  industry  in  that  <  iiy.     Hie 

manufacture  began  in  I'rovident  e,  K.I.,  at  nearly  the  saun  time. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Dr.  Kliphalet  Nott  of  Union  ('()ll(■Jr^. 
began  experimenting  with  stoves.  The  talented  president  of  ilu'  rollejri; 
was  a  great  me<:hanical  genius  ;  and,  like  Franklin,  he  spent  years  ol  l.ilior, 
and  thousands  of  dollars,  in  perfecting  the  base-burner  anil  other  Minis. 
The  stove-trade  is  under  a  great  weight  of  obligation  to  the  old  iloiior, 
who  never  himself  reaped  the  harvest  of  what  he  had  so  laboriously  ami 
wisely  sown.     Others  made  fortunes  from  his  ideas. 

The  opening  of  the  Krie,  the  (hamplain,  and  other  canals  and  routes  of 
transportation,  gave  an  immense  impulse  to  the  stove-business  by  cheapening 
the  transjjortation  both  of  the  stoves  and  also  that  of  coal.  'I'he  jjatterns  of 
stoves,  too,  were  improving  very  fast,  and  the  convenience  of  cookiiig-siovcs 
was  beginning  to  be  understood.  The  manufai  ture  of  ( ooking-stoves  esjn'- 
Cookine-  cially  increased  with  great  rai)idity.  The  early  patterns  in  Alluny 
•tove  made  were  the  ten-plate  oval  stines.  with  the  oven  above  the  fire,  ami 
In  Albany.  ^  single  hole  in  the  top.  'Ihe  saddle-bag  pattern  came  next,  the 
oven  being  in  the  middle,  over  the  fire,  and  the  stove-collar  and  pijjc  over  it; 
while  on  either  side  were  oval  projections,  a  boiler- hole  in  each,  level  with  the 
stove-top.  The  next  pattern  was  the  horse-block  stove,  the  rear  i)art  being 
a  step  higher  than  the  front.  A  rotary  stove  was  also  made,  with  a  movable 
top   to   bring  any  particular  vessel   directly  over  the   fire.     Then  ( anie  the 

parent  of  the   modern   cooking-stove,  the   Buck,  for  wood  and 

coal,  with  the  fire  above  the  oven,  which  carried  the  flame  around, 
behind,  and  below  the  oven,  the  opening  into  the  stove-i)ipe  being  about  on 
a  level  with  the  oven-floor.  There  have  been  several  hundred  modifications 
6f  this  pattern  of  cooking-stove.  In  heating-stoves  there  have  l)een  many 
changes  and  improvements,  the  base-burning  and  self-feeding  principle  being 
applied  to  the  greater  number,  but  many  popular  heaters  being  the  ordinary 
coal-burner,  with  the  draught  through  the  whole  mass  of  coal.  In  all,  tliere 
Number  of  ^^^^  \^tVi  nearly  a  thousand  patents  issued  in  this  country  for 
patents  stoves  J  and  the  manufacture  has  now  become  so  skilful,  and  the 

Btued.  stoves  so  tight,  their  conveniences  for  cooking  so  perfect,  and  the 

blaze  of  the  fires  of  the  parlor-stoves,  shining  ouPthrough  mica  windows,  so 
chejsrful,  that  the  fireplace  has  been  practically  superseded  even  in  country 
houses,  and  the  stove  is  in  universal  use. 

Magnitude  There  are  now  about  220  firms  and   companies   engaged  in 

of  induitry.  ^his  industry  in  the  country.  They  consume  from  250,000  to 
340,000  tons  of  pig-metal  yearly,  and  employ  about  28,000  men,  producing 


The  Buck. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


279 


from  J, 1 00,000  to  3,686,000  stoves  a  year,  worth  about  150,000,000.  The 
stovi's  made  vary  in  size,  frum  tlic  minute  gas  and  ]>etruleum  burnin^j  aflairs 
(with  wliirli  experiment  is  now  making),  ail  tlie  way  tiiruugli  tlie  Jung  list 
ol  l.ir.iic  and  siuail  cooking-stoves,  —  with  two,  four,  six,  and  eight  holes 
for  licitics,  and  with  (ixed  iM)ilers  and  double  ovens,  —  to  the  large  ranges, 
capalilc  of  cooking  for  the  thousand  guests  of  a  large  hotel,  and  the  furnaces 
for  the  basements  of  builtlings,  capable  of  heating  structures  of  every  size, 
irom  a  dwelling  to  a  court-house.  The  largest  fimis  are  in  Albany,  Troy, 
I'hil.ulclphia,  Buffalo,  Pittsburgh,  Cleveland,  Dayton,  Cincinnati,  Chicago,  St. 
Louis,  Milwaukee,  Boston,  Norwich,  I'rovidencc,  Portland,  Manchester,  and 
Wheeling.  I'erhaps  no  persons  have  displayed  greater  energy  in  pushing  the 
inaniii.icture  and  sale  of  their  wares  than  the  stove-makers.  Of  the  superior- 
lu  (if  each  new  invention  as  it  ai)peared  the  public  has  been  (piickly  and 
thuroughly  informeil  through  the  meilium  of  the  press  and  in  other  ways.  The 
nroduction  in  1876  was  distributed  throughout  the  different  States  as  fol- 
lows :  — 


STATC. 


Maine 

New  ILimpshirc  . 

ViTiniint       .... 

Massachusetts 

Rhode  IsKind 

Connecticut  .         ... 

New  York    .... 

.Vcw  Jersey .... 

Pennsylvania 

Maryland     .... 

Virginia        .... 

West  Virginia 

Georgia       .... 

Michigan      .... 

Ohio 

Kentucky  .... 
Missouri  .... 
Illinois  .... 
Indiana  .... 
Wisconsin   .... 

Iowa 

Kansas         .        .        .        ,   * 
California    .... 

Total     . 


HO.  or  FACTORIIS, 

NO.  OF  STOVES. 

3 

7.200 

S 

9,6c» 

2 

2,880 

12 

139.200 

6 

81,600 

3 

20,080 

45 

765,600 

2 

14,400 

29 

500,640 

2 

24,000 

1 

14,400 

7 

67,200 

I 

4,800 

2 

48,000 

42 

453.600 

6 

88,800 

7 

182,400 

10 

120,000 

7 

64,800 

S 

48,000 

I 

14.400 

I 

7,200 

I 

7,200 

200 


2,686,000 


**»t**rTf^| 


'$• 


>»8o 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Like  the  sewing-machine-makers,  the  stove-makers  are  indebted  for  part 
of  their  popularity  and  large  sales  to  the  county  fairs  of  the  coun- 
try, where  they  have  had  numerous  and  sharp  competitions,  which 
advertised  them  extensively. 


K 


SAFES. 

The  subject  of  strong-boxes  to  secure  val::able  articles  and  money  against 
fire  and  theft  attracted  very  little  attention  in  this  country  until  after  the  rise 
The  strong,  of  the  commercial  cities  upon  the  coast.  The  strong-box,  prc- 
^°*-  vious  to  1820,  was  nothing  more  than  a  heavy  oaken  clicst.    Its 

contents  were  protected  from  robbery  merely  by  a  stout  lock  and  the  bhinder- 
buss  of  its  owner.     Its  only  security  against  fire  was  the  address  ami  the 


strong  muscles  of  the  occupants  of  the  building  where  a  fire  broke  out.  In 
Europe,  where  wealth  abounded,  and  the  industrial  arts  had  been  devcloiK'd. 
the  people  were  scarcely  any  better  off  for  strong-boxes.  A  few  iron  colTerj 
with  complicated  locks  were  in  use ;  but  the  great  majority  of  those  who  iiad 
occasion  to  stow  away  valuables  at  all  depended  upon  wooden  chests  and 
their  own  personal  vigilance  for  their  protection.  These  chests  were  often- 
times gilded  over  every  inch  of  the  visible  surface,  and  decorated  with  paint- 
ings, being  very  showy  and  costly  articles   of   furniture.     They  were  no 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


281 


indebted  for  part 
fairs  of  the  coun- 
)mpetitions,  which 


ind  money  against 
until  after  tlic  rise 
iC  strong-box,  prc- 
oaken  clicst.  Its 
:  and  tlic  blundcr- 
I  address  and  the 


re  broke  out.    In 

I  been  developed. 

\  few  iron  colTcrj 
of  those  who  had 

ooden  chests  and 
bests  were  often- 
orated  with  paint- 
They  were  no 


protection  against  fire ;  and  in  this  respect  the  world  was  no  better  off  than 
in  the  clays  of  King  Priam  of  Troy,  whose  treasure,  carried  in  a  wooden  box 
witii  1  copper  key,  was  left  on  the  walls  of  Troy  at  the  fall  of  the  city,  and 
was  dug  from  the  calcined  ruins  by  Dr.  Schliemann  in  1873,  its  contents  half 
melted  and  distorted  by  fire. 

The  earliest  safes  used  in  this  country  .vere  imported  from  France  about 
1820  by  Joseph  Bouchaud,  a  merchant  o.  New  York  engaged  in  Earliest 
very  extensive  commercial  transactions.    They  were  called   fire-  '"'"■ 
proof,     iiiey  were  simply  boxes  of  hard  wood  plated  on  the  outside  with 
thick  iron,  and  on  the  inside  with  sheet  iron.     Bands  of  iron  two 

•  ,  ,      <  •  ,  r     1  ,  1     Bouchaud. 

inches  wide   covered   the   outside   of  the   chests,  crossing  each 

other  at  right  angles,  and  being  secured  in  place  by  heavy  wrought-iron  nails, 
which  penetrated  through  band,  pla*e,  and  box,  and  were  secured  on  the 
inside  by  clinching.  These  boxes  were  bought  by  merchants  and  bankers  in 
large  numbers  for  several  years.  James  Conner,  a  type-founder  of  New- York 
City,  invented  a  better  safe  than  this  for  his  own  use  about  this  time,  but  does 
not  appear  to  have  realized  the  value  of  the  invention.  Gypsum,  or  plaster 
of  Paris,  had  long  been  used  in  France  for  building  fire-proof  houses.  Con- 
ner was  familiar  with  the  qualities  of  this  substance,  plaster  of  Paris  having 
been  at  that  day  extensively  used  in  making  the  moulds  for  casting  stereotype- 
plates  ;  and  he  applied  it  to  the  protection  of  an  iron  chest  he  had  in  his 
office,  and  which  he  continued  to  use  thereafter  for  many  years.  Had 
Conner  been  visited  with  the  calamity  of  a  fire,  he  would  have  become 
aware  of  the  properties  of  his  safe.  As  it  was,  its  value  was  not  made  known 
to  the  world :  and  the  first  manufacturer  of  safes  of  whom  there  is  any  ac- 
coinit,  Jesse  Deland  of  New  York,  began  making  fire-proof  strong-boxes,  in 
1826,  of  the  Paris  pattern ;  that  is,  of  wood  plated  with  iron. 
He  patented  one  improvement  upon  this  style  of  box,  however,  — 
the  coating  of  the  wood  with  a  mixture  of  clay,  lime,  plumbago,  and  mica, 
to  make  it  incombustible ;  and  he  'also  thought  of  saturating  the  wood  with 
potasli,  lye,  and  alum,  for  the  same  purpose.  In  1833  Charles 
J.  (laylor  patented  the  idea  of  using  a  lining  of  asbestos  between 
the  iron  plating  and  the  wooden  box.  His  asbestos  fire-proof  safes  had  a 
large  sale ;  and  one  of  them,  preserving  its  contents  in  a  fire  at  Thomaston, 
Me.,  was  dubbed  a  salamaniicr  by  some  admiring  individual ;  and  the  name 
has  often  been  applied  to  safes  since  that  date.  Deland  and  Gaylor  both 
sold  large  numbers  of  their  strong-boxes ;  but  there  were  only  sixty  of  the 
latter  in  use  when  the  great  fire  of  1835  ^odk.  place  in  New-York  City,  and 
very  few  of  them  proved  serviceable  in  the  intense  heat  of  that  great  confla- 
gration. Something  more  efficient  than  that  pattern  was  needed, 
and  inventors  and  chemists  began  to  think  of  the  matter,  John 
Scott  invented  another  asbestos  safe,  and  in  1837  Benjamin  Sherwood  got  a 
patent  for  one  with  charcoal  and  plasler-of- Paris  filling. 


Deland. 


Gaylor. 


Sherwood. 


m 

f-     ' 

i'V 

1 

I; 

Wm  i||!j? 

^i^ 

It 

1- 1^     ■* 


rin 


282 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Herring. 


It  soon  became  evident  that  substances  like  fire-clay,  asbestos,  mica,  iS:c 
which  were  absolutely  indestructible  themselves,  were  not,  after  all,  the  li^lu 
material  for  fire-proof  safes.  '  a  hot  fire  they  became  heated  to  ludiiLss 
and  even  to  a  wiiiie-heat  thenisiives,  and  accordingly  destroyed  the  liooks 
jiapers,  bank-notes,  and  other  contents  of  the  safes.  Tiie  need  of  the  hour 
was   for  somethinL'  which  siiould    not   conduct    heat.      In    iSi^ 

Fitzgerald.        .         ■    ,    ,.  ,  ^^ 

Daniel  l"it/i;eraid  invented  the  safe  with  outer  and  inner  hoses 
of  iron,  the  space  between  being  either  vacant,  or  filled  with  plaster  of  i'aiis 
mixed  with  water,  and  ])oured  in.  The  jjlaster.  setting  haril,  and  lakin-  ihe 
water  into  combination,  formed  an  excellent  protecting  material.  When 
subjected  to  heat,  it  gave  out  its  water  as  steam,  which  is  itself  a  vahialile 
non-conductor ;  and  the  contents  of  the  safes  were  protecteil  in  a  manner 
previously  unknown.  Fitzgerald  had  a  contest  over  his  invention  with  Mr. 
Conner,  who  now  came  forwartl  to  claim  the  merit  of  originating  that  hi\le  of 
safe.  The  courts  confirmed  the  patent  to  Mr.  Fitzgerakl,  however,  mi  the 
ground  of  equity  and  sound  public  policy,  Mr.  Conner  not  having  made 
l)ublic  his  idea,  and  thus  secured  the  right  to  it.  Knos  \\'il(ler  heromiiii,' 
associated  with  Fitzgerald,  the  safes  were  introduced  to  the  market  a.-,  the 
"Wilder  Patent  Salamander  Fire-Proof  Safes."  The  patent  was  transferred 
to  ]}.  G.  Wilder  in  1.S44.  Mr.  Silas  C.  Herring  had  jjetome 
interested  in  this  i)atent  in  1S41,  and  had  obtained  the  right  to 
make  them  ;  which  he  still  retained  after  1844.  Herring  began  in  a  small  way 
in  the  cellar  of  a  Water-street  store  in  New  Vork,  but  soon  became  the  prin- 
cipal nianutacturer  of  safes  in  the  I'niled  States.  Tiie  business  becoming 
profitable,  Roberts  &  Rich  began  the  manufacture  of  chests  with  the  jilaster- 
of-I'aris  filling  also.  This  led  to  lawsuits  and  a  compromise,  by  which  both 
firms  were  to  carry  on  the  manufacture.  In  1S54  Herring  &  Company  virtu- 
ally abandoned  the  Wilder  patent  for  one  of  their  own.  'I'hey  had  advertised 
for  a  better  filling  than  plaster,  and  j)romised  a  thousand  tlollars'  reward  lor 
the  discovery.  Mr.  Spear,  a  chemist  of  Philadelphia,  found  that  chalk  treated 
with  sulphuric  acid,  washed  and  dried,  and  then  rammed  into  a  safe  in  a  fine 
powder,  had  superior  (pialities  to  plaster  of  Paris.  It  gave  up  its  water  of 
combination  more  slowly  and  in  less  <iuantity,  protecting  the  safe  better,  and 
obviating  a  dangerous  tendency  of  die  Wilder  idling,  in  fires,  to  fill  the  ^aie 
with  steam,  and  obliterate  the  precious  writing  in  books  and  papers,  ami  also, 
when  in  ordi  ary  use,  to  rust  the  safe  by  slow  evaporation  from  day  to  day. 
Herring  &  Company  devoted  themselves  to  utilizing  this  new 
idea;  and  15.  C.  Wilder,  Roberts  &  Rich,  and  their  suci  essors. 
manufacturetl  under  the  old  jjatent.  Herring  t(Jok  a  first  premiuin  at  the 
World's  Fair  in  London.  It  is  claimed  by  the  firm,  that,  since  their  humlJe 
beginning  in  1841,  they  have  matle  and  sold  four  million  safes. 

There  have  been  a  great  many  improvements  in  the  salamander  ciualities  of 
safes  Since  i860.     The  patents  have  been  very  numerous.     Roberts  &  Rich, 


Wilder. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


283 


ami  tlicir  successors.  Rich  &  Roff,  Roff  &  Stearns,  and  Stearns  &  Marvin,  con- 
tiniKtl  to  experiment  witii  the  Wilder  patent ;  but  an  improvement  other 
ii|)(in  liie  iiytirated  plaster  which  they  used  was  at  len,^tli  effected,  '"ventors. 
whcnliv  the  safes  were  filled  with  calcined  plaster,  rammed  in  dry,  with  small 
liinips  of  alum  scattered  through  the  mass.  Alum  contains  fifty  ])er  cent  of 
HMiir  in  ( ()ml)ination,  whicii  is  given  off  only  at  a  heat  of  212°  Fahrenheit. 
Tin-  tondemv  to  rust  the  safe  has  been  obviate<l  by  this  arrangement,  and  the 
Marvin  True-Slandartl  safe  is  now  made  upon  this  principle. 


IIF.RRING  SAFK. 


Among  recent  inventions  are  the  following :  the  use  of  common  salt  for 
filling,  a  cement  filling  witli  small  water-vessels  stopped  with  glue  or  mucilage, 
clay  or  concrete  simply  as  non-conductors,  air-spaces  containing   More  recent 
vessels  of  water  to  give  off  steam  during  a  fire,  the  use  of  non-   improve- 
conducting  material  between  the  plates  of  the  door  and  the  door-    """""• 
casing,  and  a  wall  made  in  layers,  thus. — a  wooden  inner  casing,  a  layer  of 
felt,  a  metallic  lining,  a  layer  of  cement,  a  water-chamber,  a  layer  of  cement, 
and  an  external  metallic  casing.      The  safes  made  within  the  last  ten  years 
have  been  extremely  serviceable.     In  recent  great  fires  in  Boston,  Chicago, 
ami  New  York,  they  have  repeatedly  lirought  their  contents  through  unscathed, 
though  hidden  in  the  burning  ruins  of  buildings  for  two  or  three  days.     The 


384 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


industry  has  now  become  very  large.  Factories  have  been  started  in  Chicago 
Philadelphia,  Boston,  New  York,  and  elsewhere.  Safes  are  manufactured  at 
an  average  cost  of  three  hundred  dollars,  and,  having  been  thus  popularized 
are  purchased  in  immense  numbers.  None  have  ever  been  imported,  cxceiit 
the  few  strong-boxes  brought   from    France  about  1820:   on  the  contrary. 


MBRRING  BURGLAR-PROOF  SAFE. 


many  are  now  being  exported,  especially  to  South  America,  France,  and 
Germany. 

To  be  fire-proof  is  not  the  only  quality  of  a  good  safe,  nor  the  only  thing 
which  renders  it  in  such  universal  demand.  No  one  wants  a  safe  now 
Durgiar-  uulcss  it  is  at  the  same  time  burglar-proof.  The  first  decided  step 
proof  locki.  jn  ^hg  direction  of  a  box  which  would  defy  the  adroit  thief, 
whose  resources  of  drills,  files,  saws,  gunpowder,  sledge-hammers,  wedges, 
blow-pipes  for  softening  steel,  &c.,  are  so  varied,  was  taken  by  Mr.  Lillie  of 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


285 


Troy,  N.Y.,  who  was  Herring's  early  competitor.  Mr.  Lillie  employed  thick 
slabs  of  chilled  cast-iron,  pouring  cast-iron  over  wroiight-iron  Liiue's 
ribs  in  their  construction.  Safes  of  this  style  were  largely  used  invention. 
by  banks  both  for  their  large  vaults  and  the  inner  strong-box,  which  constituted 
only  a  single  featine  of  the  furniture  of  its  interior.  Lillie's  chilled  iron  is  still 
larmly  used ;  but  it  has  been  penetrated  with  the  drill,  and  blown  up  with 
powder.  Herring  &  Company,  within  the  last  fifteen  years,  have  adopted 
the  plan  of  using  an  external  casing  of  boiler-plate,  and  an  inner  casing  of 
steel,  filling  the  intermediate  space  with  Franklinite,  the  hardest  of  all  known 
ores.  This  safe  has  defied  the  drili-and-file  burglars  who  once  penetrated  to 
bank-safes  by  digging  under  the  vault  in  secret,  and  operating  at  leisure  on  the 
floor,  or  by  working  in  from  an  adjoining  building.  They  have  been  thrown 
into  despair  by  the  use  of  Franklinite,  and  are  driven  to  operate  solely  on  the 
lock  anil  the  doors  of  the  safe  and  vault.  The  doors  and  locks  having  now 
liLcn  made  so  tight  that  gunpowder  cannot  be  blown  into  the  crevices  and 
exploded,  a  safe  completely  burglar  and  fire  proof  seems  to  have  been  secured. 
Joseph  L,  Hall  of  Cincinnati,  who  established  the  business  of  safe-making  in 
that  city  in  1848,  also  brought  out  a  good  safe.  The  company  which  manu- 
factures them  employs  walls  of  alternate  plates  of  iron,  welded  iron  and  steel, 
and  carbonized,  decarbonized,  and  crystal  steel,  the  whole  united  by  bolts  from 
the  inside.  What  new  resources  the  burglars  may  bring  to  bear  against  the 
strong-box  can  only  be  learned  by  time  ;  but,  for  the  present,  the  race  of 
malignants  appears  to  be  completely  defeated. 

As  the  subject  of  locks  will  be  treated  elsewhere,  nothing  further  need  be 
said  about  them. 

IRON    BRIDGES.  .  "' 

The  construction  of  this  class  of  engineering  works  of  iron  and  steel  is 
one  of  the   new  industries  of  the  United  States.     It  has  come  into  being 
within   the    last  thirty  years,   and    has   attained   its   importance 
within  the  last  fifteen.     It  is  now  one  of  the  ten  or  twelve  princi-   making  a 
pal  iron  and  steel  consuming  industries  of  the  country.     Before  "«"""- 
the  stoppage   of  railroad-building  in  1873  by  the  panic  of  that 
year,  150,000  tons  of  pig-metal  were  absorbed  annually  in  the  iron-bridge 
factories. 

With  rare  exceptions,  all  the  early  long  bridges  of  the  country  were  of 
wood.  The  shcjrt  bridges  were  generally  of  wood ;  but  here  and  there,  on 
well -traversed  rural  roads  or  city  streets,  bridges  were  occasionally  wood 
built  of  stone,  with  massive  arches  and  rising  roadway.  In  18 10  bridges. 
there  were  eight  bridges  in  the  country  built  on  the  suspension  principle,  the 
plank  roadway  in  each  being  supported  by  two  heavy  chains  hung  across  the 
stream,  passing  over  tall  stone  towers  on  the  shore,  and  anchoring  themselves 
in  a  mass  of  masonry  back  of  the  towers.     The  first  of  these  bridges  was  built 


286 


IND  US  TRIAL    HIS  TOR  Y 


in  1 80 1  over  Jacob's  Creek.  A  patent  for  these  was  obtained  by  janies 
Kinlay  in  1808.  'I'iie  cliief  of  tiie  eigiit  referred  to  were  over  tlie  Falls  of  d^. 
S(  hiiylkill,  with  306  feet  span  ;  over  the  Potomac,  at  C'limberland,  Md.,  with 
130  feet  span  ;  over  the  Brandywine,  at  Wilmington,  with  145  feet  span  ;  imd 
over  the  Potomac,  near  Washington.  The  suspension  principle  was  first 
applied  to  bridges  in  the  United  States.  The  English  engineers  did  not  take 
up  the  idea  until  1814.  Wood,  however,  was  the  pojMilar  material  for  briilgos. 
It  was  easily  worked,  did  not  cost  much,  and  was  sufficiently  ser%iccal)k'  for 
the  travel  of  that  age.  Even  wooden  bridges  were  not  built  where  they  i  ould 
be  avoided,  because  few  localities  were  rich  enough  to  bear  the  expense  of 
them.  Streams,  lakes,  and  bays  were  forded  or  ferried,  whenever  possil)le. 
The  inscription  on  a  crumbling  gravestone  in  an  ancient  graveyard  at  Water- 
town,  Mass., "  He  built  the  famous  bridge  over  the  Charles  River  in  thi-,  town  " 
(a  little  wooden  affair,  only  thirty  feet  long),  shows  how  rare  the  briiii;e- 
builders  were  in  early  times,  and  how  much  of  an  incident  it  was  to  tlirow  a 
roadway  over  a  stream. 

The  toll-bridges  built  along  from  1810  to  1840  by  the  private  companies 
chartered  for  the  purpose  by  the  legislatures,  were,  almost  without 
exception,  of  wood. 
With  the  era  of  railroad  and  canal  building,  bridge-building  received  an 
impetus,  and  became  a  special  art.  Highways  hatl  to  be  carried  across  canals, 
and  railways  across  ravines ;  and  the  country  became  stocked 
with  bridges.  These,  again,  were  generally  of  wood  ;  and  a  gnat 
deal  of  ingenuity  was  expended  in  the  invention  of  wooden 
framework  which  would  have  the  requisite  stiffness  and  strength 
for  sjianning  200  and  250  feet  chasms,  and  at  the  same  time 
consume  the  smallest  amount  of  material  in  the  structure.  Howe,  Purr,  Long, 
and  McCallum  became  known  as  inventors  of  successful  trusses  for  tiic  pur- 
poses of  the  railroads  and  canals,  and  their  patterns  were  extensively  utilized 
in  bridges.  The  wooden  bridges  were  heavy,  clumsy,  and  imornamental,  and, 
Defects  of  ""*''  ^'^^'  companies  knew  how  to  protect  them  from  the  wcatlicr 
wood  and  from  fire,  short-lived.     It  may  be  said,  however,  that  they 

bridges.  vvcrc  always  favorites  with  the  railroad  comi)anies  and  munit  ipal 

corporations,  because  of  their  comparative  cheapness,  and  they  are  still,  and 
are  being  largely  used  to-day.  Notable  bridges  of  wood  have  been  built,  even 
of  late  years,  since  the  passion  has  been  for  a  different  material.  The  bridge 
at  15ellows  Falls,  and  the  Susquehanna  Bridge,  put  up  by, the  I'hiladcliihin, 
Wilmington,  and  Baltimore  Railroad  Compaiiy  at  a  cost  of  $2,000,000,  with 
2^0  feet  spans,  are  among  the  number. 

When  sub-  ''  '  .  ,  .  ,  i  i  r 

ject  first  en-  About  1 845  attention  in  this  country  was  drawn  to  the  value  ol 

gaged  atten-    jron  for  bridge-building.     The  American  idea  of  chain-bridges  had 

been    adopted   abroad,  and    the   use   of  wire  was  substituted  in 

them  for  that  of  iron  chains,     Wrought-iron   beams  were  being  largely  used 


Toll-bridges. 


Railroads 
and  canals 
gave  great 
impetus  to 
this  indus- 
try. 


m 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


387 


in  the  construction  of 
houses  and  stores.  Iron 
roils  were  being  freely 
intioihiced  into  wooden 
trus>t's  and  into  roofs. 
The  additional  lightness 
and  strength  of  structure 
pained  by  the  use  of 
iron  caused  engineers  to 
study  the  capacities  of 
this  metal  as  the  sole 
material  for  trusses  and 

framework.    Early  exper- 

Kxi)eriments  iments. 
in  Kurope  to  determine 
the  tensile  strength  of 
materials  gave  an  im- 
petus to  the  growing 
tendency.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  a  num- 
ber of  iron-makers  in 
different  parts  of  the 
country  made  a  few 
short  iron-truss  bridges 
of  angle  and  plate  iron 
ami  stout  bars,  and  put 
them  up  for  railroad 
companies  over  short 
s])ans  as  experiments. 
Tlrere  was  considerable 
popular  doubt  as  to  the 
behavior  of  iron  frame- 
work in  the  cold  of 
winter  and  extreme  heat 
of  smumer  ;  anil  confi- 
dence, always  a  jilant  of 
slow  growth,  w^s  not 
conceded  to  the  new 
structures  until  after 
years  of  trial.  About 
tile  time  of  the  war  they 
be_i,'an  to  come  into  gen- 
eral use  on  railroads  and  canals. 


i' 


Jiilfi 


t4 


p 

1 

W' 

■'    ♦';■ 

m 

2S8 


/A7J I 'S  TKIA  I.    HIS  rOK  Y 


A  new  era  of  suspension-bridges  began  al)out  tlic  same  time  as  interest 

awoke  in  iron-truss  bridges.     'Die  needs  of  tiie  railway  system  of  tiic  1  .:^lrrn 

Suspension-    States  reijuired  the  crossing  of  tiie  eliasm  of  tlie  Niagara  Ki\i.;at 

bridges.  some  jjoint  near  tlie  I-'alls.    John  A.  Roebling,  an  .Amcri( an  tiirj. 

neer,  proposed  a  suspension-bridge  of  wire  below  the  Falls.     So  nun  li  ahility 

was  manifested  in  his  plans,  that  he  obtained  the  contract  to  build  tiu'  l.iiil.r(, 

against  the  competition  of  all   the   noted    builders   of  Imi'IukI 
Roebling.  .  '  ■•",->''inii, 

including  Sir  James  l-'airbarn.  The  structure  was  erected  alidut 
tiie  year  1.S46  with  82 1  feet  span,  the  material  being  sui)plied  by  the  l'ii(iiii\. 
ville  Uridge  Works  of  Pennsylvania.  Roebling  afterward  jnit  uj)  tlie  Cim  inn.ui 
and  Covington  llridge,  with  1,057  fei't  span.  It  was  completed  in  iSdi. 
Niagara  River  was  afterwards  spanned  by  another  suspension-bridge,  called  the 
"  Clifton,"  1,268  feet  long  from  tower  to  tower.  It  was  a  less  important  sinic- 
ture  than  tlie  former,  however,  as  it  was  designed  only  for  wagon-travel.  I'cw 
suspension-bridges  have  been  put  up  besides  these.  The  preference  is  fur  the 
other  style  of  structure. 

Uj)  to  1862  all  the  iron-truss  bridges  built  were  of  short  span.  'Ijie 
St-huylkill  Bridge,  with  spans  of  192  feet,  and  the  Cireen  River  and  the  Monon- 
gahela.  with  sjians  of  200  feet  (the  latter  built  by.Mbert  l-ink),  were  the  longest 
in  the  United  States.  In  1862  the  Steubenville  Bridge  was  designed  by  J.  II, 
First  long  Linville,  containing  one  span  320  feet  long.  This  was  the  jiioneer 
spans.  Qf  long-span  structures.     The  Monongahela  Bridge  at  l'ilts!)urgli, 

with  spans  of  260  feet,  was  undertaken  the  same  )ear.  These  structures  were 
closely  studied  by  engineers  in  all  the  States.  Each  one  was  an  experiment, 
recpiiring  special  tests  of  material,  special  rolling-mills  to  get  out  the  angle  ;uh1 
T  iron,  sjiecial  patterns  of  plates  and  beams,  and  sejjarate  appliances  for  erec- 
tion. They  were  all  truss  bridges,  the  plates  and  beams  being  fasteiieil 
together  by  riveting,  and  the  bars  and  rods  being  fitted  to  their  jjlaces  to  br-K  e 
the  structure  by  nuts  and  screws.  After  the  completion  and  success  of  tlK>e 
works  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  orilered  two  long-span  bridges  for tluir 
road,  one  of  which  was  built  at  I'arkersburgh,  with  two  spans  of  34S  feet,  luiir 
of  200  feet,  and  several  shorter  ones.  The  other  was  erected  at  Bellaire,  ;ii  x 
cost  of  Si, 000,000.  It  had  one  span  of  348  feet,  one  of  250,  four  of  200  ftet, 
and  a  number  of  107  feet  spans,  the  approach  consisting  of  forty  three  stone 
arches  of  twenty-eight  feet  four  inches  each.  Nothing  has  seemed  impossible 
since  the  construction  of  these  works.  A  general  introduction  of  large  iron 
bridges  has  taken  place  accordingly  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  but  especially 
in  the  West.  The  wooden  structures  li.ave  been  taken  away  as  they  have  lie- 
_    ,  .,     ,     come  worn  out  or  shattered  by  freshets,  and  have  been  replaced 

Exploits  of  /  '  I 

the  West  in  with  thc  lighter  and  more  substantial  bridges  of  iron.  New  roads 
bridge-  \iX),\Q  bccn  generally  built  with  iron  viadticts  only. 

The   West  has   been   thc  theatre   of  thc  greatest  exploits  in 
bridge-building  up  to  the  i)resent  time,  because  of-  thc  greater  necessity  for  tho 


OF    THE    UXfTF.n    STATES. 


289 


creation  of   via  d  nets 
a(•r()^-  j,'reat  streams.    In 
,867  .1  tranie-bridgc  was 
bcyiiii  .icross   the   Ohio 
RiviT.it  Louisville,  which 
took  three  years  to  coni- 
[liitr,   having    spans    of 
400  li-i't  ;  anil  the  New- 
|ioit    and     Cincinnati 
liriil^i'    was    erected 
alidiii    tiie    same    time. 
with  a  ,t;reat  span  of  420 
kct,   which   remains    to 
the    present     time     the 
ari,'ist     truss    in    the 
rnittd  States.     A  very 
intcn-ting  structure  was 
built  at  St.  Joseph,  Mo., 
in  i>'<72-73,  across   the 
Missouri     River.      The 
(urri.'nl   of  the   river   is 
of  iVij^litful  velocity  and 
torcc  at  this  point,  ami 
till'  work  of  constructing 
tiic  piers    was    a   great 
engineering    task.       I  n 
order    to    prepare     the 
rivir    to     receive     the     • 
l)riilj,'c  it  was  necessary 
to  (onfinc    the    current 
to    a   specific    channel, 
so  tliat  it  might  not  af- 
terward wear   away  the 
aliutnients.       This    was 
successfully    done     b  y 
Col.  K.  I),  Mason,  the 
engineer   in   charge  ;   a 
sand  l)ar    more    than    a 
mile  long  and  half  a  mile 
»idc,  containing  8,000,- 
000  cubic  yards  of  earth, 
being   removed    in    the 
operation.     The   bridge   is 


'j345    fi-"<-'t  long  from  bank   to   bank,  and  cost 


■»r''y^yr'||y| 


390 


IND  US  TRIA  I.    ins  TOti  Y 


/ 1, 000.000.  Another  great  bridge  was  thrown  across  the  Missouri  at  St.  Charles 
for  the  St.  Louis,  Kansas-City,  and  Northern  Short-Line  Railroad,  by  a  .oin. 
pany  which  leases  it  to  the  road  at  a  perpetual  rental  of  $170,000  a  viar 
The  work  is  a  mile  and  a  (juarter  long,  cost  $2,250,000,  and  is  tin.'  inusi 
structure  of  its  class  in  the  country.  The  approaches  to  the  bridge  hroiicr 
are  over  iron  trestles,  of  which  there  are  forty  each  side  of  the  stream  ;  anil 
the  stream  is  crossed  by  seven  trusses,  two  of  305  feet  s'pan,  two  of  ^of),',,  two 
of  317^.  and  one  of  321)}.  In  this  structure  are  employed  the  two  stvlos  of 
bridge  used  upon  railroads  and  highways.  The  central  three  spans  aro 
"  through  "  spans,  technically  so  called,  because  they  have  the  track  on  a  nvel 
with  the  lower  chords :  the  others  are  "  deck  "  spans,  having  the  trai  k  on  a 
level  with  the  upper  chords.  The  ([uantity  of  iron  useil  was  7,690,000  pounds, 
and  every  bar  and  ])late  was  tested  uj)  to  20,000  jjounds  to  the  sipiare  in(  h. 

The  greatest  bridge  of  all  in  the  West  crosses  the  greatest  river  of  the  n  pul)- 
lic  at  St.  Ix)uis,  and  is  adapted  both  to  railway  and  ordinary  travel.  It  is  (oni- 
St.  LouU  posed  of  three  spans, ^ — two  502  feet  in  length,  and  one  of  520  feet. 
Bridge.  — which  are  «Tossed  by  steel  tubular  an  lies,  supporting  a  (IouIjIc 

roadway,  one  for  railway  and  the  other  for  wagon  and  foot  travel.  l'.a(  h  an  h 
is  composed  of  cast-steel  tubes  twelve  feet  in  length,  tliere  being  four  sits  of 
tubes  in  each  arch,  —  two  above  to  form  the  upper  i  hord,  and  two  hilow  to 
form  the  lower  chord,  the  chords  being  united  vertii  ally  by  /ig/ag  bracing,  and 
laterally  by  huge  iron  rods.  The  structure  is  really  a  double  briilge,  or  two 
bridges  side  by  side.  Each  span  is  accordingly  crossed  by  two  arches.  Work 
was  begun  upon  this  great  viaduct  in  .August,  1867,  under  the  sujjcr- 
vision  of  Capt.  James  15.  I"]ads,  its  originator  and  engineer ;  and 
the  superstructure  was  completed  in  April,  1874,  at  a  total  cost  of  $12,000,000. 
The  materials  used  in  construction  were  supplied  under  contract  by  the  Key 
stone  Bridge  Company  of  Pittsburgh  and  Philadelphia.  Every  beam,  tube.  liar. 
Construction  and  bolt  was  fitted  to  its  place  with  microscopic  exactitude  before 
ofthebridge.  jj  jgfj  j^j.  ^orks  for  tlic  scenc  of  the  bridge.  The  piers  of  this 
work  were  built  by  the  process  employed  at  St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  and  aflerwards 
on  the  P'ast  River  at  New- York  City.  It  is  called  the  pleuro-pneuniatic  It 
was  necessary  to  excavate  the  bed  of  the  river  down  to  the  solid  rock,  a 
distance  of  119  feet  below  ordinary  high-water  line.  In  order  to  accomplish 
this,  huge  caissons  of  wood  and  iron  were  built,  eighty-two  feet  long,  sixty 
wide,  and  twenty-eight  feet  high  when  launched,  open  below  like  diving-bells. 
The  masonry  of  the  pier  was  built  upon  the  caisson,  so  as  to  be  constantly 
above  the  surface  of  the  water  as  the  caisson  slowly  settled  down  into  the 
water  to  the  mud,  and  then  into  the  excavation  made  for  it  by  the  workmen 
in  the  open  air-chamber  below.  The  pressure  of  air  in  this  chamber  was  fifty- 
two  feet  to  the  scpiare  inch.  It  was  very  trying  to  the  workmen  ;  but  this  plan 
of  building  a  pier  in  deep  water  proved  very  efficient  and  successful.  lOads's 
sand-pump,  invented  to  assist  in  excavating  the  bed  of  the  river,  has  since 


Eadi. 


iMiIy  surpassc 


OF    niK    UNITED    STATES. 


391 


|)cc()iiii.-  famous.    This  bridge  has  thu  longest  existing  spans  of  its  class  in  tho 

III  the  Ivist  there  have  been  no  great  bridges,  except  the  International  at 
Niagara  Falls,  until  recently.  A  suspension-bridge,  however,  is  now  building 
ai  Ncw-York  City,  over  the  East  River,  to  Mrooklyn,  which  not  Bait-riv«r 
only  surpasses  any  work  of  its  class  in  the  country,  but*  in  the  Bridge. 
world.  Tiie  great  stone  towers  for  this  work  are  260  feet  high,  and  the  bridge- 
w,u  will  l)t.'  suspended  in  the  air  at  a  distance  of  130  feet  from  the  water, — 
a  iKi^lit  sufficient  to  allow  vessels  of  all  sizes  to  pass  without  striking  a  spar, 
c\(i|it  in  the  case  of  a  few  of  the  great  siiiling-ships  in  the  California  and 
(  hin.i  trades,  and  these  will  seldom  have  occasion  to  pass  tliis  point.  'The 
iliM.mi  c  from  tower  to  tower  is  1,620  feet,  and  to  the  New- York  and  Brooklyn 
anilii'i  igcs  from  the  towers  1,337  ''"''  '^.?7  '"-'^'^  respectively.  From  end  to  en<l 
tlu'  liiiiige  will  be  over  a  mile  in  length.  It  will  weigh  3,600  tons,  and  hold 
..)i«)  tons  of  freight.  This  great  l)ridgc  was  begun  in  1870,  and  at  this  time 
halt  of  the  supporting  cables  are  laid.  It  will  retiiiire  a  year  to  lay  the  other 
hall,  tlie  cables  being  strung  antl  built  ui)  wire  by  wire.  The  total  cost  will  be 
,< 1 3,000,000.  The  bridge  w;is  begun  by  John  A.  Roebling,  its  i)rojector,  and 
sine  e  his  death  is  being  carried  on  by  his  son,  (,'ol.  W.  A.  Roebling. 

Aniorit  an  construe  live  talent  has  found  a  problem  worthy  of  its  lowers 
in  gr.ippling  with  the  subjet  t  of  crossing  the  great  streams  of  the  republic. 
Kvcrv  venture  so  far  h;is  been  attendeil  with  » reditable  success.  The  engi- 
neers iiave  had  a  great  advantage  in  the  fact  that  American  iron  is  of  superior 
tiiiai  ity,  which  enables  them  to  impart  greater  lightness  to  the  cables  and 
trusses  of  bridges,  without  loss  of  strength,  with,  in  fiict,  a  gain  of  strength, 
jincc  the  weiglit  of  the  structure  is  diminished.  Kvery  difficulty  so  far  has 
licLii  solveil  by  the  ready  inv  tion  of  engineers  and  the  intelligence  and 
tare  of  the  workmen.  It  is  im[)ossible  to  tell  what  gigantic  work  may  not  yet 
\k  attempted.  The  Newport  Bridge  at  (.'incinnati,  with  its  jjcerless  truss  of 
4:0  feet,  was  once  considered  the  acme  of  effort ;  but  the  steel  arches  at  St. 
i,iniis  have  passed  it ;  and  a  corner-stone  has  been  laid  for  a  "  deck  "  bridge 
at  I'utighkeepsie,  N.Y.,  designed  by  Linville,  like  the  one  at  Newixjrt,  standing 
11)0  icet  above  the  water,  with  five  sj)ans  of  525  feet  each.  But  who  shall  siiy 
liiat  American  builders  will  stop  even  with  525-feei  trussts?  or  who  can  safely 
pri'dic  t  that  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  is  the  limit  of  ix)ssibility  in  the  direction 
of  suspension-bridges  ? 

Iron  bridges  of  small  size  for  general  purposes  are  now  largely  manufac- 
tured as  a  regular  industry  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  except  the  South. 
There  are  no  factories  at  present  south   of  Mason   and  Dixon's 

Iron-bridffe  ' 

Line.     That  there  will  be  in  a  very  few  years  there  can  be  little  buiidins  • 
doubt,  owing  to  the  needs  of  the  Southern  States,  and  their  abvm-  «■««"•"  •«>- 
ilant  cos',  iron,  and   water-power.      American   bridges   find   the    "*  ^' 
railways,  of  course,  their  principal  consumers;   but  the  purely  agricultural 


i\ 


i'th 


•fl- 


it: 


■A  '■;  ;  i','J 


5()2 


/,\7'r.V7A'/.//     ///.v /v '/,')■ 


inn     lar^c'     Imurs, 

and    many    l)riil;;(.-s 

ari'   liciiiK  i'xi"Mi(i| 

to    Canad;!    .iml 

Soiitli     Aiiwrna, 

Tlu'  <()m|panii.N  m- 

KaKi'd  ill   iIk'  iii.iii- 

iiliK  lure  are  at  prus- 

rut     (inly     t\Mi,;y- 

tliii'i'     ill     mimln.r; 

tlic  business  ri'inir- 

ing   large  caiiitil,  a 

vast     anuiiiiit    ui' 

Iieavy    and    i  \|n'n- 

sive  niacliiiKTv,  ami 

the  best  enyiiuxiiiif,' 

talent. 


esting  to 


'Ik'  old  |)i 
till'  i\|ie  (orni 
,1  frame  ami  \\ 
inked  by  palti 
rolln-  over  it. 
(i|  wood  or  iroi 
hr(iii:;lil  the  typ 
iiu'Mi  upon  this, 


liii'  plate,   or   pi, 

'ii.nlr  to  run  tile 

'"  ink  it  a;.,Min  ni 

■nil    by    an    elb( 

-'.raij^htening    of 

liiwii  the  platen 

«.is  t.'ic  one  use 

'in  printers.      I! 

HTiiKiiis  and  pan 

u.is  >u(  h  a  prodij 

'lays,  and  all  line 

presses  of  this  ^, 


(•>/■    77/ f<    UXITEP    STATES. 


293 


I  Ik-  oM  i)rcHs  used  l)y  ilit-  (ir>.t  printers  was  merely  a  lalik,  upoii  whic  h 

thi>  ivpe   iDriniMK  llie  page  to  l»e  priiilid  was  laid,  lieiny  Ixjiiiid  tonitlier  l)y 

,1  tr.iiiR'  ami  wedges  into  what  is  calleil  a  "form."     'I'lie  tvi)e  wa>. 

,    ,  .  ,  ,  ,    ,,  D«»cTlptlon 

iiikid   by  iiattmy  it  with  an   mkmg-hall,  or  riiiiiimK  an    inking    oi  om  preii. 

uilli  r  over  it.     The  paper  was  laid  on  Ity  hand,  and  a  tiat  pl.iie   ■'"'modeoi 

I         '  I  I  .     I  •     ,  worklnif  It. 

,il  w.Kid  or  iron  was  hroajjlit  down  on  it  l>y  inrninj;  a  s<  rew,  wiiu  h 

l,riiii:,hl  the  tvpe  tmiler  pressure.     '!"he  ICarl  of  .Sianliope  invented  an  improve- 

iiRiit  upon  this,  by  whii  li  a  lever  was  used  in  « onneclion  with  the  screw,  .iiid 


niiTKNii'm.'.s  HKsr  I'mxir. 

liii-  |i!,ite.   or  platen,  was   brought   down   more   (luickly  ;  .md   a   carriaye  was 

■luiir  to  run  the  form  out   from   under  the   platen  after  tlie  impression,  so  as 

ii Milk  it  again  more  easily.     'I'he  serew  was  afterwards  superseded  by  a  lever 

iiid   liy    an    elbow  joint    of   iron,    the 

-!r.iij4iuening    of    the     joint    bringing 

iiiuii  the  platen.     This    sort  of  |)rcss 

A,b  tlie  one  used  by  the  early  Ameri- 

Mii  jirinters.      Hooks,  newspajjers.  the 

-iriiiuns  and  jiamphlets  of  which  there 

«.l^  >ii(h  a  i)rodigious  number  in  early 

iliys,  and  all  fine  work,  were  punted  on 

passes  of  this  general   description.     'I'he  pattern  has   not  gone   out    of  use 


'"il 


% 


A 


tr  ;■-,•■■'< 


I'l 


■  1 

..i'/ 

.ii,U.  L,^,,j 


294 


IND  US  TRIA  L    HIS  TOK  V 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


295 


Hoe. 


even  yet.     It  is  a  convenient  style  of  machine  for  printing  posters,  placards, 
fe.,  in  small  offices. 

The  first  step  in  advance  was  in  1 790,  when  the  idea  of  a  cylinder  press 
was  broached.  The  original  style  of  machine  never  came  into  First  cyiin- 
use :  but  the  idea  was  a  good  one,  and  it  became  tb'.  I'leme  of  ^"^  p''*'- 
numerous  inventors.  A  Saxon  by  the  name  of  rrcderick  Konig  built  the 
first  ivlinder  press  to  run  by  steam  in  1814  for  "  The  London 
Times."'  This  style  of  press  was  introduced  into  the  United  States 
in  1830  by  Robert  Hoe,  and  Serono  Newton  his  partner,  who  built  the  first 
press  in  use  in  the  country.  Mr.  Hoe 
imi.rovcd  this  [)ress  immensely  ;  and 
iiis  SO'-  Ricliard  M.  Hoe,  has  added 
to  '  capacities  still  more.  The 
prin'iple  of  the  original  cylinder 
press  was  to  cause  the  table  bearing 
the  I'orni  to  move  horizontally  back 
and  forth  under  a  large  cylinder. 
This  cylinder  was  supplied  with 
paper,  a  sheet  at  a  time,  tlie  paper 
being  held  to  the  surface  of  the 
cylinder  with  tapes  strung  taut  over 
it.  .\s  the  form  went  under  the 
cylinder,  tlie  paper,  moving  at  the 
same  rate  of  speed,  was  brought 
into  contact  with  it  with  pressure, 
and  an  impression  taken.  The  form 
flew  l)ack  under  the  cylinder  again, 
when  a  depressed  part  of  the  surface  of  the  latter  was  presented  to  it,  to 
advance  again  for  another  impression.  This  was  called  technically  the  single- 
cylinder  press.  A  number  of  American  inventors  improved  the  machine  as 
well  as  Hoe,  —  Campbell,  Babcock,  and  others  among  the  number,  —  and 
it  iias  been  made  capable  of  printing  from  two  thousand  to  three  thousand 
newspapers  an  hour. 

In  1830  and  1836  Isaac  Adams  of  Boston  patented  the  press  which  has 
always  been  called  by  his  name,  and  which  has  not  yet  been  superseded  in 
value  for  book-work  and  fine  printing.     In  tiiis  machine  the  table 
holding  the  form  rises  and  falls  vertically  through  the  action  of 
a  powerful  toggle-joint  below  it,  making  a  (piiet  ami  strong  impression  on  the 
paper. 

The  cylinder  press  was  improved  by  Richard  M.  Hoe  in  1847   Hoe's  im- 
in  a  new  and  extraordinary  way.     The  type  was  locked  up  in  a   provement* 
fonn  called  a  "  turtle,"  from  its  resemblance  to  the  back  of  that   '"  '"♦'• 
amphibian.     The  turtle  was  curved,  and  was  made  so  that  the  form  could  be 


FRANKLIN  PRESS. 


V 


.' 


;:ji;?: 


JQ 


396  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

fitted  to  the  surface  of  a  large  cyliniler,  and  made  to  revolve  at  any  rate 
of  speed  without  flyi'.ig  off,  or  parting  witii  its  type.  Hoe  enormou^lv  in- 
creased the  capacity  ot  ilu- 
cylinder  press  by  tlij^  i„. 
vention.  The  paper  \va> 
Ijresenled  to  the  form  ,is 
tiie  latter  rcvolveil  u])on  tic 
big  cylinder  by  a  uiuuIict 
of  small  cylinders,  eat  h  u- 
tended  by  a  separate  work- 


man.     The    feediiu 


:y!m- 


STANSnrRV   HAND-PRESS. 


ders  have  been  as  iiigli  as 
eight,   ten,    and   twelve  in 
number.    The  monster  1  ioe 
press   lately  removed   Iroin 
the    press-room    of    ■•  Hie 
Tribune "     office    at     Nov 
York,  to    make  way   lur  a 
more  modern  machine,  wa-> 
of  the  ten-cylinder  pattern. 
The    twelve-cylinder    ]lre^^ 
would  print  about  four  hun- 
dred   papers   a  minute,  or 
twenty-four    thousand     an 
hour.    The  adoi)tion  ot  the 
Hoe  press  by  "The  London 
Times"  showed  its  value. 
The  next  and  last  step  forward  has  been  the  ]5crfection  of  the  wcl)-])ress. 
This  is  an  .American  invention,  and  is  to  be  credited  to  William  \.  liiillock 
of  Philadelphia,  who  got  a  patent  for  it  in   186 1,  and  pateiUed  it 
in    jMigland    in   1862.     The  idea  has  been  taken    up  abroail  by 
Walter  of  '"'Hie  London  'J'imes  "  and  others;  but  the  American  inventors  still 
retain  the  lead   in  the  construction  of  the  machine.     Hoe  &  Company  and 
Camjibell  have  both  ]ierfected  wcl.i-])resses  of  their  own,  which   are  in  some 
respects  better  than  JJullock's.     The  princijjle  upon  which  these  presses  are 
Hoe  and  Bui-   ■-^^<^'-'  '^^  ^o  f<^*-'<l  the  pajjcr  to  the  press  from  a  huge  roll,  or  weh, 
lock  presses     upon  which  there  is  wound  up  from  three  to  five  miles  of  iiajier. 
described.        Lightning-like   shears    in   the   press  cut   off  the  sheets  from  the 
roll,  either  before  they  are  printed,  as  in  the  lUilIock  press,  or  afterwards,  as  in 
the  others.     The  forms  are  stereotyped,  and  mounted  on  two  large  rollers ; 
those  for  one  side  of  the  newspaper  on  one  roller,  and  those  for  the  other  side 
of  the  sheet  on  the  other.     The  pa])er  goes  to  one  roller,  and  receives  the 
impression  of  one  set  of  forms,  and  then  goes  to  the  other,  and  is  printed  on 


^rnp^TTi 


OF    THE    UNJTJ-.n    STATES. 


397 


ihc  oilier  side,  and 
passes  on  to  tlie  fly, 
to  la:  delivered  to 
the  men  who  carry 
ihc  ji.ipers  to  the 
ful(iin.:;-room.  The 
iloe  presses  have  a 
cipiKity  of  18,000 
impressions  with 
iiildcr  M\  liour,  and 
:5,ooo  without  this 
.uta(  hinent.  Tiie 
C.implieli  ])ress  has 
acajKiriiy  of  35,000, 
Imt  is  generally  op- 
cratcil  with  a  fokl- 
ini;-niarhine,  which 
R'dmes  its  work 
Id  10,000  an  hour. 
Tiie  advantage  of 
this  •  le  of  press  is 
111)1  much  in  the  \ 
luiniivT  of  impres-  " 
Minis  per  hour  as  in  ^ 
the  saving  of  tiie 
original  cost  of  the 
m.KJiine,  and  e.\- 
|nnsos  of  operation. 
A  well- press  is  well 
»L'i\(.(l  by  two  or 
iliiee  men,  while  the 
•  'M  style  of  Hoe 
pros  of  the  same 
lapacity  would  re- 
'I'lire  ten  or  twelve 
men. 

The  United  States 
i^  i;reatly  interested 
111  the  progress  of 
ilie  printing-press, 
liccause  the  news- 
[laper  and  the  book 
have    now    become 


\\i  \\\. 


m 


.j^ 


\ 
■ 


u 


298 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


essentials  in  the  life  of  every  intelligent  person,  and  the  cheapening  of  tiic  pro- 
cesses  of  making  them  is  of  vital  importance  to  the  welfare  and  progress  of 

our  beloved  ((nin- 
try  and  its  inlial)- 
itants.     When   this 

Importance  <  'l^Mp- 
of  printing-  e  11  i  n  y 
press.  " 

can  hi.' 
done  by  the  cmjiio)  ■ 
ment  of  macliiiurv, 
instead  of  by  iIk 
cheapenini;  of  the 
wages  of  labor,  the 
progress  made  is 
wholesome  and  sat- 
isfiictory. 


WIKK. 

The  mannfai  turc 
of  wire  is  a  vltv 
ancient  art ;  hut 
the  metal  originally 
used  was  almost  ex- 
clusively cither  gold 
or  silver,  and  malle- 
ability was  taken  ad- 
vantage   of   in    the 

production  of  the  wire  rather  than  ductility.  The  metal  was  hammered  out 
into  thin  sheets,  and  then  cut  into  narrow  slips,  or  slivers,  which  were  after- 
Ancient  wards  rounded  by  hammering.  Thf>  fabled  net  of  Vulcan  wa^ 
wire-nnak-  made  of  sucli  wire.  Fabrics  were  also  wo\cn  of  it ;  and  a  golden 
"**  garment  weighing  thirty  ..x  povnds,  made  from  wire  of  this  son. 
was  found  in  the  tomb  of  the  wife  of  the  Kmperor  Monorius  when  opened 
at  Rome  in  1544.  An  allusion  is  made  in  the  Book  of  Exodus  to  the  fact 
that  "they  did  beat  the  gold  into  thin  plates,  and  cut  it  into  wire,"  for  deco 
rating  the  rich  garments  of  the  priests.  "  The  beautifully-twined  tassels  ot 
solid  gold  "  of  the  ^Cgis,  referred  to  in  the  "  Iliad  ;"  the  zone  which  Juno  |)ul 

on  to  cajitivate  Jupiter,  — 

"  .Ml  around 
A  huiulred  ta.sscls  hung,  rare  works  of  art. 
All  gold,  each  one  a  hundred  o.xcn's  price ;  " 

and  the  wonderful  head-dress  of  a  profusion  01  gold  chains  found  by  Schlie- 
tnann  at  Troy,  —  were  all  made  of  hammered  wire. 


NEWSIAIKH    1  KDOr-IRESS. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


299 


It  was  not  until  some  time  after  1300  that  wire-drawing  became  an  art. 
A  race  of  wire-drawers,  who  made  iron  wire  by  hand,  and  afterwards  by  water- 
nowcr,  ilien  sprang  up  in  (Germany,  and  became  famous  in  l']urope.  Nurem- 
lier"  was  the  great  centre  of  the  industry.  It  was  introduced  ^ire- 
tlaiKc  into  ICngland  about  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  drawing  in 
111  the  original  machine  processes  the  wire  was  stretched  out  from  "^'"" 
>lcmler  iron  bars  by  pincers  driven  by  water-power,  which  came  forward  and 
(aimht  the  wire  and  retired,  and  then,  letting  go,  came  forward  again  and  took 
aiiotluT  hold,  to  retire  again.  England  afterwards  ai)])licd  steam-power  to  the 
(Irawinu-process,  and  then  made  use  of  the  drawing-jilate.  She  became  in 
tunc  the  i>rincii)al  wire-making  nation,  from  the  fact  that  her  policy  was 
steadiiv  directed  to  the  breaking-down  of  the  Dutch  and  (Jcrman  industries, 
and  to  tlie  development  of  her  own.  In  the  jiresent  century  she  has  furnished 
wire  to  all  the  world,  and  especially  to  the  United  States  and  the  other  coun- 
rics  of  the  AmericiiU  continent.  Her  manufacturers  bid  eagerly  for  contracts 
lor  >ui)|ilies  for  telegraph  companies  and  suspension-bridges  on  this  continent, 
and  have  been  in  the  past  very  successful  in  securing  contracts  against  all 
(.ompctitors. 

This  industry  was  introduced  into  the  United  States  early  in  the  present  cen- 
tiirv.  It  gained  very  little  headway  until  a  very  recent  date.  'I'liere  was  litde 
demand  for  iron  wire  at  first ;  and  when  the  telegraph  was  invented  vvire-mak- 
hv  an  American,  and  a  new  and  extraordinary  demand  for  wire  ing  in  United 
was  thus  cre.ited,  foreign  competition  was  too  powerful.  Factories  '"*"=*• 
were,  iiowever,  started  in  iJoston,  Worcester,  Providence,  New  York,  and  other 
( itics ;  and  the  industry  has  now  become  a  considerable  one,  and  successfully 
competes  for  most  of  the  large  American  contracts.  It  is  singular,  however, 
that,  while  there  has  been  immense  progress  in  this  country  in  every  other 
in(hl^tr\•,  in  this  one  very  few  new  ideas  have  been  evolved.  Up  to  1874 
there  had  been  only  five  patents  issued  concerning  wire  out  of  the  146,119 
recorded  up  to  that  date.     In  1874,  however,  twelve  patents  were  issued. 

The  uses  of  wire  are  v^'ss  constantly  increasing.  It  would  seem  as  if  there 
weic  nothing  like  wire  fof  a  thousand  i)urposes  for  which  hemp,  and  iron 
chains  and  bars,  cobwebs,  and  other  things,  have  been  employed,  uses  made 
Wire  lias  now  for  forty  years  been  twisted  into  cables  for  support-  °'  "'""■ 
iiiL,'  l)ridges,  hoisting  elevators  in  mines  and  buildings,  securing  anchors, 
ri_;'giiig,  and  guns,  and  threading  the  oceans  anil  seas  for  telegraph  communica- 
tion. For  cal)les  and  ropes  it  is  far  lighter  than  hempen  cordage,  and  more 
easily  handled.  ICight-inch  hawsers  of  steel  wire  have  recently  been  made  in 
iaii^iaiul  to  take  the  place  of  the  enormous  twenty-five-inch  hawsers  used  on 
iron  elads.  The  steel  hawser  weighs  only  one-third  as  much  as  the  one  of 
hemp,  and  is  handled  by  twelve  men ;  whereas  the  other  takes  forty-eight. 
Wire  is  the  universal  material  for  telegraph  and  telephone  lines.  It  is  drawn 
for  all  kinds  of  pins  and  needles,  for  the  wire  cards  used  in  spinning,  for  the 


■■'4f 


300 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


strings  of  pianos,  and  for  fences,  and  is  woven  by  machinery  for  a  great  \  arictv 
of  jjurposes.  Recent  deep-sea  soundings  iiave  been  made  wi'.ii  piaiio-wirL' 
which  have  been  a  hundreil  times  more  satisfactory  than  any  ever  beruix'  made 
with  cords  and  rope.  (Jold  anil  silver  wire  for  chains,  and  filigicL-worls 
and  lace,  are  extensively  used  in  the  decorative  arts  ;  and  platinum  wire  Is 
Wire  for  drawn  out  as  fine  as  a  cobweb  for  the  purposes  of  the  ( rosscd 
telescopes.  j^^irs  in  the  telescope.  'J"he  finest  wire  made  is  for  the  telescope. 
An  ingot  of  platinum  is  surrounded  with  silver,  and  tlie  compouiKJ  wire 
drawn  down  to  the  finest  point.  The  silver  is  then  ilissolvcd  with  nitric  ai  id, 
leaving  the  microscoi)ic  thread  of  platinum  behind.  Wire  thus  made  has  beep 
as  fine  as  Tg,',iTir  of  an  inch. 


WASI1I>1:RN   U   MOEN   WIRE-WOHKS,    WOULKSTER,    MASS. 


The  process  of  wire-drawing  is  sim])le.  I'or  ordinary  commercial  wire,  iron 
rods  of  tough  quality  are  bent  into  coils,  and  put  into  large  tumbling  l)Oxcs  or 
Processor  rotating  cylinders,  with  water  and  gravel  to  remove  the  scale.  Tliey 
wire-draw-  are  hcated  and  re-rolieil  until  they  are  reduced  to  a  coarse  wire  of 
'"'■  about  an  eighth  of  an  inch  in  diameter.     'I'iiey  are  then  passc<l 

cold  through  the  draw  plate.  This  is  a  piece  of  hardened  steel  jjierccd  with  a 
large  number  of  tapering  holes,  the  smallest  j^art.  of  eacli  hole  being  on  the 
side  from  which  the  wire  emerges.  The  end  of  the  wire,  being  carried  tlirough 
the  largest  hole,  is  attached  to  a  reel,  and  the  rod  drawn  througli  with  power  at 
the  rate  of  from  sixty  to  two  himdred  feet  a  minute,  stretching  it,  and  rcdiK  iiig 
its  size.  It  is  then  i)assed  through  a  smaller  hole,  and  the  process  is  repealed 
until  the  requisite  size  of  wire  is  obtained.  The  wire  is  often  passed  through 
ten,  fifteen,  thirty,  and  even  more  holes,  to  get  it  down  to  the  requisite  fineness. 
The  continued  drawing  rendering  the  wire  brittle,  it  is  necessary  to  anneal  it 
several  times  during  the  process  of  reduction  to  make  it  soft.     It  is  heated 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


"tf^ 


301 


to  redness  in  coils,  and  allowed  to  cool  gradually  in  kilns.  Twenty-four  hours 
jj  tlio  usual  length  of  time  for  cooling  for  the  smaller  wires.  1  ne  scale  is 
ri'imncd  after  each  annealing  by  pickling  in  dilute  oil  of  vitriol. 

C  Mst-steel  wire  is  made  from  rods  hammered  to  a  (|uarter-inch  diameter 
|)V  the  tilt-iiamnier.  It  makes  the  toughest  wire  known  ;  and  it  will  stand  a 
strain  of  about  200,000  pounds  to  the  stjuare  inch  against  100,000  cast-sieei 
noiiml;;,  which  is  the  strain  the  best  iron  wire  will  endure  to  the  ^"*- 
s(jiinrc  inch.  Spurious  gold  wire  is  made  by  heating  copper  wire  to  redness, 
ami  exposing  it  to  the  fumes  of  zinc,  which  converts  the  exterior  of  the  wire 
into  lirass.  American  inventors  have  brought  out  a  wire  with  a  steel  core  and 
(dlHier  exterior,  which  is  claimed  to  have  advantages  for  telegraphy.  In  1858 
Henry  Waterman  invented  a  plan  for  tempering  flat  steel  wire  for  crinolines 
(made  by  drawing,  and  rolling  afterwards),  vvl-.ich  reduced  the  cost  of  temper- 
ing from  three  dollars  to  three  cents  a  poimd.  Previously  the  wire  had  been 
voiind  into  great  volute  coils,  interlaced  with  iron  wire,  and  in  this  form 
exposed  to  the  baths,  &c.,  of  the  tempering  process.  Waterman  drew  the  wire 
tlirougii  the  heating-furnace  directly  into  the  hardening  bath  by  machinery. 
His  process  is  applied  to  all  temperefl-steel  wire  now. 

Wire-drawing  has  not  received  the  conspicuous  development  in  the  United 
States  to  which  it  is  entitled,  both  because  of  foreign  competition  and  of  the 
limited  uses  of  wire.     Present  indications  point  to  an  enlargement   oeveiop- 
of  tiie  industry  on  account  of  the  growing  applications  of  wire,   ment  of  in- 
ane! liie  probability  of  finding  a  large  market  for  the  American     "*  '^' 
article  in  South  America  and  .\ustralia.     If  ("hina  and  Japan  would  introduce 
tlie  telegraph  generally,  a  great  impetus  would  be  given  to  the  factories  of  this 
coinUry. 

WATER-WHF.KLS. 

The  rugged  ranges  of  mountains  and  hills,  and  the  generally  broken  quality 
of  tiic  surface  of  the  country  of  all  the  States  lying  along  the  .Atlantic  coast 
ot"  tills  country,  have  been  to  our  people  a  boon  of  decided  value. 
Causes  which  lie  ■?()  far  away  behind  the  setting  of  the  stage  upon   ^,tgj. 
which  the  incitlents  of  history  take  place  as  to  be  invisible  to  the    power  in 
l)hysical  eye,  and  almost  to  the  mind,  often  exercise   the  most   ^^ 
powerful  of  influencer.  upon  all  that  occurs.     A  large  part  of  the 
wonderful  progress  of  the  American  people  in  industry  and  civilization  is  due 
to  the  rugged  nature  of  the  territory  in  which  the  first  colonies  of  the  republic 
were  planted.     The   speculative  philosopher  can  see  in  the  peculiarities  of 
tliat  territory  the  germs  even  of  American  independence  and  the  free  institu- 
tions which  the  people  set  up  here  after  independence  had  been  secured ;  for, 
on  a  comparison  of  the  different  races  and  countries  of  history,  it  is  found, 
that,  in   general,  the  mountains  and  hills  have  always  been  the  seat  of  the 
greatest  human  liberty  antl  progress,  whereas  the  plains  have  been  the  basis 


''"^llij 


"ll'rf'n 


1;  ^lM*'-L 


lit    ^ :      V,  ;  i ' 


't:-'1t!iJ 


309. 


Av/?  d  '^  rA'//i  /.  ///5  roA'  y 


and  New 
England. 


Water- 
power  in 
the  West. 


of  whatever  indolence  and  slavery  the  world  has  seen.  .A  real  connec  tit)n  ( an 
be  traced  between  the  free  and  aggressive  spirit  of  the  early  colonists  of  the 
North  and  the  character  of  the  region  they  inhabited,  lint  the  hills  sww  of 
more  immediate  value  in  the  influence  they  exerted  upon  material  pn)L,ross. 
'I'hey  filled  the  States  they  permeated  with  an  unparalleled  liixuriaiK  c  of 
water-power,  which  was  of  incalculable  value  in  enabling  the  jieople  to  inaivi- 
facture,  and  to  build  mills  and  factories  and  shops  of  all  kinds,  and  tiiiis  make 
for  themselves  those  implements  and  goods  which  are  to  every  great  natinn 
an  important  source  of  its  culture  anil  power. 

At  New-Vork  City,  and  along  the  flat  seacoast  of  the  coiintr\-,  wiiulmills 
were  employed  by  the  early  inhabitants  to  grind  their  grain,  and  saw  their 
E  ri  mill  'i""''^"''  '<  '"^"^l  tliose  (juaint  relics  of  a  bygone  age  are  still  in  use- 
in  New  York  among  the  peoi)le  on  the  New-Kngland  coast  and  the  omlying 
islands  of  that  region.  They  have  no  waterfalls,  because  tlie 
country  is  too  flat.  In  the  interior  there  has  been  from  the 
beginning,  in  all  the  arable  States  except  Illinois,  an  almost  inexhaustible 
supply  of  water-power ;  and  all  the  heavy  machinery  of  the  interior  was  pro- 
pelled by  it  for  two  hundred  years.  This  water-power  has  l)een 
eagerly  taken  up,  and  it  has  given  rise  to  a  myriad  of  llourisiiiiin 
cities  and  villages  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  It  has  been 
improved  by  the  building  of  costly  dams  to  regulate  the  flow  of  water  so  tliat 
it  might  not  run  to  waste,  and  the  construction  of  great  storage  reservoirs  to 
hoard  the  accumulations  of  the  wet  seasons.  A  few  streams  like  the  Merrimack, 
the  Quinebaug,  the  Willimantic,  the  (lenesee,  and  the  Owasco,  have  l)e(  oine 
the  seat  of  extraordinary  aggregations  of  capital  and  labor.  Yet  so  abundant 
is  the  republic's  endowment  of  this  cheap  and  serviceable  power,  that  i)rol)ably 
not  one-half  of  that  which  is  available  in  the  ountry  is  yet  harnessed  for  the 
service  of  man.     It  is  only  in  the  East  that  it  is  well  taken  up. 

Up  to  within  forty  years,  all  the  wheels  used  in  the  United  States  for  utiliz- 
ing the  power  of  mill-streams  were  of  wood.  They  were  huge,  heavy,  clumsy 
Wood  structures,  twenty,  thirty,  and  forty  feet  in  diameter,  —  pictur'-'sque 

wheels.  enough   when  taken  together  with  the  red  mills  by  the  side  of 

which  they  hung,  and  the  sparkling  waterfalls  whii:h  they  took  their  powei 
from,  but  still  liable  to  get  out  of  order,  to  be  choked  with  ice  in  the  winter, 
and  to  waste  almost  as  much  power  as  they  saved.  They  were  of  four  (lasses. 
—  the  undershot,  the  overshot,  the  breast-wheel,  and  the  suspended  or  tide 
wheel.  The  former  were  very  little  used,  because  they  utilized  only  fioui 
twenty-five  to  thirty-three  per  cent  of  the  force  of  the  stream.  They  were  hung 
near  the  fall ;  and  the  water,  issuing  from  the  bottom  of  the  dam  with  ijreat 
velocity  through  a  floodgate,  acted  against  the  floats,  or  paddles,  of  the  bij- 
wheel.  They  were  a  very  crude  type  of  motive-power.  The  breast-wheel  was 
the  undershot,  placed  in  actual  contact  with  the  fall,  so  that  about  one-iiuarter 
of  the  circumference  was  acted  upon  directly  by  the  water  of  the  fall.     Tiie 


-  «ri 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


303 


water  acted  upon  this  class  of  wheels  both  by  gravity  and  momentum.  About 
sixty-l'ivc  per  cent  of  the  i)ower  of  the  water  was  saveil  in  a  wheel  from  sixteen 
to  twciity-five  feet  in  diameter.  'I'he  suspended  wheel  is  hung  in  the  current 
of  tliL'  stream,  and  is  simply  an  undershot,  intended  to  take  advantage  of  the 
ilow  ol  the  tide  back  antl  forth.  The  overshot  was  the  most  powiyful  of  the 
i,mr  I  lasses  of  wooilen  wheels.  This  type  is  still  largely  used.  The  wheel  is 
>ul)liliL(l  with  buckets  on  the  circumference  instead  of  paddles,  and  receives 
It,  water  tlirough  a  pipe  or  raceway  from  above.  It  may  be  used  with  any  size 
,,1  fall  from  ten  to  fifty  feet  high  ;  and  it  is  said  that  one  is  in  use  in  the  Isle  of 
Man  \viii<h  has  the  enormous  diameter  of  seventy-two  feet  and  a  half,  and  a 
lircailtli  of  six.  The  disadvantage  of  the  wheel  is,  that  it  is  always  heavily 
loadiii  with  water,  which  causes  it  to  bear  heavily  upon  its  axle.  It  is  also 
\  slow  moving  wheel,  and  this  makes  it  necessary  to  multiply  gearing  in  the 
mill  in  order  to  impart  speed  to  the  machinery. 

Ni)  s])ccial  ingenuity  was  recpiired  to  make  these  old  wooden  wheels.    Any 
t.iri)ci)ter  coulil  buiUl  them.     Very  few  patents  were  issued  in  regartl  to  them. 

About  forty  years  ago  there  came  a  demand  for  an  improved  water-wheel. 
In  densely-populated  regions,  where  mill-streams  were  crowded  with  factories. 
It  bei  amc  important  to  make  every  gallon  of  water  which  passed  over  a  dam 
ito  its  share  of  work,  antl  tlo  as  much  work  as  possible.  Attention  was  turned 
Id  a  wheel  invented  in  France  by  Benoit  Fourneyron  in  1834,  who  received 
six  thousand  francs  from  the  Society  for  the  Kncouragement  of  the  Arts  at 
i'lris  as  a  reward  for  his  valuable  device.  This  was  the  original  turbine-wheel^ 
or.  if  not  absolutely  the  first  and  the  parent  of  its  class,  the  first  Original 
which  was  ever  in  practical  use.  It  was  a  horizontal  wheel  placed  'urbine. 
at  the  bottom  of  the  fall,  and  supplied  with  water  from  a  perpendicular  pipe. 
I'he  water  descended  upon  a  solid  circular  plate,  which  was  stationary ;  the 
upper  surface  of  it  being  grooved  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference,  the 
L,'roovus  not  being  straight,  like  the  spokes  of  a  wagon-wheel,  but  curved,  like 
a  >i(  kle ;  so  that  the  water,  as  it  reached  the  rim  of  the  circular  plate,  shot  out 
of  the  grooves  at  a  tangent  in  twenty  or  more  spouts  all  round  the  wheel. 
Hie  buckets  or  floats  of  the  wheel  were  outside  the  circular  disk,  and  received 
the  sj.  )uting  water  with  great  violence,  and  were  thus  forced  to  revolve  rapidly 
irounil  the  disk,  the  water  flowing  outward  into  the  river-bed  from  the  buckets. 
The  lloats,  being  attached  to  an  annular  disk,  turned  the  perpendicular  shaft, 
and  transmitted  the  power  to  the  mill  above.  Attention  was  turned  to  the 
new  idea  in  the  United  States  about  1843.  Public  discussion  took  place  ;  and 
in  1844  Mr.  U.  A.  Boyden  of  Boston  invented  a  turbine  which 

Boyden. 

WIS  an  improvement  upon  Fourneyron's,  and  which,  with  later 
improvements  of  its  own,  has  come  into  extensive  use  in  this  country.    The 
lirst  one  in  practical  use  was  put  into  a  cotton-mill  in  Lowell.     It  saved 
uvciity-eight  per  cent  of  the  power  of  the  water.     Boyden  has  made  others 
since  which  have  saved  eighty-two  per  cent.      F'rom  1843  to  the  present. 


304 


tXn  I 'S  TRIA  I.    Ills  TOK  Y 


'4^ 


invention  has  been  active,  and  more  than  a  tliousand  patents  have  been  issued 
at  Washington  tor  new  forms  of  viicels,  and  nrw  atta<  hments  to  them     \ 

variety  of  exceedingly  effectivo  wjicels 
have  been  imHhued,  and  the  iron  tur- 
bine lias  now  ahnost  conipletily  super- 
seded the  great  wooden  wheel  u\  our 
forefathers.  Al)out  twenty-fui'  larj^c  ainl 
flourishing  factories  of  tiiein  iwivc  ^-rowii 
up  in  New  Hngland.  New  York,  I'enn- 
sylvania,  Maryland,  and  tlie  West. 

The  power  of  the  turbine  is  derivcil 
from  tlie  weight  of  the  <()lunin  of  water 
How  the  'lowing  into  the  wheel,  and 
power  o(  the   the    speed   of  the  (urrent. 

turbine  i,  j,-  ^,000  pounds  of  wattr 
determined.  '  '^' 

flow  through  it  in  a  second, 
anil  the  height  of  the  fall  is  fifieen  feet, 
the  power  expended  is  120,000  pdunds 
a  second.  If  the  wheel  transinils  eij^hty 
per  cent  of  this  to  the  machinery  of 
the  mill,  it  is  an  efficient  wheel. 

After  a  few  years  of  exjierinient 
with  the  Hoyden  turbine,  it  was  fuund 
that  a  smaller  percentage  of  the  power  of  the  water  was  saved  when  the  gate 
of  liie  wheel  was  opened  only  half  way,  because  of  the  eddies  and  commo- 
tion of  the  water  in  the  wheel  itself;  and  some  Dayton  (().)  manufu  turers 
undertook  to  effect  an  improvement  u[)on  the  style  of  wheel,  by  wiiic  h  the 
Dayton  water  should  flow  through  solid,  and  should  escape  more  re.idily, 

wheel.  ti^us  leaving  less  dead  weight  of  water  for  the  wheel  to  carry.    They 

brought  out  the  inward-flow  wheel,  and  gave  a  new  turn  to  invention.  The 
Swain  turbine,  inward-flow,  was  after\vards  brought  out  at  Chelmsford.  M.nss,. 
which,  with  the  gate  wide  open,  would  save  eighty-four  per  cent  of  tlie  energy 
of  the  fall,  eighty-three  per  cent  with  a  three-cpiarters  gate,  seventy-seven 
per  cent  with  a  half  gate,  and  sixty-three  per  cent  with  ?.  quarter  gate.  T.  H. 
Risdon  of  Mount  Holly,  N.J.,  however,  has  since  then  constructed  an  out- 
ward-flow wheel  which  saves  eighty-eight  per  cent  with  a  full  gate. 
and  seventy-five  per  cent  with  a  half  gate.  Another  form  of  wheel 
has  been  invented,  called  the  parallel-flow,  in  which  the  water  goes  straight 
through  the  tt<r!)ine,  emerging  at  the  bottom.  It  has  not  yet  obtained  the 
favor  which  has  been  accorded  to  the  others.  Steady  progress  is  hcing 
made  by  all  inventors  as  the  science  of  the  flow  of  water  is  better  under- 
stood, and  the  wheels  are  now  rapidly  approaching  a  stage  when  almost  the 
entire  energy  of  falls  will  be  utilized. 


It  KhINb-WIIElEL, 


Risdon. 


or    ■////■:   rxiiF.n  staii-.s. 


305 


'lurluiR's  arc   now  iiuuli'  in  a   ,i;r(.'al  varii'ty  of  sizes  and  patterns.     Since 
the  iiiinitiiii  lion  of  tiu'   Holly  system  ol   waterworks  into  cities,  which  (hs- 
iriltiiti-^  water  to  the   (lweliin{,'s,  stores,  ami   I'ai  tories  of  a  place,    Variety  of 
iilir  ,1   pressure   of   from   sixty  to  two    iiundred    pounds,  lanall   turbines. 


IP 


n. 


|i,utirn^  of  turbines  have  lieen  made  id  lie  attached  to  the  Holly  waterpi|)es, 
,ii,;l  drive  l.ithes  and  other  ii;;ht  machnnrv.  I  lu'y  are  madi.  as  small  as 
ihrce  I.'.'  hes  in  diameter.  I'nrbines  six  ini  lies  in  diameter,  and  o(  ( iii)yinj(  no 
iiioro  ^YM^^'  in  the  room  than  an  or(hnary  j,'asineter,  are  made  to  run  printing- 
nasM-  lor  daily  newspapers.  I'Vom  this  size  they  are  manufactured  ali  the 
„,iv  ii|i  to  six  and  sesen  feet  in  diameter,  .n'veral  eighly-four-iiK  h  wheels  are 
n  nv  III  ii^e,  one  of  them  Iteinj;  untler  a  ninety-loot  fall,  and  transmitting;  six- 
hundred  horse  power  to  the  maeliinerv  of  the  mill.     The  turl)ine 

.  Their  merit. 

h.i>  tlu'  j,'rial  merit  ol  economy  of  space,  unilorm  and  steady 
.Klion,  j,'reat  veUx  ity.  —  thus  oliviatinj,'  the  use  of  the  old-time  api)liances  put 
ii|i)n  the  sedate,  leisurely-moving  oversiiot  wheels  to  increase  the  speed  in 
tiu' niili,  —  and  absolute  protection  from  frost,  as  they  are  always  submerged 
imier  the  water.  Litt'-rly  the  wheels  have  been  supplied  with  a  regulator, 
\\\vA\  opens  and  doses  the  gate  automatic  ally,  so  as  to  meet  the  reciuirements 
,ii  the  mill.  .Any  one  who  stands  in  the  engine-room  of  a  great  factor)' 
(Irnen  by  steam-power  will  notice  from  the  motion  of  the  engine  whenever 
.iiiv  heavy  ])iere  of  machinery  in  the  mill  ai)ove  is  put  into  operation,  or  the 
nvrrse.  The  engine  labors  under  the  new  strain,  or  suddenly  cpiic  kens  when 
till'  strain  is  removed.  The  governor,  sensitive  to  the  slightest  change  of 
-ir.iiii  on  the  engine,  opens  or  closes  the  steam-pipe  instantly,  and  maintains 
.1  ri'milar  and  uniform  motion.  'I'he  regulator  of  the  turbine  is  the  same  in 
jrim  iple  :   it  is  the  governor  of  the  water-power. 

Tlie  progress  of  tiie  L'nited  States  and  Canada  in  invention  in  this  depart- 
nunt  of  effort  was  well  shown  at  the  World's  I-'air  of  1.S76.  where   Exhibitionof 
,1  ^]ll^■ndid  show  of  turbines  was  made  by  .\merican  and  ("ana-    turbines  at 
tii.m  makers.     These  wheels  are  now  !)eing  sought  for  by  manu-      '"*=""'■• 
i>, iiireri  aliroad. 

I.fXKS. 

Ill  tlie  days  of  the  earlier  sinii)licity  of  the  repnlilic  the  latch  was  an  ample 

:.;>tL'ning  for  all  the  ordinary  jjiirposes  of  life.     .\  grand  iml)lic  nior.ility  and 

.iianius  good  feeling  between   man  and    111,111    iirexailed   at   that    ,       ... 

"  '^  '  In  primitive 

ink',  which  is  fascinating  now  to  look  iiack  iiiioii.  and  which    it    perioaiocks 


lallv  fascinating  to  find  the  traces  of  to-daN'  in  the  rural  and 


needed. 


-  Lited  communities  of  dilTereiU  parts  of  the  c ountry.  Tlie  door 
»as  seldom  liarred,  and  then  only  at  night.  The  treasures  of  the  household 
u'  .■  kept  in  unprotec  ted  dr.iwiTs  and  closets.  People  rested  secure  in  the 
iiijoynient  of  the  privacy  of  their  homes  and  the  possession  of  their  articles 
')!  value,  not  so  much  bv  reason  of  bars  and  bolts  as  bv  reason  of  the  virtue 


T-^> 


m 


306 


Lvnrs  TKiA  I.   HIS  iok  y 


and  Hc'lf-rcstraint  to  which  people  were  so  rigidly  hred  in  those  days,  and  to 
the  absence  of  a  vicious  (lass  in  the  conmuinily.  With  ininiigiatii)a,  the 
inircase  of  wealth,  ami  the  (lisa])i)earance  of  native  Americans  in  tlic  ranks 
of  household  servants,  there  lanie  a  different  state  of  things ;  antl  pcoiile 
found  themselves  under  the  nee  e^iity  of  sec  nring  their  houses  carefully  against 


BURGI.AR-I'IIOOF    LOCK. 


the  intrusion  of  nnauthorizcd  persons,  and  their  valuables  within  the  liniise- 
hold  against  even  their  own  domestics.  The  change  has  been  very  great.  .\ 
hundred  years  ago  the  bolt  on  the  outer  door,  and  the  Kx  k  upon  llu-  oni' 
box  of  private  papers  and  valu.ables  in  the  house  or  u])()n  the  strong-iiov  ;il 
the  store,  were  almost  the  only  barriers  erected  against  i)lunder  and  curiosity. 
Number  of  To-day,  in  the  large  cities,  the  whole  building  is  placed  under  loi  k 
locks  used  and  key,  even  to  the  jiantry  ;  and,  instead  of  the  two  locks  of  the 
nowa  ays.  Ql^]^.,^  time,  a  city  residence,  with  its  furniture,  will  now  be  fitted 
with  from  one  to  three  hundred,  and  a  public  building  with  two  or  three 
thousand. 


The  earlier 
ticiii.  They  coi 
.mil  bv  a  wingei 
the  litiit  b.ukw.i 
r;i.shiiiiiing  till'  w 
lock  M)  that  on!; 
Siimc  (if  the  Ik 
of  llir  present  c 
Imt  they  were  a 
picked  with  a  I 
chiefly  in  apjieai 


In  England, 
to  [lay  more  attc 
'"  177S,  whrch  ai 
fact,  lies  at  the  fo 
the  doors  of  safei 
latches,  which  fe 
lifted  before  the 


OF    THE    rX/TED    STATES. 


307 


Tic  carliiT  ln<  ks  of  the  rountry  were  of  tlie  simplest  form  of  construc- 
tion. I'licy  coMsisti'd  simply  of  a  liolt  operatid  hy  a  sprinj;  within  the  lock, 
anil  liv  a  \viii/,'cd  kry  inserted  tiiroii^h  a  kL-yhijif,  which,  hcinn  t;irne<l,  moved 
ihi'  JMilt  liaikward  and  tiirward.  Intricacy  was  given  to  the  lock  simply  by 
fashiiiiiin},'  tlie  winj;  of  tin'  key  into  some  curious  shape,  and  then  making  the 
locik  Ml  lliat  only  a  key  of  that  jiartic  niar  pattern  would  turn  around  within  it. 
Somi'  (if  the  heavy  locks  put  ujion  safes  and  strong-boxes  in  the  early  part 
(if  llir  present  <  entury  were  so  made  as  to  shoot  six  or  eight  bolts  at  once  ; 
Imt  they  were  all  of  the  simple  plan  above  described,  and  could  be  easily 
pirkiii  with  a  bit  of  crooked  wire  in  five  minutes.  'I'hey  were  formidable 
chic'lly  in  appearance. 


' 


In  England,  where  the  greater  accumulation  of  wealth  compelled  people 
to  pay  more  attention  to  lock-making,  an  idea  was  brought  out  by  Mr.  Barron 
in  177S,  whi'ch  added  greatly  to  the  security  of  locks,  and  which,  in  Barron'* 
fact,  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  our  modem  devices  for  fastening  'nvention. 
the  doors  of  safes  and  treasure-magazines.  Barron  employed  two  tumblers,  or 
latches,  which  fell  down  into  the  bolt  and  caught  it,  and  which  had  to  be 
lifted  before  tlie  bolt  covild  be  moved.     In  i  ySvS  Joseph  Bramah  of  England 


\mM^.L 


T  m 

iW 

1                i  '  '- 

h  iH 

-'1  '•'■   i 

•  ■ 

i 

i':;: 

lit! 

«i 

■■'    ' 

i  ^ 

Wf^'  ■' 

1 5  ^ ! 

K|f ., 

til 

HfU:  ;i 

1 P^ 

lilibi: 

^BBHi$^'^'  «f-v 

nil 

If 


[■■5 


i 


30S 


/,V/)  C  '.V  77v'/.  /  /,     ///.S  /V  >  A' )  • 


Newall. 


invented  a  lock  with  several  sliders  and  two  liarrels.  the   inner  one  -ilioiiiinj" 

the  bolt,     liraniah  deelare<l  that  it  was  not  within  the  raivc  df 
Bramah.  '"" 

art  to  ])iek  his  loek.  and   the   ( ontrivanee  did  defy  the  luiivlars 

and  locksmiths  for  over  iialt"  a  cenlnry. 

Many  years  after  tlie  war  of    1S12  attention  liegan  to  he  |)aid  lo  Idck- 

making  in  this  conntry.      The  tnnihler  was  adojjted,  and  many  minor  iinpnni'- 

ments  effected.     How  to  make  a  lock  whicii  nobody  could  ])ick  was  a  prolikni 

that  well  suited  the  genius  of  the  Yankee,  and  ai)|)licatit)ns  for  patents  for  onr 

device  and  anofhL"/  began  to  ])oiir  into  the  city  of  Washington.     'I'he  first  real  siii 

was  created  in    1S41    by  Dr.  Andrews  of  I'ertii  .Amboy.  N.|.,  who 

drews's  brought  out  a  j)ermutation-lo(  k,  in  whi(  h  a  number  of  rinj^s  were 

improve-         attached  to  the  key,  and  sus(  entible  of  an  endless  variety  of  (oni- 
ment. 

binations.     When  the  bolt  is  turned,  the  lock  cannot  lie  moved 

except  with  exactly  the  same  combinations  on  the  key.  The  lock  had  tumblers 
and  a  detector,  —  a  device  which  prevented  the  tumblers  from  freeing  the  holt 
if  lifted  too  high.  This  invention  excited  great  admiration  ;  but  it  was  picked 
by  Newall  of  New  York,  who,  in  turn,  brought  otit  one  of  iiis  own 
in  184,^,  with  two  sets  of  tumblers,  thus  increasing  the  coni|)li(:ation. 
It  was  thought  that  the  acme  of  jjerfection  had  been  reached,  and  N'ewall 
confidently  offered  live  hundred  dollars  to  any  one  who  would  ])iek  it.  His 
contrivance  succumbed,  however,  to  Mr.  Pettitt  and  to  William  Hall  of  Hoston. 
who  picked  it  by  the  smoke-process,  —  a  device  of  the  burglars.  \  smoky  flame 
was  blown  into  the  keyhole,  leaving  a  fine  de])osit  of  lamp-black  on  the 
tumblers.  The  key  being  introduced  removed  the  lamp-black  from  the  parts 
it  touched.  By  means  of  a  reflector  a  strong  light  was  thrown  into  the  lock, 
and  the  key-marks  revealed,  and  the  proper  shape  of  the  false  key  thus  indi- 
cated. Newall's  lock  was  then  improved  by  devices  for  keeping  the  mei  hanism 
concealed  from  view.  H.  C.  Jones  of  Newark  used  com  entrii 
rings  and  a  curtain  for  this  jjurpose,  and  Pyes  used  eccentric  rinj,'s 
and  a  curtain.  .\.  C.  Hobbs,  an  exjjcrt  American  locksmith,  adopted  the 
improved  device,  calling  it  the  I'arantoptic,  and  got  a  gold  medil 
for  it  at  London  in  1851.  The  American  lo(  k-makers  made  ;i 
distinguished  sensation  at  that  World's  I\iir.  Hol)bs  declared  that  he  iduld 
pick  all  the  locks  in  England  in  a  few  minute^,  including  the  famous  llramah. 

,    ,..  ,  His  challenge  was  accepted,  and   he  was  given  a  ( 'liul)l)  io(  k.  ;in 

Iiobbs  s  '^  ' 

experiments  old  ]wtent,  and  the  original  lock  which  first  used  a  detec  tor,  In 
ex])eriment  upon.  A  convict  lock-maker  had  once  been  olfend 
his  liberty  and  a  hundred  jwunds  to  i)ick  this  lock,  and  had  fnled 
after  three  months  of  trial.  H(d)bs  opened  it  in  a  few  minutes.  Tiie  fairness 
of  the  experiment  being  called  in  (juestion,  he  renewed  the  attempt  in  a  p.iv.ite 
house  in  the  presence  of  a  number  of  genUemen.  and  succeeded  in  twenty-livf 
minutes.  He  then  went  at  the  Ikamali.  The  manufnc  turer  of  it  had  for  years 
exhibited  a  lock,  with  an  offer  of  two  hundred  guineas  to  any  one  who  should 


Jones. 


Pyes. 


in  picking 
loclcs. 


OF    THE    UNITE  J)    STATES. 


309 


Yale. 


pick  it.  The  Bramah  t.oublcd  him  ;  but,  after  working  at  it  from  July  24  to 
\iicr.  jj,  lie  sui'iecdcd  in  unlocking  it  at  last.  Hob! )s  tlien  offered  the  same 
reward  to  wlioevcr  should  i)i('k  the  I'arantoptic.  Several  of  tiie  best  of  the 
Kiylish  locksmiths  accepted,  and  worked  on  tiie  lock  for  thirty  days,  and  failed. 
ihi'  Auierican  invention  won  a  conceded  supremacy,  and  the  fiooie  over  it 
was  immense.  The  Hank  of  ICngland  procured  one,  and  the  pattern  came 
into  .uoneral  use  in  banks  and  stores  in  the  United  States. 

Iacii  the  Parantoptie,  however,  gave  way  to  American  ingenuity  in  1855. 
Linus  N'alo,  jun.,  who  had  picked  a  very  successful  lock  invented  by  his  father 
atta(  ked  tiie  I'arantoptic,  and  won  a  victory  by  the  impression 
pniicss.  He  had  declared  for  several  years,  that  as  k)ng  as  the 
ktv  is  of  a  winged  form,  and  rubs  an  impression  on  tumblers,  it  can  be  picked; 
and  tiiis  event  pro\ed  it.  To  obviate  tiiis  weakness  of  locks,  he  had  invented 
in  185 1  one  of  his  own  contrivance,  which  he  called  "the  magic  lock,"  It  is 
jciievcd  that  tiiis  one  has  never  yet  l)een  jiicked.  The  key  and  its  bits,  though 
apparently  of  one  piece,  are  sejiarable.  On  the  key  being  introduced  to  the 
lo(k.  the  l)its  are  taken  off  by  a  pin.  The  key  being  turned  puts  in  motion  a 
set  of  wiieels,  which  carry  off  tiie  bits  to  a  remote  part  of  the  lock,  out  of  the 
reach  of  picking-tools,  wiiere  they  operate  upon  the  tumblers ;  afterwards 
returning  to  the  handle  of  the  key,  and  joining  it  again. 

Tliese  i)rilliaiit  devices  —  with  others  on  the  Mall  rotary  combination  prin- 
ciple, which  dispense  with  a  key,  and  o])en  the  lock  by  turning  a  knob  one 
w.iy,  and  then  the  other,  certain  distances,  according  to  a  set  of  Hairs  inven- 
nnmbers  one  has  in  mind — have  made  safes  and  banks  almost  *'°"- 
al)solutely  secure  against  robbery.  'I'he  burglars  are  for  a  time  at  their  wits' 
cnil.  The  larger  proptjrtion  of  the  locks  made  for  ordinary  use  are  not,  how- 
ever, of  these  elaborate  patterns.  They  are  merely  strong,  serviceable,  hand- 
somely-made locks  of  the  tumbler  and  sjjring  patterns,  for  doors,  trunks,  chests, 
Inireaus,  iVc.,  operated  eitiier  witli  a  Hat  or  a  winged  brass  key,  which  may  be 
carried  in  the  pocket.  The  parts  of  the  locks  are  made  by  machinery  upon 
tiie  American  system,  excejit  tiie  jiarts  which  are  cast ;  and  these  latter  have 
already  won  a  rejiiitation  for  their  accuracy  and  general  sujieriority.  The  lock 
factories  of  the  country  are  situated  in  New  England,  New  \'ork,  and  the 
.Midille  States,  principally  :  they  employ  an  extremely  intelligent  class  of  men, 
and  form  a  large  and  important  industry.  The  American  lock  in  its  various 
tonus  is  in  world-wide  use.  It  is  one  of  the  varieties  of  builders'  hardware  for 
whii  li  there  is  just  at  this  time,  in  foreign  countries  which  have  been  supplied 
with  hardwire  from  England,  a  very  warm  admiration. 


I'lIMl'S. 


The  pump  is  a  machine  which  has  attained  such  importance,  that  a  special 
annex  was  devoted  to  its  exhibition  at  the  World's  Fair  of  1876  at   I'hiladel- 


3IO 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


phia.  It  is  a  very  ancient  macliine  (dating  back  to  the  second  rciuurv 
Importance  before  Christ  at  least),  is  now  made  in  a  wide  variety  of  lurnis 
of  industry,  ^^^j  j^  Qf  incalculable  utility.  It  was  not  in  very  general  use 
among  the  colonists  of  America,  because  of  the  cost  of  punij)  logs  or  iul)cs 

through  wiiich  the  water  hatl  to  Ijc  liiicil  by 
tlie  piston  of  the  pump.  The  well  w;i^  fur- 
Wood  nished  witii  buckets,  operated  hv 

pumps.  ,„eans  of  the  long  wcll-swcei),  or 

by  a  counterpoise  of  some  other  sort,  which 
nnule  it  easy  to  lift  tiie  brimming  luickct 
from  the  ilepths  of  the  well.    Willi  ma<  liiucry 


for  boring  pmnp-logs,  and  with  thi 


uiipor- 


tation  of  lead  pipe,  pmnps  came  \\\v^  use. 
They  were  at  first,  and  indeed  mitil  witliin 
thirty  or  forty  years,  always  of  wood,  tiie  valves 
alone  being  of  iron  and  leatiier.  About  furly 
years  ago  manufacturers  began  to  make  i  ast- 
iron  pmnps,  and  these  have  virtually  super- 
seded ail  others  for  domestic  uses.  The 
wooden  pump  survives  only  on  farms  ami  as 
=;  the  town-pimip  on  village  greens.  Sweet  and 
temler  memories  cluster  around  the  well- 
sweep  and  tiie  okl  wooden  pump,  and  the 
ruMp.  gradual  disapj)earauce  of  both  before  the  hus- 

tling and    unsenti  nental    civilization   of  the 
present  times  causes  a  feeling  of  positive  regret. 

The  highest  type  of  pump  up  to  the  date  of  the  introduction  of  the 

machine  into  the  water-works,   systems  of  cities  was   the  fue-engine.     We 

had  no  great  mines  in  this  country  wliose  treasures  were  deluced 

Fire-engine.         •  ,      n       i         r  ■        i  . 

With    floods   of  water  as  in  the   silver  mountains   of  Peru,  and 

machines  of  great  power  to  keep  the  mines  dry  were  unnecessary ;  so  that 
for  a  long  period  the  fire-engine  was  the  jieer  of  pumps,  and  a  very  old- 
fogy  sort  of  a  peer  it  was  too.  The  i)ump  was  mounted  upon  a  huge 
water-tight  wagon-box,  into  which  the  water  was  poured  by  the  l)U(ket 
First  ma-  Companies,  which  stood  in  line,  and  i)assed  the  buckets  along 
chines:  how  from  the  nearest  well.  The  i)iimp  was  operated  by  hand-levers, 
constructed,    j.^^^^^   ^.^^^^   ^^   twenty    men    being   able    to   catch    hold    of  the 

levers.  The  old  machines  were  clumsy  and  absurd  devices.  After  the 
great  fire  in  New  York  in  1835  more  attention  was  given  to  them,  and 
they  were  then  greatly  imjiroved.  They  were  fitted  with  suction-pipes,  which, 
while  en  route  to  and  from  fires,  were  carried  in  the  position  in  which 
a  squirrel  carries  his  tail,  and  which  afterwards  were  made  to  be  detached, 
and  put  on  at  will.     The  brakes  were  lengthened,  and  large  brass  receivers 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


3" 


were  [mt  upon  the  pumps.  Some  very  effective  types  of  fire-engines 
were  jiroduced  l)y  this  means.  The  best  of  cast-iron  and  cast-steel  was 
put  into  the  working-parts  of  the  machine,  and.  they  were  made  to  work 
smootiilv.  antl  to  enthire  a  long  perioil  of  hard  usage.  The  machine  con- 
tained either  two  double-acting  or  four  single-acting  force-pumps.  They 
^^"■^c  mostly  made  in  the 
Ivistcrii  States  ;  and  the 
larger  part  of  the  thirty- 
five  hundred  fire-engines  in 
use  throughout  the  United 
States  .ire  still  of  this  'lass 
of  h;uul-l)ower  machines. 
Thev  are  able  to  throw 
.111  inch-stream  of  water 
aveuty-five  feet  high  ;  but 
it  is  very  exhausting  work 
for  the  men  who  operate 
the  ! 'Hikes.  Simiiltaneous- 
Iv  with  the  improvement  of 
the  hand  lire-engine,  atten- 
tion began  to  be  i)aid  to 
the  sul)je(l  of  steam  fire- 
engines.  ( )ne  of  tile  latter 
cbss  li.id  been  made  in 
England  as  early  as  1829; 
bnt  it  was  excessively  clum- 
sy; and,  after  a  few  were 
made,  they  attracted  no 
more  attention  for  twenty 
years.  I5ut  in  the  United 
States  the  idea  was  taken  up 
ami  utilized.  Mr.  Hodges 
built    a    steam 

Hodges. 

fire-engine      in 

184 1  for  the  insurance  companies  of  New-Vork  City,  and  employed  ii  to  good 
effect  on  several  occasions  of  fire.  It  was  too  heavy,  however,  for  rapid  trans- 
portation from  one  jiart  of  the  city  to  another  in  emergencies.  Cincinnati  was 
the  first  city  to  make  the  steam  fire-engine  a  success.  A,  Ii.  Latta  Extent  cf 
built  one  of  these  engines  for  the  city  in  1853,  and  two  more  the  modern  im- 
year  following.  They  were  designed  to  be  locomotives,  and  go  by  P'""*"""*"* 
their  own  steam,  but  were  dreadfully  heavy,  weighing  about  twelve  tons  each. 
These  three  engines  were  successfully  used  as  part  of  the  fire-apparatus  of 
Cincinnati ;  but  the  attempt  to  prope'  them  from  one  place  to  another  with 


I'lM  lll.l.VtTINC.    ri'MP,    SHIl'   OK    HKI  . 


*t      f  » 


312 


/X/) I  \S  TRIA I.    Ills  /■(  Vv" )  ■ 


their  own  iiowcr  was  afterwards  abandoned.  In  iS5(;  a  niachinc  was  imjii  j,^ 
New  York,  weighing  only  live  tiiousand  i)oiin<is,  to  i)e  drawn  by  haml.  \\\x<i 
then  came  to  be  tiie  standard  weight  of  this  class  of  engines,  and  1  -n-u 
many  patterns  of  tliem  have  since  then  been  invented  and  i)erfe(ted.  iJu^ion 
I'iiihuleipiiia.  Chicago,  and  t)llier  large  cities,  made  experiments  witii  ihis  <  lass 
of  lire-apparatus  ;  and  the  result  has  been  tluit  all  large  communities  have 
now  adopted  them  ])eruianently,  anil  discarded  their  old  handiiKu  hincs. 
New- York  City  has  thirty-live  of  the  new  class.     Those  at  present  in  u.se  are 


IIVDKAll.lL    HAM. 


drawn  by  two  horses  each,  and  will  throw  a  five-eighths  inch  jet  over  a  hini 
dred  feet   high,   sometimes  a  hundred  and  thirty  feet.      They  are  supjiliicj 
either  with  piston  pumps  or  rotary  pumjis  ;  the  lattei  being  a  new  idea  in  tlii:^ 
class  of  machines,   introduced    about    fifty   years    igo.    and    within   the   last 
twenty    has    become    exceedingly    ])opular.       An  lated    controversy   Ikis 

raged  between  the  rival  makers  of  steam  fire-engines  as  to  the  resi)e(  tive 
merits  of  the  rotary  and  the  piston  princijjles.  A  contintious  flow,  houcscr,. 
is  maintained  with  both.      In  the  best  types  of  engines   now  made  .steam  is 


A  ,1,'riMt  manv  t 
or  hiu;h  lands. 
ill  all  the  wate 
ii>iiiiiiunities  at 
thf  water,  resc 
li'.iilt   SI)  massr 


O/-     THE    IWn-ED    STATES. 


313 


rai-iti  in  ll\c  inimiUs.  'I'Iil'  inimipal  factories  arc  those  of  the  Anioskcag 
(oinpany,  Silsby  iV  ('oinpaiiy  of  Seiiuca  Kails,  N,\'.,  the  I'aterson  Company 
,il'  r.ilv'ison,  N.J.,  and  1'..  A.  Straw  of  Manchester,  N.ll  ;  bnt  there  are  half 
,i(lii/cn  other  manufacturers. 

\\  illiin  ilie  last  forty  years  a  change  has  taken  i)la(e  with  regard  to  i)umps 
in  (ImiK'stic  use,  and  the  hre-engine  is  no  longer  the  peer  of  punijis.  Waler- 
wdik^  liave  l)ecn  extensively  introduced  to  cities  and  villages  ;  and 

.    Pumps  for 

this  lias  led  to  a  double  result :   first  the  almost  total  abolition  ot    supplying 
the  coinnion  iron  pum])  from  households  in  those  cities  and  vil-    cities  with 
lanes,  and  the  constru'tion  of  a  new  class  of  massive  machines  of 
ciuirniDus   jiower  to  take  their  place,  by  forcing  the  water  through  pipes  and 
maiiix  under  pressure,  to  the  different  houses  and  buildings  of  the  community. 


STEAM-rUMP. 

A  .trreat  many  towns  have  been  alile  to  build  reservoirs  on  the  adjacent  hills 
or  hiuh  lands,  at  such  a  height  above  the  i)lace  as  to  insure  a  heavv  jiressure 
ill  all  the  water-pipes  of  the  place  by  the  operation  of  gravity,  llul  not  all 
communities  arc  so  happily  situated  ;  and,  in  order  to  secure  a  distribution  of 
the  water,  resort  is  had  to  ])owerful  forcing-engines.  These  machines  are 
Imilt  so  massively  that  they  frequently  constitute    tlie  heaviest  machinery  in 


t^m 


314 


//V^D  US  TRIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


% 

operation  in  a  c 

cithtT  I  listen  or 

are  direct  actin, 

rotary  piimj),  ai 

Tiie  turbine  mc 

re(iuire(l  to  incri 

pimil)  is  cmijloj 

Willi  a  heavy  fl; 

l)iinii)s  arc  of  c 

nicety,     TIic  wo 

engineers  have  \ 

built  on  tlie   H( 

eight  i)umi)s  in 

continuous  ilow  ( 

0."  the  city,  lre(iu 

Heavy  puniii 

mines  of  the  1' 

construction. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


315 


operation  in  a  city,  and  are  one  of  the  local  wonders  of  the  place.  They  are 
either  i>iston  or  rotary  pumps.  'I'he  rotary  pumps,  if  driven  by  water-power, 
are  ilircct  acting ;  that  is,  the  shaft  of  the  turbine  rises  into  the  box  of  the 
rotary  pump,  and  forms  the  axle  of  the  pump,  or  else  gears  into  the  axle. 
The  turbine  moves  naturally  with  such  velocity,  that  no  special  gearing  is 
reiiuircd  to  increase  the  speed  of  the  pump.  If  steam  is  used,  or  if  a  piston- 
pump  is  employed  with  water-power,  tlie  machine-room  is  generally  supplied 
with  a  heavy  fly-wheel,  which  maintains  an  ecpiable  motion.  The  piston- 
piinips  are  of  cast-iron,  with  steel  pistons  and  iron  valves,  fitted  with  great 
nicety.  The  workmanship  upon  them  is  of  such  superior  order,  that  foreign 
engineers  have  given  it  hearty  commendation.  In  some  of  the  water- works 
built  on  the  Holly  i)rinciple  gangs  of  piston-pumps  are  used,  there  being 
eigiit  pumps  in  the  set.  The  eight  pistons  rise  one  after  the  other ;  and  a 
continuous  (low  of  the  water  is  thus  obtained,  and  the  pulsations  in  the  pipes 
0."  tlie  city,  frecpiently  heard,  are  obviated. 

Heavy  pumps  have  also  of  late  been  used  to  keep  the  goUl  anil  silver 
mines  of  the  Territories  free  of  water.  There  is  nothing  peculiar  in  their 
construction. 


'W- 


iii 

W.4 


3' 6 


JNDUST  '/AL  ///sroA'y 


CHAFrr.R   III. 


MANUFACTURES   OF   GOLD,   SILVKK,   AND   OTHER   MEIAI.S. 


r 


"N  the  republic  of  industry,  iron  is  the  president  of  metals;   but  it  by  no 
means  fulfils  all  the  purposes  in  the  arts  for  wiiich  a  metal  is  desiralik'.     It 
is  durable,  and  enormously  stronL' ;  but  it  is  corrosible  even  liv 

Iron ;  its  un-  j  n  >  j 

fitness  for       water,  and  is,  therefore,  unfit  for  dishes  and  utensils,  extcjil  for 
many  pur-      coarsc  uscs,  and  then  only  to  a  limited  extent.     It  is  not  a  lumd- 

poses. 

some  metal,  being  utterly  without  rich  color  and  decorative  elTuct ; 
and  cannot,  therefore,  be  used  for  ornament  and  for  fine  statuary.  It  lacks 
delicacy  of  texture,  and  cannot  be  readily  and  elegantly  wrought  ;  and  can  play 
no  part  in  the  manufacture  of  delicate  ware  for  the  gratification  of  luxurious 
tastes,  even  had  it  the  beauty  and  value  which  would  incline  one  to  devote  it 
to  such  purposes.  It  is  too  abundant  to  be  precious  ;  and  cannot,  therefore,  he 
used  as  a  medium  of  exchange.  To  sui)ply  the  defects  of  iron  for  luxurious 
and  many  common  uses,  a  bounteous  Providence  has  stored  the  rock,s  prodi- 
gally with  a  variety  of  other  metals  of  great  l)eauty  and  value,  which  experience 
and  scientific  research  have  enabled  man  to  abstract  from  their  mineral  sur- 
roundings, and  apply  to  a  thousand  important  uses.  Gold,  silver,  and  copper 
—  all  noble  metals  —  were  the  first  of  them  which  were  utilized  by  man,  and, 
indeed,  the  first  which  were  utilized  at  all  ;  and  so  true  is  this  last  remark,  that 

/  V^  0°'*^!'  silver,  and  copper  were  not  only  the  primary  metals  employed  in  the 
arts  by  the  ancient  peoples  of  luirope  and  .Asia,  but  were  the  first  which  the 
savages  of  America  also  took  from  the  rocks,  and  worked  up  into  tools  and 

^/    ornaments.     The  reason  of  this  early  ])opularity  of  gold,  silver,  and  coppir,  is 

tloubtless  to  be  found  in  the  fart  that  they  were  beautiful  metals,  attractive  to  the 

"^J  e\e,  and  so  soft  as  to  be  easilj  worked.     Iron,  zinc,  and  lead  were  discoven.Ml 

and  emploved  nexi,  and,  after  iron,  platinum,  last  of  all.     Copper 

Extensive  '      •  '  '  '  '  '  ' 

use  of  copper   was  the  great  resource  of  anti(|uity  for  all  objects  of  metallic  nianu- 
by  ancient       facturc.     'I'hey  hardened   \t  with   zinc  and  tin,  converting  it  into 

nations.  •'  •,  i 

brass  and  bronze,  and  making  of  it  arms,  tools,  armor,  utensils,  and 
many  ornaments.  They  nut  it  into  their  gold  and  silver  to  give  them  hardness 
and  durability,  and  used    i  great  deal   of  it  pure.     Silver  and  gold  gradually 


oi-    THE   iw //■/■:/)  swiv/ws. 


3»7 


snpiTMi It'll  it  tor  ..'lof,'.!!!!  ])iir|)()si's,  linwcvcr,  on  account  of  their  ^'rcatcr  splen- 
dor .iml  in<(irrosil)ility,  and  tu  this  day  are  tlie  matchless  metals  lor  tai)le-\vare, 
(iriKiim  Ills,  and  diidratio.is.  'I'hey  are  (  harminj(  metals  to  work,  and  olijects 
iiiadi'  ol  them  (an  lie  covered  with  a  jjrolnsion  of  luxuriant  sharp-cut  orna- 
iiuiil  uliich  is  absolutely  unattainable  in  any  other  mini'ral  substance.  'I'heir 
^lanih  lenders  tluan  additionally  \aluable,  and,  with  their  other  (|ualities, 
mark-,  iluui  out  as  the  true  nu'tals  for  a  medium  of  exchange  in  trade.  C'op- 
jur.  Ill i\\ ever,  still  maintains  its  nynk  next  to  iroi^  fur  purposes  of  utility,  and 
iH\t  U)  ^old  and  silver  for  beauty.  'I'in,  zin<',  and  ]>latintun  have  jirojierties 
Ml'  luautv  and  incorrosibilily  such  as  iron  does  not  ])ossess,  and  the  fust  two 
Wire  greatly  valued  in  anti(iuity  for  their  ability  to  make  beautiful  alloys  with 
i(i|i|ier.  I'hey  are  still  extensively  em])loyed  for  the  same  jjurposes.  and  also 
for  iitlu  IS  which  modern  invention  has  <liscovered  that  they  alone  are  good 
tor.  A  variety  of  other  metals  have  been  found  in  the  earth,  —  lead,  antimony, 
aluininuui,  iri£lh]m,  mercury,  nickel,  manganese,  i\;c.,  —  ea(  h  with  sjjecial  and 
valiialile  (lualities,  which  "  ivo  given  it  a  distinct  n'l/r  to  ])lay  in  the  arts,  which 
iron  nor  any  other  sul  nee  can  perform  ecjually  well.  'I'he  culture  and 
(DMvenience  of  mankind  i.ave  been  promoted  innnensely  by  the  discovery  of 
this  wide  range  of  diverse  metallic  substances.  Kach  one  of  the  seven  jirinci- 
pal  nu'tals  has  done  its  distinct  share  in  lifting  man  from  barbarism  to  civilii^a- 
lion.  Collectively  they  have  in  every  age  sup])lied  the  princijial  motive  for 
exploration,  concjuest,  and  colonization,  and  each  one  has  exerted  is  influence 
on  passing  events  ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  tiiat,  had  any  one  of  them 
bctn  lacking  from  the  resources  of  Nature,  the  whole  WTstory  of  the  world 
would  lia\e  been  totally  different  from  what  it  has  been.  Witli  reference  to 
till'  Inited  States,  it  may  be  said  that  Nature  has  blessed  our  territorv  with 
ample  stores  of  all  the  principal  metals  except  tin,  and  with  a  large  su])ply  of 
many  of  the  rarer  kinds.  As  the  race  which  took  possession  of  the  coimtry, 
and  settled  and  developed  it,  was  an  educated  one.  and  full  of  the  s])irit  of 
moilern  enterprise  and  industry,  it  was  natural  to  expect  a  development  of  the 
manufacture  of  the  metals  sooner  or  later  in  the  country.  The  expectation 
lias  already  been  realized.  The  facts  in  regard  to  iron  have  already  been  set 
I'ortli :  those  in  regard  to  gold,  silver,  cojjper.  and  the  rarer  kinds,  will  now  be 
related. 

COINAOR. 

The  most  important  employment  of  gold  and  silver  is  as  a  medium  of 

exchange  in  trade,     '''his  was  not   the  iirimarv  use.     (iold  and   „     , 

'^  *  ^  Employ- 

silver  first  subserved  only  the  vanity,  and  love   of  magnificence,   ment  of  gold 
on  the  part  of  kings  and  conspicuous   people,   and   the  jinpular  a»d  silver  as 
taste  for  the  decoration   of  teini)les  and  statues.     Articles  made 
of  the  two  metals  were,  indeed,  bartered  for  other  goods  ;  but  the  notion  of 
measuring  the  value  of  all  articles  by  a  weight  of  jmre  gold  or  of  pure  siher 


> 


ys" 


>> 


JF^ 


lilt;.:  •>■ 


AH-   - ' 


318 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


was  invented  only  after  trade  liad  been  carried  on  by  barter  for  centuries.  A 
common  meilium  of  value  at  k'ngth  became  necessary,  and  n  nhinj;  answered 
the  purpose  so  well  as  these  beautiful  and  universally-admired  metals,  In  the 
days  of  chivalry  it  was  not  an  uncommon  practice  to  wear  heavy  <  liams  of 

gold  or  silver  about  the  neck  and 
pay  the  score  at  the  wayside  tavern 
by  breaking  off  a  link  or  two  of  the 
precious  metal.  But  a  more  a((  urate 
mode  of  payment  was  desirable,  and 
the  more  popular  custom  of  striking 
coins  of  gold  anil  silver  of  f^-iven 
,N...,rs.  weights  and  purity  to  pass  from  hand 

to  hand  in  trade  gradually  superseded 
all  others.  In  the  gold-mining  regions  of  the  United  States,  since  1S48, 
another  mode  of  employing  gold  as  a  medium  of  exchange  was  resorted  to 
more  or  less  before  local  facilities  for  coining  were  created,  and  banks  were 
established  to  issue  paper  money.  This  was  to  carry  about  little  bags  of 
gold-dust,  and  pay  all  debts  and  scores  by  weighing  out  a  proper  amount  of 
the  metal.  The  metliod  is  still  in  use  in  remote  districts  to  a  limited  extent, 
and  is  the  same  in  jirinciplc  as  payment  in  minted  coin ;  that  is  to  say,  by 
specific  weight  and  purity  of  metal.  < 

When  this  country  was  first  settled,  trade  was  carried  on  by  the  inhabitants 
after  the  jirimitive  i)hin  of  barter.  Tobacco  was  an  almost  universal  medium 
of  exclfange  in  Virginia  and  other  Southern  colonies ;  and  cattle, 
skins,  wheat,  and  other  produce,  were  used  in  the  Northern  colonies 
even  to  pay  taxes,  (lold  and  silver  were  extremely  rare.  What  little  tlicre 
was  in  the  country  was  brought  at  first  from  England  and  Holland  by  the 
colonists,  or  received  from  those  two  countries  in  exchange  for  the  products 
of  their  labor.  It  was  too  valuable  to  circulate  much,  and  its  owners  generally 
preferred  to  hoard  it.  Houses  and  ships  were  built,  and  real  estate  bougiit,  by 
Fint  uie  of  barter.  After  a  few  years,  a  sujjply  of  silver  coin  was  obtained  by 
•iiver.  trade  with  Cuba  and  the  Spanish  settlements  in  the  other  West 

Indies.  This  was  an  illegal  trade,  because  Kngland  and  Spain  both  required 
their  respective  colonies  to  deal  only  with  the  mother-country ;  but  it  was 
winked  at  by  both  countries  on  account  of  its  obvious  advantages  to  both  the 
English  and  the  Spanish  colonies.  The  latter  obtained  fish,  flour,  and  other 
food  whicii  they  could  not  raise  themselves  ;  and  the  former  secured  silver  coin 
wherewith  to  pay  England  for  the  manufactures  they  were  forced  to  buy  of 
her.  The  exports  of  produce  from  the  English  colonies  never  paid  for  the 
imports  of  manufactures,  and  the  balance  in  trade  had  to  be  paid  for  with 
coin.  The  colonies,  having  no  money  of  their  ovyn,  were  flooded  with  foreign 
coins,  principally  silver,  but  partly  of  gold  also,  the  larger  part  of  the  currency 
being  Spanish.     English  shillings  and  sixpences,  and  the  Spanish  dollar  with 


Barter. 


OF    TIFF.    UNITED    STATES. 


3»9 


at  Philadel- 
phia. 


its  fr.K  tioiis,  were  the  principal  money.  Gold-pieces,  such  as  guineas,  doub- 
looib,  joes,  pistoles,  &c.,  wc.e  also  in  circulation,  but  were  too  greatly  prized 
for 'I inversion  into  jewelry  to  play  a  very  important  part  in  trade.  The  Span- 
ish (iiillar  liecanie  the  accepted  unit  of  the  cin  ulation. 

Tlic  colonies  always  wanted  a  coinage  of  their  own,  and  some  rough 
pieces  were  struck  at  various  times.  Massachusetts  established  a  mint  for 
the  imiduction  of  silver  shillings,  sixpences,  ami  threepences,  pine-tree 
whii  li  were  made  of  twopence  to  the  shilling  less  value  than  tiie  "'"■««• 
Kngli^ii  coin,  so  as  to  insure  their  remaining  at  home.  The  larger  coin  was 
the  famous  pine-tree  shilling.  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  also  coined  pennies. 
'Hum'  ventures  were  regardetl  with  great  disfavor  in  Kngland  as  an  infringe- 
mi'iit  itii  the  i)rerogativcs  of  royalty,  anil  they  became  short-lived  experiments 
in  (diiseciuence. 

Nothing  more  was  done  about  a  mint  until  1782,  when  Robert  Morris  — 
the  licst  financier  of  his  day,  and  who  iiad  more  than  once  helped  Washington 
throiij^li  a  crisis  by  iiis  advances  of  hanl  money  to  the  national  treasury  —  was 
askctl  to  report  a  system  of  coinage.  Mr.  Morris  coinj)lied,  and  £  ^  u„  v 
his  rejiort  formed  the  theme  of  debate  for  a  number  of  years,  mentofmint 
The  foundation  of  the  currency  had  been  for  years  tiie  Spanish 
dollar,  and  ( ontracts  for  hard  money  were  always  jiayable  in  that 
coin.  In  order  to  determine  the  exact  value  of  the  coin,  so  that  no  injustice 
mij,'ht  he  done  by  replacing  it  with  .American  pieces,  careful  assays  were  made 
by  Hamilton,  and  37 1|  grains  of  pure  silver  were  fixed  upon  as  the  standard 
value  of  the  Si)anish  dollar.  The  ecpiivalcnt  of  this  in  gold  was  fixed  at 
twenty-seven  grains.  Several  plans  of  coinage  were  suggested  ;  jefferton-a 
and  finally  one  proposed  by  Jefferson  was  adopted,  and  enacted  •y»»e'". 
April  2,  1792.  It  conformed  to  the  decimal  notation,  and  included  a  golden 
eajjie  of  270  grains  (fineness  916JI),  a  half-eagle  of  gold,  a  (juarter-eagle,  and 
a  (lollar.  a  silver  dollar  of  416  grains  (fineness  892^),  a  half-dollar,  quarter- 
dollar,  dime,  and  half-dime,  anil  a  copper  cent  of  .j64  grains.  A  mint  was 
established  at  Philadelphia,  some  very  noble  ilevices  adopted  for  the  coins, 
and  the  striking  of  metal  money  began.  This  first  gave  the  Americans  a 
money  of  their  own,  and  the  Span'.h  and  other  foreign  pieces  gradually 
(ii.saii|)eared  from  the  purses  and  li.oney-boxes  of  the  people.  They  were 
mostly  sent  into  the  mint,  and  recoined.  It  took  some  time,  however,  to 
elTcct  the  change,  because  the  facilities  of  rapid  and  safe  transportation  of 
money  from  one  point  of  the  country  to  another  had  not  yet  been  created ; 
and,  the  circulation  of  foreign  coins  being  permitted,  merchants  and  bankers 
preferred  to  let  matters  take  their  own  course  without  forcing  them. 

Two  varieties  of  the  coins  authorized  by  the  act  of  1792  were  worth  too 
much  to  circulate.  Owing  to  a  rise  in  the  value  of  copper,  it  was  found  that 
the  cent  had  been  made  too  heavy,  and  was  worth  more  than  the  hundredth 
part  of  the  dollar.     The  weight  was  accordingly  changed,  Jan.  14,  1793,  to 


'•rr-rrr 


!.  .;•!' 


^ik,. 


m 


* 


't     I 


l-iij  'j 


•V'l 


330 


/.\7>r.S/A'/.l/.     ///.V7V'/>'J' 


20S  grains.     AyrarDrlwo  lalrr  il  w.i-.   iciliu  id   to  16S  grains,  and   rv 


In.lllln 


DiHUulty 
wi 


il  that  standard  imlil  tlisioiitiniHil   in  1X57.      Tin.'  ;;<) 


th  coinaue   its  multiples  wiTi- also  too  licavy.     !>y  an  iTror  in  llif  (.il(iil 


o(  1703. 


t\V(.iity-st.\i.'n  j,'raiiis  \ww  (.Tionronsly  fixed  upon  as  the  e 


)!'  the  silver  dollar;  and  gold,  though  (oiniil  to  a  limited  extent,  never 


iiiiiii, 


■i|Ml\   llrlil 


I    llllr 


into  use  imdir  the  l.uv  oi    itc).'.      | 


metal  eurrencv  of  tiie  United  States  wa^ 


le 

re.ison  was.  tiiat  the  e,i;;le.  uliili  u.nih 
more  than  ten  dollars  in  siher.  (uulil 
only  rii(  ,,ite  as  ten  dollars;  wluiv- 
as  for  I  xportation  it  would  hriuj;  its 
true  value  as  270  grains  of  IiuIIkhi  df 
a  (  ertain  purity.  I'he  gold  t nin.  ;u 
eorilingly.  was  all  sent  aliroad  tn  p.w 
for  foreign  jxirehases  ;  and  the  (iiil\ 
s  siher  and  lopjier  imtil  .liter  1X^4, 


.Aliout  that  time  there  w.is  a 


finore   in    the   I  nited   Slates,  caused  hv 


the  discovery  of  tliat  jjrecious  nu'tal  in  (is.'orgia  and  in  the  moimtains  of  tl 


Creation  of      C'arolinas. 


Ihc 


vielil  o 


f  gold  t 


Vom  liie  mines  which  were  o|jeui.u 


gold-pieces.  ^y_^^  never  extravagantly  large;  Imt  it  was  sufficient  to  cause  tiie 
public  men  of  the  I'nited  St.ites  to  resolve  to  restore  gold  to  the  (  in  ulation 
of  the  country.  A  careful  study  of  the  relative  v.ilues  c'"  gold  and  siher  u.is 
made,  and  a  mtio  of  values  agreed  \\\ 


)on. 


In  order,  however,  to  make  ih 


go! 


(1  dollar  cumulate,  its  wi 


'uht 


was  n( 


)t   oiiK  reduced  to   tlu'   proper  point  |( 


make  it  worth  exa<  tlv  the  same  as  the  silver  dollar,  liut   it  w.is  hrou^ht 


list 


tritl 


e  lu'low  it. 


•Jhi 


l.iw  o 


•  J 


une 


2S.  1S34,  w 


as  then  eiiai  ted.  creat 


ing  a 


eagle  of  25S  grains  {S9().225  fine,  changed  in  1X37  to  900  fine)  and  a  jiali 
and  a  (piarter  eagle  of  relative  weight,  'i'he  gold  dollar  of  25. S  grains  was 
authori/ed  March  3,  1.S49.  'I'lie  mint  went  actively  to  work  (oiniiig  gold: 
and  a  few  years  later,  after  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California.  Inane  ii  estah- 
lishments  at  San  Francisco,  New  Orleans,  and  (arson  (.'ity.  were  opened  to 
aid  it  to  dispose  of  the  vast  ipiantities  of  metal  which  wore  brought  to  it  for 
conversion  into  current  money.  I'he  law  of  1S34  produced  an  unexpeiUi! 
result.  In  lessening  the  weight  of  the  gold  coins,  Congress  had  aimed  only 
at  preventing  their  exportation.     lUit  now  the  silver  dollar,  being  worth  iiioiv 


Withdrawal 
of  silver. 


than  a  irold  dollar  as  bullion   or  for  exi)ortati( 


l>orted 


disapp 


or  me 
the 


)n.  w, 


raiin 


ex- 


ited 


up.  and.  in  an   exceedingly  short  tune 


11) 
totaliv 


)cared    Irom  the  <  irculatioi 


'11 


le   silver   c 


loll 


:ir   w.i^ 


redu 


c  ed    lo   .)! 


grains  (900  fine)  in  18,^7  ;  but  th.it  did  not  arrest  tiie  c  hange  wliich  was  goiiit; 


on.     Silver  began  to  grow  extremelv  sc 


irce, 


'I'here  was  hardlv  sma 


11  ch 


.lUiiC 


enough  to  transac-t  the  business  of  the  i)eople.  The  dollars  and  halfiioll.irs 
were  at  four  ])er  cent  ])remium  for  export,  and  the  stock  in  the  country  u.is 
growing  lieautifully  less  day  by  clay.  The  people  could  not  go  back  to  barter 
for  the    j)ur|ioses   of  trade  :    and.  in   order  to   supply  the  dem.and  for  small 


or    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


.S2' 


chaiiK'  •  ''"^'  >T>cr(liants  licfjan  to  issue  ;i  sort  of  fractiotiiil  paper  currency, 
which  was  extensively  used  in  large  cities.  In  order  to  afford  the  people  the 
nec(k'<l  ri'litf,  Congress  enacted  a  Ia\..  IVl).  21,  1X5.?.  ciianging  the  weight  of 
the  hairdi)llar  to  192  grains  (900  fine),  and  the  smaller  coins  relati\ely.  'I'hat 
);;ni'  iIk'  ])eople  a  subsidiary  coinage  for  small  business-transactions;  but  it 
I'mislu'il  the  silver  era  of  American  money  at  a  blow.  All  the  old  silver  dis- 
,i|i|if,iri(l  like  a  flash  into  melting-pots  and  bullionofticcs ;  and  gold  became 
iiK'  ^t.md.ird  money,  with  silver  for  small  change. 

All  nulal  money,  e.\( ept  copper,  bron/.e,  and  nickel  cents,  two-cent  and 
livi-( lilt  pieces  (the  bronze  and  nickel  jjieces  authorized  in  1862,  1865,  and 
1860).  went  out  of  circulation  in  the  United   States  shortly  after   _.„ 

Itflect  of 

the  outbreak  of  the  war  of  kS6i.     The  government,  and  banks   war  upon 
North  antl  South,  issued  so  much  paper  monev,  that   its  value  fell   """•'"= 

.        ,  ,        .       ■•  .,'.,.  ,  currency. 

IhIdw  that  of  com,  and  com  disappeared.     It  is  only  in  1.S78  that 

the  \.iliK'  of  paper  has  approached  so  closely  to  that  of  coin,  that  coin  is  again 

n  (in  Illation. 

.Sime  the  establishment  of  the  mint  in  1792,  and  its  branches  in  later 
years,  the  following  values  of  money  have  been  struck  under  the  laws  of  the 
Inited  States  up  to  June  30,  1877  :  — 

I  )i)iil)le-caRlcs $809, 5(^8,440 

I'^aHlcs 56,707, 220 

ILilfcaglcs 69,412,815 

•  Jii.iilcr-c.in'ics 26,705,750 

'rhrcc-dolLir-picccs 1,300,052 

C'lold  (loll.irs '9i.V)5i438 

Silver  cloll.-irs 8,045,cSj8 

Trade  (loll.ir.s 24,581,350 

I'alf-doll.ir.s 118,869,540 

Quartcr-<lollars 34,774,121 

Twenty-cent-i)icccs ::7(),8s8 

Dimes 16,141,786 

Half-dimes ....  4,1(^.6,946 

Three-ccnt-pieces 1,281,850 

Nickel  fivc-ccnt-picces 5>77.1>090 

Nickel  threc-ccnt-picces 855,090 

llronzc  twoccnt-pieces 912,020 

Copper  cents Si304.S77 

Half-cents 39i926 

Total  gold I983.' 59.695 

Total  silver 208,872,289 

Tot.il  minor  coins 13,884,703 

Grand  total f  1,204,916,687 


While  the  government  exercises  the  sole  right  of  coining  the  precious 


""Wn^' 


'MM 


|ty.    !  •:■, 


jaa 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


metals  for  the  purposes  of  a  medium  of  exchange,  and  of  regulating  the 
Mintin  not  fi"^"*'''^  of  the  pieces,  it  does  not  carry  on  the  process  of  minting 
carried  on  for  profit.  Coining  was  formerly  a  source  of  enormous  gain  to 
for  making  a  royalty  in  Europe,  when  the  people  were  systematically  dctrauiled 
by  the  issue  of  pieces  worth  far  less  than  their  nominal  value,  in 
order  that  the  king  might  make  the  difference.  In  the  United  States  the 
mint  has  always  been  merely  a  factory  where  the  people  can  bring  their  gold 
and  silver  and  other  metal,  and,  by  paying  a  small  charge  for  the  expenses  of 
the  operation,  have  the  metal  converted  into  pieces  of  a  given  weight  and  fme- 
ne-.s.  The  stamp  of  the  government  is  merely  the  certificate  of  its  weight 
a.id  fineness.  Coining  has  never  been  carried  on  by  the  people,  except  under 
the  stress  of  a  great  necessity,  and  then  only  to  a  limited  extent.  During  the 
war  a  vast  number  of  copper  tokens,  which  passed  curre  as  a  cent,  were 
coined  for  business-men  ;  and,  during  the  early  days  of  gold-mining  in  tiie 
West,  private  firms  established  private  mints  at  Denver,  Col.,  and  in  San  i'ran- 
cisco.  The  coins  they  struck  were  merely  tokens ;  and,  though  tiiey  were 
largely  twenty-dollar-pieces,  they  were  always  worth  more  than  their  tai  e  as 
bullion.  The  miners  resorted  to  these  mints  merely  as  a  resource  for  having 
their  gold-dust  converted  into  convenient  form  for  shipment  to  the  States. 

The  process  of  coining  is  /ery  sinii)lc,  and  is  substantially  the  same, 
whether  the  pieces  struck  are  of  gold,  silver,  copper,  or  nickel,  dold  and 
Process  of  silver  are  brought  to  the  mint  in  many  difierent  forms,  —  in  the 
coining.  form  of   goUl-dust,  amalgamated  cakes  from  the  retorts  of  tlie 

stamp-mills  laminated  bars,  assayed  bars,  plate,  jewelry,  and  foreign  coin.  The 
metal  is  sent  first  to  be  assayed,  where  the  pure  gold  and  silver  are  first 
extracted,  and  then  severally  alloyed  in  the  proportion  of  nine  per  cent  of 
pure  metal  to  one  of  alloy.  The  metal  comes  to  the  mint  proper  in  flat  l)ars. 
It  is  weighed,  tested  to  ascertain  its  fineness,  and  is  ])assed  over  tu  the 
manufacturing  department.  The  bars  are  then  annealed,  and  rolled  at  a  red- 
heat  into  long,  thin  strips.  They  are  again  annealed,  and  drawn  out  between 
steel  plates  of  the  hardest  steel  to  the  proper  timkness  for  coining.  From 
the  strips  thus  obtained  a  machine  punches  out  round  planks,  or  plane  hets, 
of  the  proper  size  for  coining.  The  punch  cuts  out  a  hundred  and  sixty  a 
minute.  Tiie  blanks  are  collected,  and  the  perforated  strip  sent  back  to  be 
melted  and  re-rolled.  The  blanks  are  then  cleaned,  and  a  few  pieces  from  each 
lot  weighed  in  delicate  balances  to  ascertain  if  they  are  of  the  proper  standard. 
In  old  times,  when  coins  were  struck  by  hand  on  an  anvil,  pieces  differed 
materially  in  weight ;  and  the  merchant  balanced  each  one  on  his  finger,  and 
estimated  its  value,  before  he  took  it.  The  use  of  machinery  has  obviated  tlie 
ancient  wide  differences  in  weight ;  yet  it  is  impossible  to  prevent  a  shade  of 
variation,  and  the  mint  does  not  attempt  to  give  each  piece  a  mathematically 
exact  value.  What  is  called  a  "working  tolerance"  of  weight  is  allowed.  This 
legal  deviation  is  as  follows  :  — 


\ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


3«3 


THB  PIECE. 


Doiiblc-cagle 
Kiigle  . 
llalf-caglo    . 
Qiiaitti-eagle 
Three-dollar  coin 
Dollar. 
Silver  dollar 
Trade  dollar 
ll.ilf-d(.llar  . 
Uiiartcr-dollar      . 
i'wenly  rents 
Uime   . 


ITS  WRIGHT 
IN   GRAINS. 


S«6 

258 
129 
64.5 

77-4 
25.8 

412.5 

420 

192.9 

96-45 
77.16 

38.58 


WORKING  TOLBKANCB 
IN  GKAINS. 


i 
i 

k 

k 

I* 

>i 
>i 
•i 


I'icccs  whidi  fall  helow  the  standard  by  more  than  the  above  variation  are 
railed  "condemned  ligiits,"  and  are  sent  back  for  re-melting.  The  "heavies" 
arc  rodiiccd  to  the  proper  point  by  filing.  The  others  are  called  "  standards." 
UliLii  those  of  the  right  weight  are  si^rted  out,  they  are  milled  in  a  machine 
Hhicli  raises  the  edge  so  as  to  protect  the  device  of  the  completed  coin  from 
wear.  The  blanks  are  then  cleaned,  polished  by  agitation,  and  sent  to  the 
roining-press.  'I'he  press  is  a  simple  but  very  massive  machine.  When 
ilouhlc-eagles  are  coined,  it  is  made  capable  of  administering  to  the  golden 
'ilanks  a  grim  thrust  of  seventy-five  tons.  The  blanks  are  put  into  a  tube, 
and  slip  down  one  by  one  upon  the  bed  of  the  press.  They  rest  upon  a  die 
lontaiiiing  the  device  of  one  side  of  the  coin,  while  a  die  containing  the  other 
(oniL's  down  upon  them.  The  impression  of  both  sides,  and  the  fluting  of  the 
edge  to  save  it  from  filing,  are  given  all  at  once 
Steel  fingers  pick  up  the  stamped  coin,  and  re- 
move it.  The  ordinary  speed  of  coinage  is  from 
sixty  to  eighty  per  minute.  A  pair  of  dies  lasts 
about  two  weeks. 

The  operations  of  the  mint  are  not  confined 
entirely  to  the  coining  of  American 
numey.     A  great  many  commemo-   °,''"j^t°"' 
raiive  and  other  medals  ortlered  by  aoieiy  con- 
Congress  are   stnick  from  time  to  """"tocoin- 

ins  money. 

lime,  and  there  has  been  some  work 

l"r  foreign  governments  performed.     At  Phila- 

ilillihia  12,000,000  nickel  pieces  were  struck  in   1876  for  Venezuela.     The 

est.il)lishment  at  Philadelphia  ,s  the  principal  one  in  the  country,  and  has  a 

(apacity  of  about  25,000  pieces  an  hour.     The  branch  at  New  Orleans  hts 


nRST  UNITED-STATES  DOLLAR. 


wm.. 


■f    !M  ■' 


-mm 


m 

I    3 


324 


l\DUSTRrAL    HISTORY 


been  idle  for  sevsral  years,  owing  to  the  war  and  the  falHng-off  in  coinage 
during  the  era  of  paper  money.  It  was  usefully  'employed  in  previous  times 
in  converting  the  Mexican  dollars  to  our  own  coinage.  The  I'acific-coast 
mints  have  nui  princi])aliy  upon  trade  dollars  for  export  to  China,  Ia])an 
and  India,  that  coin  having  been  authorized  in  February,  1873,  siinjilv  for 
export  purposes.  The  piece  is  not  for  circulation  in  the  United  States 
and  was  made  heavy  in  order  that  it  should  certainly  go  abroad.  It  has 
been  very  successful  in  taking  the  jilacc  of  tlie  Spanisii  and  Mexican  dollars 
in  Asiatic  countries.     The  new  labors  imposed  upon  the  mints  by  the  law 


I'lllLAUKLPIIU   MINT. 


of  1878,  remonetizing  silver,  will  tax  all  the  establishments  in  the  United 
States  heavily,  and  compel  the  one  at  New  Orleans  to  be  re-opened,  and  a  new 
one  to  be  Inult. 

It  has  already  been  stated,  on  the  basis  of  a  report  by  Dr.  Lindcman, 
Totii  coin-  director  of  the  mint,  that  the  total  coinage  of  the  United  States  iij) 
•*'•  to  June  30,  1877,  was  551,204,916,987.     How  much  of  this  coin 

age  remains  in  existence,  and  how  much  of  what  remains  in  existence  is  still 
in  the  United  States,  available  for  circulation,  is  not  certainly  known.  If  the 
flow  of  specie  into  the  country  and  out  of  it,  for  the  purposes  of  trade,  were 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


3'5 


to  be  alone  regarded,  it  would  appear  that  there  was  none  of  it  scarcely  left  in 
the  Kmd  of  its  origin.     The  movement  of  specie  since   1820  has  been  as 

follows :  — 


From  1S20  to  1830 
"  1S30  to  1840 
"  1840  to  1850 
"  1S50  to  i860 
"  1S60  to  1870 
"     1S70  to  1877 

Total      . 


{69,143,780 
107,469,296 

*^6.83S.992 

71,187,934 

188,450,442 

162,561,195 

$685,648,639 


>7 '.538.456 
56,839,893 
65,010,921 
495,111,813 
659,865,683 
534,360,182 


$1,882,726,948 


'Fills  would  seem  to  show  that  the  whole  coinage  of  the  United  States  had 
been  substantially  exported  ;  but  forttmately  a  large 
part  of  the  export,  perhaps  $500,000,-  Extent  of  ex- 
000,  was  in  bullion,  and  conseciuently  pofto' "int. 
the  drain  upon  the  coinage  was  lessened  by  that 
amount.  Those  who  have  studied  the  subject 
closely  believe  that  about  $300,000,000  of  the 
gold  and  silver  of  the  United  States  has  escaped 
the  nulliiig-pot,  and  is  still  extant,  and  held  in  the 
country,  and  therefore  available  for  circulation. 
The  rest  is  believed  to  have  been  recoinetl  in 
Kuropc,  or  consumed  in  the  arts. 


THE   WASHINGTON    HALF-DOLLAR. 


JEWELRV. 

The  most  ancient  use  of  gold  and  silver  was  probably  for  personal  adorn- 
ment.   The  rarity  and  beauty  of  the  two  metals  caused  them  to  be  jjrized  for 
this  purpose  from  tlie  very  beginning.     At  first  the  kings  monopo-   g^^j 
li/.ed  gold  and  silver  to  themselves  for  table-ware,  jewels,  and  the   gold  and  sii- 
gildiiiL'  of  their  arms  and  i)alaces  :  but  the  rich  discoveries  in  Africa  ^"  '"^  '"■"■" 

■^        "  '  '  ment. 

and  Spain  caused  them  to  come  into  more  popular  use,  and 
wealtiiy  people  employed  them  for  all  the  purposes  named,  and  also  for  money. 
The  Orientals  were  pa.ssionately  fond  of  decoration.  They  loved  rich  colors 
and  gold  and  silver  ornaments  in  profusion  ;  and  doubtless  John  was  in  ecstasy 
over  the  sight,  when,  looking  up  from  his  rocky  Patmos,  he  beheld  the  New 
Jerusalem  with  its  jasper  walls,  its  streets  of  gold,  and  gates  of  shadowy  pearl. 
Color  and  ornament  were  becoming  to  those  dusky-hued  people ;  and  they 
could  wear  a  luxuriance  of  both  which  the  cooler  taste  of  the  North  would 


*::    i.:Ul 


mm 


i'6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


j^ffiH 

Hii 

1 

Hli 

1 

^m. 


not  approve,  and  which,  in  the  United  States  of  to-day,  would  be  regarded  as 
highly  objectionable.  The  manufacture  of  jewelry  was,  therefore,  one  nf  the 
earliest  arts.  The  Egyptians  and  Phoenicians  became  celebrated  in  it.  I'he 
treasure  of  the  kings  consisted  of  gold  and  silver  dishes  and  jewelry,  with 
arms  made  of  the  baser  metals  ;  and  these  things  constituted  the  most  l^.ighly 
prized  gifts.  Rebekah  was  wooed  with  ear-rings  and  bracelets  of  gohl ;  Isaac 
probably  not  having  heard  the  line  from  the  old  poem,  "  Win  men  witli  thy 
sword-arm,  and  maids  with  thy  tongue,"  or  at  any  rate  trusting  (and  success- 
fully too)  to  the  influence  of  splendid  jewelry  to  create  a  favorable  first  im- 
pression. Juno,  when  she  wanted  to  beg  a  favor  of  Jove,  began  by  putting  on 
a  dazzling  array  of  golden  tassels  and  jewels.  Jewelry  was  greatly  valued  even 
among  the  more  spiritueUe  peoples  of  the  north  of  Kurope  ;  but  its  use.  which 
was  ascribed  chiefly  to  the  gods  and  to  kings,  was,  until  modern  times,  more 
limited.  In  the  days  of  early  superstition  it  was  imagined  that  the  jewels  of 
the  gods  were  fashioned  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  by  the  dwarfs ;  and 
Oehlenschlager  wrote  a  i)retty  poem  entitled  "The  Dwarfs,"  in  which  he 
described  their  marvellous  manufacture  :  — 


"  He  crept  on  his  belly  as  supple  as  eel 
,-'     .  The  tracks  in  the  hard  granite  through, 

Till  he  came  where  the  dwarfs  stood  hammering  steel 
■'  By  the  light  of  a  furnace  blue. 

I  trow  'twas  a  goodly  sight  to      e, — 
•■  The  dwarfs,  with  their  aprons  on, 

■"  A  hammering  and  smelting  so  busily 

Pure  goUl  from  the  rough  brown  stone. 

« 

Rock-crystals  from  sand  and  hard  flint  they  made. 

Which,  tinged  with  the  rosebud's  dye, 
They  cast  into  rubies  and  carbuncles  red, 
,  And  hid  them  in  cracks  hard  by. 

They  took  them  fresh  violets,  all  dripping  with  dew, 
Dwarf  women  had  plucked  them  the  nion 

And  stained  with  their  juice  the  clear  sapphires  blue 
King  Dan  in  his  crown  since  hath  worn. 

Then  for  emeralds  they  searched  out  the  brightest  green 
"  !:•:  Which  the  young  spring  meadow  wears, 

And  dropped  round  pearls,  without  flaw  or  stain, 
From  widows'  and  maidens'  tears. 

Then  they  took  them  t'-e  skin  of  a  large  wild  boar,  — 
■^^  The  largest  that  they  rould  find  ; 

'■' '    ■   -  And  the  bellows  they  blew  till  the  furnace  'gan  roar, 

.i^.j"V%;  .  And  the  fire  flamed  on  high  for  the  wind. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

They  took  them  pure  gold  from  their  secret  store,  — 

The  piece  'twas  but  small  in  size  ; 
But,  ere  't  had  been  long  in  the  furnace  roar, 

'Twas  a  jewel  beyond  all  prize. 

A  broad  red  ring  all  of  wroughten  gold, 

As  a  snake  with  its  tail  in  its  head ; 
And  a  garland  of  gems  did  the  rim  infold, 

Together  with  rare  art  laid. 

Twas  solid  and  heavy,  and  wrought  with  care } 
Thrice  it  passed  through  the  white  flame's  glow: 

A  ring  to  produce,  fit  for  Odin  to  wear, 
No  labor  they  spared,  I  trow." 


m. 


In  the  United  States  the  use  of  jewelry  was  at  first  discouraged,  partly 
because  of  the  poverty  of  the  original  colonists,  but,  in  the  North,  more  on 
account  of  the  ascendency  of  Puritan  and  ascetic  ideas.     Most  of 
tiie  colonists  in  New  York,  Virginia,  and  the  other  middle  and  ry*|n°united 
southern  provinces,  brought  with  them  a  few  articles  of  ornamental   statei  was 
work  in  gold  and  silver ;  but  they  bought  little  or  none  when  they   [°u'J'"jj    *' 
got  here  until  after  the  Revolutionary  war.     Only  a  few  families 
thought  fit  to  make  purchases  of  this  description.     The  gold  beads  and  the 
few  other  ornaments  in  the  family  were  handed  down  from  one  generation 
cf  women  to  anothe"*  as  precious  heirlooms.     With  the  rise  of  prosperity  after 
the  Revolution  a  moderate  amount  of  luxury  began  to  prevail,  and  ascetic 
ideas  to  lose  their  influence.     A  demand  for  jewelry  sprang  up.     (luineas  and 
doubloons  and  Spanish  dollars  began  to  be  converted  by  the  gold-   oppoied  to 
smiths  of  the  times  into  rings,  seals,  watch-chains,  and  pins.    Public  republican 
sentiment  was   still  opposed  to  much  ostentation.      Republican  '""''  '  **'' 
simplicity  of  dress  and  manner  was  preferred.     Still  the  taste  for  ornament 
rapidly  grew,  and  somewhere  about  1 790  the  trade  in  jewelry  became  so  large 
xs  to  tempt  a  native  workman  to  begin  the  manufacture  of  it  in  this  country. 
Epaphras  Hinsdale  of  Newark,  N.J.,  is  believed  to  have  been  the  first  regular 
manufacturer  of  American  jewelry.     He  was  a  mechanic  of  great  ingenuity ; 
and  somewhere  from   1 790  to   1 795    he  devoted  himself  to  the  pi^,^  manu- 
proiluction  of  the  brooches,  seals,  and  other  simple  gold  and  silver  facturer  of 
ornaments,  worn  at  that  day.     iiinsdale  died  about  1810 ;  but  one  J'^'''^- 
of  his  men,  by  the  name  of  Taylor,  followed  him  in  the  business,  and  put 
fresh  vigor  and  capital  into  it.     Both  of  these  men  used  gold  sixteen  carats 
fine,  and  their  work  was  ail  solid.     Every  piece  was  made  by  hand  by  ham- 
mering, filing,  welding,  and  soldering. 

About  1 800  the  manufacture  of  jewelry  was  begim  in  New  England,  the 
very  seat  of  the  ancient  abhorrence  of  ornament,  by  two  or  three  firms  at  Provi- 


HI  ■ 


11 


3a8 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


facture  at 
Providence. 


Filled  work. 


dence,  R.I.  The  fact  illustrates  the  great  revolution  which  had  taken  place 
Early  manu-  '"  ^^^  world  of  ideas  sincc  the  days  of  "  The  Mayflower "  and 
Miles  Standish.  Providence  immediately  became  the  chief  centre 
of  the  industry  in  this  country.  By  i8io  its  firms  were  employing 
a  hundred  men  in  the  business,  and  nroducing  jewelry  to  the  yearly  value  of  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars. 

In  i8i2  George  F.  Downing  was  making  watch-seals  at  Newark,  N.J. 
He  carried  on  the  business  for  many  years.  In  1821  he  removed  to  the  grow- 
ing city  of  New  York,  and  diversified  his  manufacture  greatly.  The  only  other 
concern  in  New- York  City  at  that  time  is  believed  to  have  been  that  of  La 
Guerre,  a  Frenchman  who  had  a  jewelry-shop  in  which  he  employed  French 
workmen.  La  Guerre  had  started  about  181 2.  The  work  of  these  two  makers 
was  of  solid  gold  and  silver,  and  all  produced  by  hand. 

Yankee  ingenuity  had  devised  a  thoroughly  different  mode  of  manufacture, 
however,  and  New  England  was  filling  the  country  with  a  less  expensive  kind 
of  jewelry.  Almost  from  the  very  first  the  Providence  makers 
employed  machinery,  and  began  to  produce  what  is  called  filled 
work.  The  ornament  was  stamped  by  a  die  from  a  ribbon  of  gold  or  silver, 
the  gold  being  about  eighteen  carats  fine  ;  that  is  to  say,  containing  eighteen 
pennyweights  of  pure  gold  to  six  pennyweights  of  alloy.  The  softness  and 
tenacity  of  the  metals  permitted  them  to  be  stamped  into  the  most  elaborate 
forms.  The  hollow  jewel  was  then  filled  with  pewter  or  lead,  and  fitted  with 
a  back  of  gold  of  inferior  quality.  Ornaments  in  a  thousand  patterns  were 
thus  produced,  which  were  to  all  appearance  of  solid  gold,  but  which  could  be 
made  and  sold  for  a  small  fraction  of  the  expense  of  solid  gold  jewels.  In 
the  manufacture  of  this  work  a  great  deal  of  gold  plate  was  used,  made  by 
putting  a  thin  sheet  of  gold  upon  one  of  copper,  and  rolling  them  out  in 
the  rolling-mill,  the  two  sheets  being  first  united  by  fusing.  Filled  jewelry 
found  a  wide  market  from  the  very  first.  The  universal  Yankee  peddler  sold 
Rapid  in-  immense  quantities  of  it,  and  the  manufacture  of  it  increased 
crease  of  year  by  year.  Other  cities  began  the  business ;  but  so  rapidly 
ui  ness.  did  the  demand  increase,  that  from  1830  to  1837  it  was  beyond 
the  power  of  American  factories  to  respond  to  it.  The  discovery  of  gold  and 
silver  in  California  and  in  the  West  gave  a  new  impulse  to  jewelry  manufacture, 
especially  of  the  more  solid  kinds.  Factories  of  it  started  up  everywhere.  In 
i860  there  were  463  establishments  making  jewelry  in  the  United  States, 
employing  5,947  workmen,  and  struggling  to  keep  pace  with  the  growth  of 
population  and  luxury,  —  a  task  which  they  found  to  be  one  of  considerable 
difficulty. 

The  war  of  186 1,  which  impoverished  the  South,  and  led  to  a  decrease  in 
the  amount  of  jewelry  worn  in  that  part  of  the  republic,  gave  an  enormous 
stimulus  to  it  in  the  North.  Speculation  was  rife  in  every  part  of  that  section. 
The  issues  of  paper  money  stimulated  business.     Everybody  was  making  and 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


329 


spending  money,  and  all  classes  of  the  people  indulged  in  expenditures  for 
objects  of  luxury  and  ornament  to  an  extent  never  before  known.    The  rich 
bought  diamonds  set  in  solid  gold,  solid  gold  and  silver  bracelets, 
rings  with  emeralds  and  other  precious  stones,  gold  pins  and  but-  inju"'"  " 
tons,  and  all  the  varieties  of  ornaments  which  the  jeweller's  art  has  during  the 
protluced  ;  while  the  poor  bought  pins,  er-i-rings,  bracelets,  finger-   ^ ^ 
rings,  and  necklaces  of  the  cheaper  stylts  of  filled  work.     From 
i860  to  1870  the  factories  increased  from  463  to  681  in  number,  and  the  yearly 
production  from  $10,415,000  in  value  to  $22,104,000.     In  1870,  10,091  people 
were  employed  in  the  business.     The  growth  of  those  ten  years  of  inflation 
and  speculation  has  not  been  maintained,  however.     The  panic  of  Effect  of 
1873  struck  a  heavy  blow  at  jewelry-making.     It  was  one  of  the  p«n'cof  1873. 
first  industries  to  suffer,  and  production  has  fallen  off  materially :  a  revival  is 
only  beginning  to  take  place.    The  manufacture  of  solid  work  has  suffered  the 
least  from  the  period  of  retrenchment  and  economy,  because  the  rich,  who  are 
ihe  buyers  of  the  work,  were  the  least  affected  by  the  times.     The  chief  centres 
of  the  jewelry-trade  now  are  Providence,  R.I.,  which  has  about  seventy-five 
establishments ;    Philadelphia,  with  fifty-five  factories ;    New  York,  with   two 
hundred ;    Bristol   County,  Mass.,  with   thirty-five ;    and   Springfield,  Mass., 
Boston,   Cincinnati,   San   Francisco,   and   Newark,    N.  J.      The   filled   work 
is  mostly  made  in  New  England  and  New  Jersey.     The  principal  New- York 
factories,  such  as  Tiffany  &  Company,  produce  nothing  except  solid  jewelry 
made  by  hand,  each  piece  being  unique,  and  seldom  copied. 

A  great  many  alloys  of  gold  are  used  in  the  making  of  ornaments.     Silver 
is  used  pure,  being  alloyed  only  to  give  it  hardness.     Gold  is  fused  with  copper^ 
to  give  it  a  red  color,  and  with  silver  to  give  it  a  silvery  lustre.    . 
It  is  seldom  used  purer  than  twenty-two   carats,  nor  inferior  to  gold  used  in 
fourteen  carats,  because  it  would  tarnish  and  stain  below  that  purity.   '"»'''"« 

icwclrv 

It  is  given  either  a  polished,  dead,  or  frosted  surface,  and  is  often 
elaborately  ornamented  by  soldering  gold  wire  upon  it  to  form  a  pattern,  or  by 
chasing  with  a  tool.  In  large  factories  a  corps  of  designers  is  kept  steadily 
employed  in  producing  new  patterns  in  pins,  bracelets,  rings,  &c.,  ideas  being 
bon-Qwed  from  every  source,  ancient  and  modern.  Chinese,  Japanese,  and 
anticiiie  types  are  now  the  rage.  New- York  City  makers  are  boiTowing  liberally 
from  the  patterns  in  the  Cesnola  collection  of  anticpiities  at  the  Metropolitan 
Museum.  In  the  hand-labor  shops  it  often  takes  two  and  three  weeks  to  make 
a  single  piece  of  jewelry,  and  set  it  with  stones :  in  the  machine-shops 
thousands  of  pieces  are  completed  in  a  single  day. 

Platinum  is  now  used  to  some  extent  by  the  goldsmiths  of  the  United 
States  for  the  more  expensive  kinds  of  ornaments.  The  metal  very  much 
resembles  silver,  and  is  readily  worked.  It  has  the  desirable 
quality  of  resisting  chemical  action,  and  does  not  tarnish  as  easily 
.is  silver.  It  is  the  best  material,  therefore,  for  such  costly  ornaments  as 
phnnes  set  with  diamonds,  to  be  worn  in  the  hair. 


Platinum. 


j-'r 


wr 


ri:  *' 


m 


330 


/ATD  {/S  TRIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


Tortoise-shell  and  jet  jewelry  is  also  largely  made.  These  varieties  are 
Tortoiie-  not  only  cheaper  than  the  others,  hut  they  are  also  very  pretty 
aheii.  and  enable  thousands  to  gratify  their  love  of  decoration  who  are 

debarred  from  buying  gold  and  silver  anil  precious  stones. 

The  diamonds  and  other  gems  which  are  set  in  the  more  costly  articles 
of  jewelry  are    nearly  all  imported.     The  rocks  of  the  I'nited 
States   supply  only   the   agate,   garnet,   opal,   and   a   few  of  the 
cheaper  varieties  of  gems. 


Diamondi. 


%. 


GOLD    AND    SILVER    LEAF. 

A  large  amount  of  gold,  and  some  silver,  is  consumed  annually,  in  the  form 

of  gold  and  silver  leaf,  in  the  decoration  of  the  covers  of  books,  in  tiie  gilding 

of  piclure-franies,  furniture,  &c.,  and  by  dentists.     The  (luantitv 

Oilding.  ,  1  1     •  1        . 

IS  almost  if  not  quite  as  large  as  that  employed  either  in  (oinage 
or  in  jewelry ;  and  it  is  an  actual  consumption,  because  it  docs  not  pay  to 
attempt  to  save  the  leaf  after  the  articles  to  which  it  is  applied  are  worn  out, 
any  more  than  it  pays  to  collect  the  worn-out  ends  of  lead-pencils,  or  the 
stumps  of  cigars.  It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  use  of  the  metal  in  the 
leaf  replaces,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  employment  of  solitl  metal.  The  lavish 
use  of  gold  and  silver  leaf  took  its  rise  in  modern  times  in  Italy  and  l-rance. 
The  passion  for  it  in  France  outran  all  bounds,  either  of  good  taste,  or  pru- 
dence in  expenditure.  The  rise  of  luxury  in  England  creating  a  similar  rage 
for  gilding,  the  drain  ujJon  the  world's  supply  of  gold  became  very  large.  In 
the  time  of  James  I,  the  loss  became  so  serious,  that  a  special  act  was  passed, 
restricting  the  use  of  gold-leaf,  and  permitting  it  to  be  emjiloyed  only  for 
specified  objects,  the  decoration  of  military  trappings  being  the  print  ipal  one. 
After  the  discovery  of  gold  and  silver  in  .'\merica  there  was  no  need  of 
further  economy,  —  at  least  not  on  account  of  any  supposed  danger  of  using 
up  the  world's  supply  of  the  metals,  —  and  gilding  and  silvering  rapidly  he- 
came  universal.  In  this  country  the  taste  for  that  style  of  decoration  has  lat- 
terly outgrown  the  ability  of  people  to  afford  it  to  the  extent  which  is  desired ; 
and  a  number  of  cheap  bronze  and  other  imitation  gold  and  silver  leaves 
and  powders  have  been  invented  for  the  lettering  of  large  signs,  the  illumina- 
tion of  paper-hangings,  &c.,  so  as  to  put  gilding  and  silvering  within  the 
reach  of  the  masses  for  common  purposes,  (lenuine  gold  and  silver  hoi.! 
their  own,  however,  for  the  better  sort  of  decoration.  Their  use  in(  reases 
year  by  year.  I^atterly  the  use  of  silver-leaf  has  been  almost  superseded  in 
the  arts  by  the  process  of  silvering  called  electro-plating,  which  is  elsewhere 
described  ;  but  a  small  amount  is  still  consumed. 

Gold-beating  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  arts.  The  process  is  very 
simple,  and  differs  from  the  practice  of  the  olden  time  principally  in  the  use 
of  the  rolling-mill  for  part  of  the  work.     Instead  of  hammering  out  the  leaf 


OF    THE    UNiTRD    STATES. 


33» 


(lircctlv  from  the  ingot,  the  ingot  is  now  rolled  until  it  is  reduced  to  the  thick- 
ness 111  giir  part  "f  •'!"  '"^h  l)cfore  it  goes  under  the  hammer.  ooM-beMini 
An  ounce  of  gold  will  make  a  strip  ten  feet  long  and  an  inch  and  "n  ancient 
half  wide  when  rolled  to  the  thickness  of  gjjy  part  of  an  inch.  "*' 
lor  lii-.uing.  the  delicate  strip  is  cut  up  into  pieces  an  inch  square.  Each 
niece  is  laid  upon  a  leaf  of  fine  vellum  four  inches  square,  and  a  hundred 
and  litty  of  these  leaves  piled  up  one  above  the  other,  with  a  few  extra 
pieces  of  vellum  at  each  end.  This  pile  is  called  a  "  kutch."  It  is  put  into 
a  ])ar(  luncnt  case,  so  that  the  four  sides  are  protected  ;  and  a  workman  rains 
p  j\\  it  a  shower  of  blows  from  a  sixteen-pound  hammer,  turning  the  pack 
over  end  for  end  occasionally,  bending  it  between  the  hands  so  as  to  make 
ihc  >;i'l(l  leaves  spread  readily,  and  interchanging  the  different  jjarts  of  the 
|)ack.  riie  hammer  has  a  convex  face.  In  about  twenty  minutes  the  little 
s(|iiarcs  are  spread  to  the  full  size  of  the  vellum.  They  are  then  taken  out,  cut 
into  (luartcrs,  and  again  jiacked  and  beaten.  They  are  once  again  taken  out, 
liiartered,  and  beaten  until  the  original  inch-scjuart  pieces  have  been  beaten 
out  to  192  times  their  original  size,  and  the  thickness  reduced  to  about 
Ti;ij\j!HT  P'lrt  of  an  inch.  They  are  often  beaten  again.  The  ordinary  com- 
mercial gold-leaf  is  usually  beaten  out  to  ofjo'sofr  P^rt  of  an  inch  ;  but  the 
FreiK  li  have  reduced  it  to  gHo'odiT  P'li't  of  an  inch,  spreading  out  an  ounce 
of  gold  to  cover  a  surface  of  160  scpiare  feet.  Imitation  gold-leaf  is  made 
hv  gilding  brass,  and  rolling  and  beating  it  out  in  the  usual  way.  Silver-leaf, 
which  is  very  beautiful,  cannot  l)e  reduced  to  quite  the  thinness  of  gold,  but 
i>  hammered  out  to  Tuo'ijon  part  of  an  inch  ;  which  is  thin  enough  for  this  less 
(ostlv  metal. 

Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  substitute  a  machine  for  Attempti  to 
hanmuring  gold  and  silver   leaf  in    i)lace  of  the    hand-process.   »"^"**"*» 
New  lingland  brought  out  several  devices  for  the    puqjose,  and  of  m«nu- 
txhibited    them    at   the   world's   fairs.      They  have  not  proved   '•'*"•■"• 
popular,  and  have  virtually  been  abandoned. 

Ciold-leaf  is  put  up  for  the  market  in  little  books  of  smooth  paper,  contain- 
ing twenty-five  leaves  each,  which  are  kejjt  from  sticking  to  the   How  gold 
pajier  by  preparing  the  latter  with  chalk  or  red  ochre. 
arc  sold  in  jjackages  of  a  dozen. 

.SILVER   TAHLF.-WARE. 

There  was  very  little  silver-ware  to  be  seen  upon  the  tables  of  the  early 
ioionists  of  the  United  States.  Such  a  luxury  was  beyond  the  means  of  all 
ixccpt  a  very  few,  and  was,  besides,  inappropriate  to  the  era  of  log-  coioniiti 
I  aliins  and  leather  gamients.  A  few  families  in  New  York,  Mary-  h»d  but  tittle 
land,  and  Virginia,  had  silver  plate  ;  but  they  were  chiefly  the  ■"^*''-**'"'- 
families  of  rich  planters,  old  Dutch  patroons,  and  royalist  governors.     A  large 


rhe  books  »"niputup 

for  market. 


i. 


:S'  i 


332 


//V/?  [rs  TKiA  r.  ma  tor  y 


part  of  the  pupnlatun  wcri'  nnahlf  to  altbnl  even  <  hina,  wliich  \v,i,  ixiicn- 
sive  thr;) ;  ami  pewter  plati-s  .1  <1  dislies  wrn-  olu-ii  tlio  soli'  liirnilun'  of  thi- 
table  ill  country  houses.  A  pn-al  ileal  of  even  the  small  amount  (if  ],|^t^. 
hoardeil  by  old  families  disappeared  after  1792.  It  was  sent,  to  tiie  iniiii,  uid 
coine«'. 

After  the  peace  of  1S15  there  came  an  era  of  prosperity  and  ;pc( nl.iiidn, 
during  which  there  sp  an^  up  a  dem.uid  for  olijec  ts  of  luxury  and  value,  (dn. 
importa-  siderable  importations  of  silver  plate  look  pla(  e  in  <diiMi|iiin(c, 
tioni  alter  The  jilate  was  generally  solid,  and  always  costly.  Siiufl' Khm's  and 
'*''■  ,:andlesticks  and  other  objects  weie   sometimes   imported,  which 

were  made  if  the  baser  metals,  and  covered  with  gold  or  silver  leaf  by  ini(  hani- 
cal  processes  ;  but  usually  the  ware  \.as  solid  and  substantial,  and  worth  its 
Expensive-  ^^''lole  Weight  as  bullion.  'I'he  expense  of  solid  plate  made  its 
ne»»  of  solid  purchase  by  tlv  majority  of  the  peoi»le  very  limited  ;  and,  iiidccil, 
"'"'•  the  austere  ideas  of  the  days  of  colonization  were  stili  Miffii  iintly 

universal  to  make  jiulilic  cntiment  unlavorable  to  the  use  of  niu<  h  sii\tr  \i|Hin 
the  table.  Martin  Van  liuren  was  ikfeated  for  re-election  as  President  ol  ilio 
United  States  in  part  because  he  added  to  tiv  usi-  of  silver  table-ware  the  other 


SHUONS,  «1C.,   l.M   CASU. 

aristocratic  extravagance  of  golden  teaspoons.  'I'he  spirit  of  the  times  was  nn* 
partial  to  ostentation  of  that  sort ;  and  though  silver  was  admired,  yet  not  one 
family  in  a  thousand  placetl  an  article  made  of  it  upon  their  tables  (cx<  ept. 
perhaps,  a  candlestick)  from  one  end  of  the  year  to  the  other.  Hlock-tiii  was 
u»e  of  block-  "•^'-''^  *"  some  extent,  and  after  1840  britannia-ware  came  into  favor ; 
tin  and  bri-  !)ut  the  masses  clung  to  i)ewter  and  blue  crockery.  Silver  was  so 
tannia-ware.  j^jgj.,]y  valued  as  coin,  that  it  seemed  a  sinful  waste  of  money  to 
put  it  into  a  dish  for  the  table.     The  esteem  in  which  silver  vyas  held  at  that 


'r^-^m. 


or    Till.     CM  1 1:1)    ^JAT&S, 


333 


m 


.-^JL" .   I 


"Tt'TTl 


334 


JND  US  TRIA  I.    HIS  TOR  Y 


w£n. 


(lay,  ami  the  economiral  ideas  whii  h  prevailed,  are  illustrated  by  the  iiK  idcnt 
of  a  New-lOiigland  whaliiiK-taptain  givinj,'  his  daujjhter  a  wedding-dowry  of  her 
own  weight  in  silver  dollars,  which  was  regarded  at  the  time  as  an  ad  of  im- 
cxampled  munificence  ;  though  in  these  days,  if  a  prosperous  father  ^.ivf  his 
daughter  no  more  than  that  at  her  wedding,  he  would  he  regarded  as  a  cur- 
mudgeon very  much  in  need  of  the  prayers  of  the  faithful. 


m1':riui;n  cutlkky  cumtany,  mkkidkn,  conn. 

'The  origin  of  tiie  manufacture  of  silver-ware  in  tiie  I'niled  States  is  (|uitr 
within  the  memory  of  old  silversmiths  who  are  still  in  the  business  :  it  (lali> 
„  .  ,     .         from  the  year  1842.      I'rior  to  that  year,  there  were  no  rtrulai 

Origin  of  •'  ^  '  '^ 

manufacture    factories  of  platc   in   the  coimtry.     The  few  silversmiths  who  iiad 
of  tiiver-        opened  shops  in  the  commeK  ial  and  other  cities  for  the  repair  uf 

ware.  '  ' 

watches  and  imported  plate  made  cups,  snuff-boxes,  watch-chniiis, 
and  other  small  articles,  in  a  desultory  way  ;  but  there  was  no  regular  nianu 
fiicture.  The  few  expert  workmen  of  those  days  had  little  capital  of  iluir 
own.  They  had  only  their  tools  and  their  skill ;  and  the  usiual  thing  for  tlKiii 
to  do  was  to  go  to  the  jeweller  and  silver-merchants,  and  obtain  from  tlicm 
orders  to  make  special  pieces  of  plate.  The  merchant  supplied  the  ingot,  or 
sheet  of  silver,  and  the  workman  hammered  it  out,  anil  wrought  it  into  the 
object  desired,  bringing  back  to  the  merchant  the  finished  work  and  the  surplus 
scraps  of  metal,  both  of  which  were  carefully  weighed  to  see  that  the  workman 
had  not  abstracted  a  part  of  the  raw  material.  In  1842  a  number  of  the 
silversmiths  of  New- York  City  and  other  places  got  together  to  consult  abuul 
the  interests  of  their  trade.  Mr.  Clay  was  agitating  at  that  time 
for  a  protective  tariff,  and  the  silversmiths  regarded  the  hour  as 
auspicious  for  an  effort  to  obtain  some  recognition  of  their  art  from  the  gov- 


Tariff. 


OF    THE    UNITKD    STATES. 


335 


itniiHiit  i)f  the  country.  A  dclegatiun  was  accordingly  sent  to  Washington  ti> 
sec  Ml.  I  lay-  Mr-  ^-'ay  asked  tiie  men  what  the  prosperity  of  their  business 
rc(|iiiri<l.  MvX  promised  to  do  what  he  could  for  them.  It  wa.s  a  very  ea.sy 
iiutur  Id  obtain  recognition  in  tiie  bill  which  was  being  drawn  up,  silver-ware 
liiiiig  ■'O  fxchisively  an  article  of  luxury  ;  and  accordingly,  when  the  act  passed 
III  Aiinii^t  "f  th'i'  y^'ar.  a  duty  of  thirty  per  cent  was  levietl  by  it  upon  all 
importatiDns  of  gold  and  silver  wares,  whether  solitl  or  plated.  This  protec- 
tion is  said  by  old  silversmiths  to  have  given  the  industry  in  this  country  its 
first  (Ici  idcd  imi)ctus.  Nearly  all  the  shops  enlarged  their  business  immedi- 
ately after  the  law  was  passed. 

Aluuit  this  time  the  art  of  electroplating  came  into  use  ;  and  this  gave  a 
siill  itiori'  remarkable  impulse  to  the  industry  in  the  I'liited  Stales  by  cheapen- 
in,'  tin-  <  ust  of  silver  table-ware,  and  vastly  extending  its   sale.   Eiectro-pi«t- 
K.iriy  in  the  century  it  had  been  discovered   that  »:opper  or  gold   '"«• 
hdil  in  solution  might  be  made  to  settle  upon  the  faces  of  objects  suspended 
i,>  the  solution,  and  to  form  upon  them  a  thick  film,  by  passing  a  current  of 
ihtrii  ily  through  the  bath  to  the  objci  t  to  be   gilded   or  (oppcrcd.      It  was 
loiiml  that  the  film  of  metal,  once  formed,  might  be  taken  off,  and  used  as  a 
mould  to  i)roduce  an  exact  cojjy  of  the  original  object  upon  whi<  h   it   had 
liccn  (Icjiosited.     It  was  then  foimd  that  metallic  objec  ts  might  be  gilded  by 
this  iiriiccss,   and   made   to  apiicar  like   solid   gold.     The    invention  was  at 
tiht  regarded  as  a  curiosity.     It  was  not  until  about   1840  that  its   Regarded  ■» 
valiK' for  the  gilding  and  silvering  of  articles  of  common  use  was   •<:"'io«i«y- 
rdi/fd.     Ximierous  experiments  were  then  made  with  the  invention  l;oth  in 
the  IJiited  States  and    Ihirope.     Professor  Silliman   suggested  that  prussiatc 
1)1  potash  would  hold  silver  in  solution  without  oxidizing  the  baser  metals. 
ihis  was  a  step  in  advance.     Subset |uently  it  was  found  that  the  solution  of 
ivinido  of  potassium  wouU!  do  the  work  better,  and  silver-plating  then  became 
jiLutiialjle  and  popular.     The  idea  was  taken  up  by  New-Kngland  manufac- 
turers, and  several  very  important  factories  of  plated  ware  and  cutlery  were 
started  to  manufacture  for  the  American  market.     It  was  found  that  the  most 
iLiborate  dinner  and  tea  sets  could  be  produceil   by  the  new  process,  coated 
with  the  i)iirest   silver  to  any  thickness,  for  about  one-fourth  the   expense  of 
soliil  ware ;   and  Yankee  push  and  enterprise  soon  found  a  way  to  create  a 
ikmand  for  it  in  every  part  of  the  country.     The  public  taste  had  begun  to 
irivc  elegant  table-sets,  and  the  low  cost  of  the  new  class  of  goods  secured 
lor  tliem  a  ready  recognition  and  great  favor.     Iron   forks  and  knives  were 
virtually  banished  from  the  tables  of  all  people  of  taste,  and  from  hotels  and 
>leaml)oats ;  and  plated  ware  and  dinner  and  tea  sets  made  their  dumber  o( 
appearance  everywhere.     The  industry,  being  protected  by  a  liberal   m«nu(«c. 
tariff,  has  grown  up  rapidly,  and  is  now  firmly  established :  260 
cst;il)lishments  are  employed  in  it,  giving  work  to  5,200  hands,  and  producing 
a  yearly  value  of  !j?  1 2,000,000  worth  of  ware.    .    .     ....,,        ... 


m^ 


\. 


'mk 


%h 


.  lis "    ,  >!     4 
f  1  '•'  - 


fsi 


336 


INDUSTRIAL    II I  STORY 


The  earlier  silversmiths  of  the  United  States  made  their  dinner  and  tea 
How  earlier  ^^*^'  P'^nd^-ljowis,  goblets,  &c.,  by  hammering  the  various  disiies 
silversmiths  froHi  flat  shccts  of  solid  mctal,  shaping  them  upon  iron  forms 
called  "stakes."  The  process  of  building  up  all  round  and  oval 
dishes  is  still  the  same  in  princijile,  only  that  the  hammer  is  no 
longer  usfd,  and  the  iron  stake  is  thrown  aside  for  a  block  of  wood.  Sup- 
pose the  dish  be  a  sugar-bowl.     A  perfectly  round  disk  is  cut  from  a  flat  sheet 


made  their 
wares 


CAKE-nASKBT. 


of  solid  silver,  weighed,  and  turned  over  to  a  workman,  lo  whom  it  is  charged 
on  the  books.  The  workman  has  a  block,  made  in  pieces  like  a  hat-block, 
IRodern  SO  that,  if  a  certain  key  be  removed,  it  will  fall  apart.    The  block 

process.  jg  p^^  together  and  keyed,  and  put  into  a  lathe  touching  the  flat 
disk  of  silver.  The  block  and  the  silver  disk  are  then  made  to  revolve  at  great 
speed.  A  smooth  steel  tool  is  pressed  against  the  disk ;  and  the  malleable 
metal  is  made  to  bend  down  upon  the  block  litUe  by  little,  and  gradually  en- 
close it,  forming  the  body  of  a  perfectly  symmetrical  and  smooth  sugar-bowl, 
without  joint  or  flaw.  The  top  and  bottom  are  properly  trimmed  with  a  sharp 
tool,  and  the  bowl  taken  from  the  lathe.     It  would  be  impossible  now  to  get 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


337 


:ir  dinner  and  tea 
the  various  dishes 
1  upon  iron  forms 
,11  round  and  oval 
the  hammer  is  no 
:k  of  wood.  Sup- 
it  from  a  flat  sheet 


whom  it  is  charged 
es  like  a  hat-block, 

apart.  The  block 
ic  touching  the  flat 
;  to  revolve  at  great 

anil  the  malleal)le 
,  and  gradually  en- 
smooth  sugar-bowl, 
immed  with  a  sharp 
possible  now  to  get 


the  wooden  block  out  of  the  silver  howl,  were  it  not  that  the  lilock  is  made 
in  pietcs.     The  workman  loosens  the  key  which  binds  the  block   together, 
and  hiiakes   the   pieces   out   of  the  narrow  mouth  of  the  sugar-bowl.     The 
bottom  of  the  sugar-bowl  is  shaped  upon  an  appropriate  block  by  the  same 
process,  wiiich    is   called  "sjiinning   up."      The   handles   are   cast,  and  the 
different  i)arts  fastened  together  by  soldering  under  a  blow-pi])e.     This  is  in 
princ  ijilc  the  manner  in  whi(  h  all  nmnd  and  oval  dishes,  presentation-pieces, 
i;oI)Iels,  iS-'c,  are   made   from   solid  silver.     For  convenience  the  bodies  are 
sometimes  ma-le  in  several  i)arts,  so  as  to   permit   the  insertion  at  different 
places  of  a  flat  strip  of  ilecorated  metal  which  has  been  rolled  in  a  machine, 
anil  thev  are   then  siibseciuently  assembleil  by  the  silversmiths  proper,  and 
united  by  soklering.     'I'he   soldering  is  so  perfectly  done,  that  the  finished 
article  is  in  ("act  one  piece  of  solid  work,  —  as  much  so  as  though  it  had  been 
cast.    All   scraps  are  carefully  collectetl  and  weighed,  and    credited   to   the 
wiirkman  to  whom  they  were  previously  charged.     Large  objects  like  punch- 
lidwis,  and  all  others  of  irregular  shape,  are  hammered  out  by  hand  from  flat 
>hcets  of  metal,  and  put  together  by  soldering.      I'ro- 
ic(  tini;  ornaments,  like  monograms,  flowers,  handles.  iVc, 
are  frecpientiy  cast  solid,  and  put  u[)on  the  piece  in  the 
iwial  way  ;  but  by  far  the  greater  i>art  of  the-  decoration 
is  done  by  chasing  and  engraving.     The  pattern  is  drawn 
in  black  and  white  upon  sheets  of  paper.     The  workman 
^'oes  all  over  the  inside  of  the   goblet,  teapot,  or  other 
piece,  whatever  it  may  be,  with  a  delicate  hammer,  and 
beats  down   the   metal,    so  as  to  raise  the  large  leaves, 
flowers,  scrolls,  \-c.,  of  the   pattern,   into   relief  on  the 
outside  of  the  piece.     The  dish  is  then  filled  with  melted 
pitch  and  rosin,  which  is  allowed  to  solidify  and  form  a 
backing,   in  order  that  it  may  not  lose   its  symmetrical 
shape  in  the  subseipient  processes.     The  workman  next 
goes  carefiilly  over  the  whole  of  the  surface  outside  which 
IS  to  he  decorated,  and  fashions  it  by  indenting  and  beating  down  the  metal 
with  little  ciiisels  and  a  hammer,  so  as  to  iv'ave  a  clear,  sharp-cut   pattern 
raised  in  high  relief  upon  the  beaten-down  l)ackground.     The  pitch  is  then 
removed  by  melting  ;  and  the  dish  goes  on  to  be  smoothed,  burnished,  frosted, 
satin-finished,  or  gilded,  as  the  case  may  be,  for  the  store.     The  ornamenta- 
tiun  of  flat  surfaces  is  sometimes  done   by  etching.     Spoons  and  forks  are 
made  by  rolling  in  a  machine,  the  pattern  of  the  fork  or  spoon  being  engraved 
on  the  surface  of  the  rollers.     The  edges  of  surj)his  metal  are  removed  by 
clipping  and  filing,  and  the  article  receives  its  final  shape  under  a  die.    The 
liandles  of  nut-picks  and  knives,  when  hollow,  are  stamped  in  a  die,  in  halves, 
and  united  by  soldering.     In  the  solid-silver  shops  great  care  is  exercised  to 
prevent  waste   of  metal.     The   waste   in   polishing,   clipping,  filing,  &c.,  is 


1'E1TKK-1H)X. 


mm 


i^'^'lrM 


1"  I " 


338 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


enormous,  amounting  in  Tiffany's  from  four  hundrec'  \o  six  hundred  (iiinces 
a  wccii  in  the  process  of  poHshing  with  leather  and  cotton  alone.  All  tin> 
refuse  of  the  shops,  the  grease,  the  dirt  of  the  floor,  the  water  in  wliich  the 
silver  is  washed,  &c.,  is  carefidly  saved,  and  sent  to  the  furnace  for  the  ex- 
traction of  the  metal.  With  all  the  jirecautions  that  intelligence  can  suggest 
it  is  still  found  that  five  per  cent  of  the  metal  weighed  out  to  the  workmen 
is  never  recovered. 


VK(;RTAI1M;-I>l'ill. 


In  the  factories  of  plated  ware  a  large  part  of  the  work  is  done  by  stamps, 

dies,  and  presses  ;  and  more  of  the  ware  is  cast  than  in  the  solid-silver  shops. 

'The  metal  formini'  the  basis  of  the  pieces  is  usunllv  C'lcrniaii  silver 

Stamping.  /•      •    1     1  1      •       \     1     ■  •  1 

(an  alloy  of  nickel,  copper,  and  zinc),  l)rittania,  white-metaj,  ami 
aluminum.  Brass  and  copper  are  sometimes  used  for  very  cheap  work.  The 
Use  of  brass  Original  mcthod  of  plating  the  ware  with  silver  was  to  dissolve  the 
and  copper,  nictal  in  iiltrlc  acid,  and  precipitate  it  as  a  cyanide  l)V(vani(le 
of  ])otassium.  Tiie  i)recipitate,  being  wasiied,  was  dissolved  in  a  sdiiitinii  ol' 
Process  of  cyauidc  of  potassium.  The  object  to  be  silvered  was  then  ( dh- 
piating.  nected  with  the  negative  pole  of  a  powerful  battery,  dijiped  in  nitric 

acid,  and  then  suspended  in  the  solution  of  silver.  After  a  few  moments  it 
was  taken  out  and  well  brushed,  and  then  replaced  in  the  solution.  The  silver 
begins  to  make  its  appearance  on  the  surface  of  the  object,  and  in  a  few  hours 
has  covered  every  part  of  it  with  a  uniform  dead-white  coating  of  pure  metal. 
The  process  may  be  stopped  when  the  plating  has  reached  the  thickness  of 
tissue-paper,  or  it  may  be  continued  until  the  piece  is  double  or  trijjle  plated. 
The  stronger  the  current  of  electricity,  the  harder  will  be  the  plating.  ^\  iien 
tai^en  from  the  solution,  the  piece  is  washed,  and  then  burnished  and  finished 
in  the  ordinary  manner.  Latterly,  plating  is  carried  on  by  a  variation  of  this 
process.  The  silver  is  not  dissolved  and  held  in  suspension,  but  is  put  into  the 
bath  of  cyanide  of  potassium  in  the  form  of  a  plate  attached  to  the  positive 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


339 


pole  of  tlic  battery.  The  electrical  current  decomposes  the  silver,  and  the  dish 
attache  1  to  the  negative  pole  then  becomes  covered  with  the  dissolved  metal 
as  bflore. 

llk'i  tro-gilding  is  not  extensively  practised  in  the  manufacture  of  table- 
ware, !h  ing  resorted  to  more  commonly  in  the  production  of  cheap  jewelry. 
It  is  aNtonishing  how  far  a  small  (juantity  of  gold  may  be  made  to   Electro- 
,T„  in  hiding  the  cheap  materials  of  which  cheap  ornaments  —  pencil-   Eiiding. 
cases,  thimbles,  &c.  —  are  made,     'I'he  "magnificent"  gold  ear-rings  and  other 
things  olfcred  as  prizes  in  the  lotteries  are  frequently  manufactured,  at  a  cost  of 
not  mudi  more  than  ten  dollars 
a  bushel,  from  cofjpcr  or  some 
such  iiKitcrial,  and  gilded  at  an 
ixpense  of  about  fifteen  cents  a 
piece.      Heavy   gold    jjlating    is, 
hdwever,  sometimes   done    upon 
cheap  watch-cases,  and  also  upon 
solid-silver  ware.     The   inside  of 
saltcelia...,    soup-tureens,    soup- 
ladies,  spoons,  (S:c.,  is  frecjucntly 
gilded  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  some 
verv  splendid  sets  of  table-ware, 
the  uhole  stirf;ice  ot  tlie  s|)oons 
istiiicklv  coated  with  tlie  ])re('ious 
metal.      I'lie   use   of   solid -gold 
Laliie-ware   is   at   present  linined 
in  tliis  country  to  bells  and  salt- 
cillars.     Its  cost  bears  the  same 
relation  to  silver  as  that  of  silver 
does  to   jiewter.      But   the    rich 
color  (if  pure  gold  is  very  much 

admired,  and  gilding  is  tiierefore  demanded  to  a  certain  extent.     The  process 
is  substantially  the  same  as  the  original  method  of  plating  with  silver. 

Within  the  last  ten  years  the  United  States  have  made  a  great  advance  in 
tile  heauty  and  originality  of  styles  of  silver-ware.  Some  factories  make  a  hun- 
dred patterns  of  tea-sets.  The  Gorham  Company  makes  nearly  imp,oye. 
three  hundred  varieties  of  spoons.  The  New- York-City  factories  menta  of  last 
produce  designs  which  are  not  surpassed  anywhere  in  Europe.  *""!"'"• 
Ihis  result  is,  in  part,  due  to  the  education  of  com|)etent  designers  by  the 
Cooper  Institute  and  other  schools  of  design  in  the  country.  It  is  also  attribu- 
lahle.  ill  ])art,  to  the  constant  jjurchase  of  books  of  patterns  in  China,  Japan, 
iiid  all  other  parts  of  the  world  where  decoration  is  made  an  art,  and  to  the 
diligent  study  of  the  treasures  of  antitiuity  which  have  been  exhumed  by  the 
scholars  of  the  Old  World.  The  growth  of  wealth  and  taste  in  the  United 
States  has  also  proved  a  great  stimulus. 


FRUlT-DISII. 


f ■ 

< 

p-'f'^'f 

1 

f.- 

ji 


340 


/JVD  O'S  TKIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


I.KAVV-IJISH. 


The  taste  for  solid  silver  is  increasing.  There  already  begins  to  be  visible 
in  the  centres  of  wealth  and  fashion  a  little  of  that  [)ritle  in  the  family  plate 
Cultivation  '"'^^  emulation  with  others,  wiiich  letl  the  Romans  to  vie  witli  otliors 
of  taste  (or  in  the  massiveness  of  their  silver  dishes.  Before  the  (i\il  \var 
there  were  in  Rome  150  silver  dishes  that  weighed  over  100  puunds 
each  ;  and  I'liny  tells  of  one  of  500  pounds,  with  eight  plates  of  250  iionnds 

each.  The  Ro- 
mans were  n,oss  in 
their  taslt-s ;  ami 
the  more  intel- 
lectual Anuricaii 
does  not  incline 
in  the  ciircction  of 
ponderous  dishes 
which  would  (rush 
the  table  under 
tiieir  weiglit :  but 
he  loves  orna- 
ment, and  the  ri- 
valry  here    is   Ibr 

the  most  profusely  and  richly  decorated  ware.  'The  most  splendid  set  ever 
made  in  the  United  States  was  that  ordered  by  Mr.  Mac  key,  one  of  the  owners 
of  the  Bonanza  silver-mines,  in  1877,  which  comprised  several  hundred  jiieces 
of  elaborately  made  solid-silver  ware,  including  an  enormous  punch-bowl  and 
a  huge  candelabnnn.  The  set  kept 
several  hundred  workmen  busy  for 
months  in  its  manufacture.  Some  of 
the  spoons  and  dishes  were  heavily 
gilded.  The  whole  cost  exceeded 
;fioo,ooo.  Private  dinner-parties 
have  been  given  in  New-Vork  City 
within  the  last  five  years  by  princely 
merchants,  in  which  $75,000  wort'.i 
of  silver  and  valuable  china  .nnd 
crystal  ware  were  used  to  spreail 
the  table,  and  increase  the  magnifi- 
cence of  the  occasion  ;  but  ih* 
Mackey  silver  is  the  first  grand  set 
of  great  price  ever  made  in  the 
United  States.  Part  of  it  goes  to  furnish  the  owner's  private  residence  in 
("alifornia,  and  the  rest  of  it  to  his  houses  in  l\iris  and  London. 

VVitliin  the  last  few  years  a  special  vailety  of  silver-ware  has  been  created 
to  answer  tl-ie  .demand  for  prizes  for  riiie  matches,  yacht-races,  trotting  and 


GVP, 


more  of  it  mad 


OF    rriF.    UNITED    STATES. 


341 


l),ill  fdiitcsts.  &c.  The  pieces  are  often  in  the  form  of  goblets  and  vases, 
fnllowini:  the  ancient  i^ija  of  3  rr  ,al  gift,  which  was  generally  ,'. 

....      1  .  .    r         1  •    .-  .       7    .  .  ,-    Silver  priies. 

valiuil'li-'  c\\\t.     Whether  ad.iiited  for  drinking  or  the  holiling  of 

niasso  of  (lowers,  or  whether  statuesciue  and  purely  ornamental,  they  are 
fasliiomd  very  much  on  the  principle  of  a  trophy.  They  exhibit  the  symbols 
of  vai  hting,  hunting,  and  athletic  sports,  and  assemble  into  one  piece  every 
thing  which  is  characteristic  of  the  contest  for  which  they  are  the  victor's 
reward.     American  silversmiths  display  great  ingenuity  in  this  style  of  -vork. 


COI'I'KK    AM)    li'-ASS    UTENSILS. 

Cojiper  was  the  first  metal  wrought  into  arms  and  implements  in  the  terri- 
t(iry  wliii  ii  is  now  the  United  States,  if  the  testimony  of  the  relics  of  the  days 
of  tin-  Indian  occupation,  and  of  the  records  of  the  C'atholic  Eari>  ise  of 
missionaries,  docs  not  deceive  us.  The  red  metal  which  underlies  <=opP"- 
the  State  of  Mi(  higan  in  such  |)riceless  deposits  early  caught  the  eye  of  the 
savage  warriors  who  threaded  the  forests  of  the  North  in  the  pursuit  of  game 
and  I'uih  their  '-amiJ-fires  on  every  hill.  The  stone-hammers  of  this  early 
rare  <»f  men  had  been  employed  upon  the  metal  ;  and  the  Jesuit  fathers,  who 
nianhid  with  die  cross  of  their  religion  in  advance  of  the  soldiers  who  bore 
the  iilii-s  of  I'Vanc  e,  found  great  quantities  of  it  worn  as  ornaments  and  shaped 
mtd  tools  and  weapons  by  tiie  red  heathen  whose  conversion  to  Christianity 
ihi'v  sought.  Had  the  white  man,  who  succeeded  to  the  occupancy  of  the  soil, 
also  inherited  the  civilization  of  the  red  man,  it  is  probable  that  he,  too,  would 
have  ex])ciHled  his  art  first  upon  the  working  of  red  copper,  before  attempting 
to  utilize  the  less  attrai  tive  and  more  refractory  metal  which  now  claims  his 
more  diligent  attention  ;  but  the  white  man  brought  to  .America  the  science  and 
arts  of  an  older  ami  higher  civilization,  and  copjier  claimed  his  attention  less 
at  the  niitset  than  the  ilenser  metal.  'I'hat  has  not.  however,  ])revented  coi)per 
from  assuming  the  imi^ortant  rank  in  the  arts  of  the  country  to  which  its 
(juaHtics  entitle  it.  Its  manufacture  is  one  of  the  great  industries  of  the  United 
States.  y 

("ojjper  was  first  worked  in  the  United  States  by  the  white  man,  not  under    ^ 
the  Catholic  cross  of  France  in  the  North-West,  but  under  the  austerei  aus[)ices 


Working  of 


of  I'rotcstantism  in  New  England.     The  first  mines  were  o])ened 

in  Connecticut ;  and  the  State  employed  its  convicts  for  a  period   copper-mines 

of  sixty  years,  ending  about  1830,  in  getting  out  the  metal  in  the   >"  Connecti- 

town  of  Simsbury.     The   ingots  of  metal  were   sold  to  the  mint 

and  to  the  smiths  ;  but  at  first  by  far  the  larger  part  was  exported  to  Furope  to 

be  manufactured.     After   181 2,  when  a  duty  of  thirty-five  per  cent  was  levied 

upon  manufactures  of  copper,   there   was   less  of  the   metal   exported,  and 

more  of  it  made  up  into  jilate  and  utensils  for  use  on  this  side  of  the  water. 

The  industry  developed  the  fastest  in  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States.     In 


1   :i  ifl  ,''  vmhv. 


342 


Ih'DUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


<'*^^ 


JO^ 


1870  there  /'ere  391  copper  and  brass  factories  in  operation,  cmiiloving 
Develop.  5'^""  hands,  and  producing  a  vahie  of  ^15,000,000  in  linishLd 
mentof  yoods  annually;    there   being   of  these    factories   twenty  niiu'  in 

nduBtry.  Connecticut,  forty-four  in  Massachusetts,  eighty-five  in  N\u  \<)rk 
eighty-one  in  Pennsylvania,  and  twenty-one  in  New  Jersey.  .Vnsoma  and 
VV'aterbury,  Conn.,  became  the  principal  centres  of  the  nianulac  turc. 

Pure  coppei"  is  one  of  the  softest  of  the  metals,  and  is  easily  rolled  into 

plates  for  use.     It  is  in  the  form  of  plates  principally  that  it  is  empioyud  in  ilic 

arts.     Its  most  important  use  is  in  the  sheathing  of  the  lidiioni 

Importance  *  c:»  m 

of  copper  as  of  woodcn  ships  to  protect  them  from  accumulations  di'  liainadcs 
sheathing       jj,^j  shell-fish  and  the  ravages  of  the  bores.     The  navitratdis  of 

lor  ships. 

the  early  centuries  had  great  trouble  with  their  ships  on  account  of 
the  fouling  of  the  bottoms.  It  was  finally  suggested  that  the  protei  tion  of  the 
part  of  the  ship  below  the  load-line  with  sheet-lead  wo. .Id  prevent  incrustations, 
and  that  material  was  used  for  a  while.  In  1761  "The  Alarm,"  a  frii;ate  in 
the  royal  navy,  was  sheeted  with  copper,  which  was  found  to  answer  the 
purpose  very  much  better.  After  a  series  of  years,  it  wa*  found  that  i)iire 
copper,  while  protecting  the  ship,  was  itself  rapidly  eaten  av'y  Ijy  tlic  <  1u'im(  al 
action  of  salt  water,  which  made  its  renewal  necessary.  This  was  exijensive, 
and  shipping-men  cast  about  tor  some  improsenient  of  the  j)roccss  of  sliealh- 
ing.  A  curious  experiment  was  tried  in  res])onse  to  a  suggestion  by  Sir  Hum- 
phry Davy.  This  was  to  place  strips  of  iron  under  the  sheets  of  cop])er.  wiii(h 
would  be  corroded  by  the  galvanic  action  rather  than  the  copper.  The  inven- 
tion worked  beautifiiUy  :  the  cop])er  was  ])reserved,  and  money  saved,  lint, 
<|uite  unexpectedly,  it  was  then  foim<l  that  the  copper,  no  longer  dissolving  in 
the  sea,  became  covered  with  barnacles  as  badly  as  the  wooden  bottoms  had 
been  before.  So  the  ship-builders  went  back  to  pure  copper.  After  a  while, 
however,  an  alloy  of  copjjcr  was  invente<l  by  mixing  with  it  forty  per  i  ent  of 
zinc,  which  answered  the  purjioses  of  sheathing  admirably.  This  alloy  was  a 
_  ,       si)ecieiiLof  brass.     It  was  called  "  yellow  metal."  and  still  retains 

Process  of  '      -"-^ •' 

making  the  name,  and  is  now  universally  u'^-'l  for  the  coi)j)ering  of  wooden 

vessels.  The  metal  is  very  s'jfc,  anfl  is  rolled  cold.  It  is  worked 
down  very  gradually  and  carefiiUy  from  the  ingot,  bcinj;  annealed 
after  each  rolling,  and  cleared  of  oxide  by  pickling  in  a  bath  of  diluted 
sulphuric  acid.  Owing  to  the  high  price  of  labor  in  this  country,  sheathiui,' 
lias  been  more  expensively  made  in  the  United  States  than  abroad  until 
within  a  very  few  years.  Of  late  the  price  has  been  so  reduced,  that  the 
former  large  importations  of  it  have  greatly  fallen  off,  and  the  sheathing 
used  by  .American  ship-builders  is  virtually  all  American-made.  The  bolts 
and  nails  by  which  copjjcr  sheathing  is  fastened  to  the  ship  are  cast  solid 

Sheet-copper  is  a  very  popular  material  for  boilers  and  cooking-utensils  in 
domestic  use.  The  metal  resists  the  action  of  the  fire  Ijctter  than  tin  and 
sheet-iron  :    it  is,  therefore,  applied   to   the   construction  of  many  forms  of 


sheet- 
copper. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


343 


nianiil.i' '•"■'"K  apparatus  which  come  into  contact  with  fire;  such  as  retorts 
ami  I'll't-';*.  vacuum-pans,  condensers,  and  boilers  in  distilleries,  uggofjop. 
sucarn  lineries,  and  other  lactones.  The  smaller  utensils  are  perforcook- 
Ibriiv.il  froi.,  the  sheet-metal  by  hammering,  and  by  the  process  "'-"*«"»*'•• 
olsi)i;ining  up,  described  under  the  head  of  "  Silver  Table-ware."  The  copper 
bccoiiKs  very  dense  and  brittle  in  the  smithing  ])rocess,  and  has  to  be  annealed 
constantly  as  the  work  goes  on.  In  boiltr-making  the  plates  are  either  united 
livlapl'td  joints,  soldering,  or  riveting,  and  sometimes  by  more  than  one  of 
tlit'sc  methods. 

CopptJLJg  'yore'  extensively  used  in   the  form  of  brass  than   in   its  pure 
state.      By  admixture  with  a  certain  i)roportion  of  zinc  it  gains  beauty  and 
(iuraliility,  and  is  generally  ]ireferred  in  that  form.     The  best  pro-   useofcop. 
jHirtiiiii  t>f  the  metals  is  two  of  copijcr   to   one   of  zinc,  which   per  in  mak- 
makcs  wiiat  is  called  eight-ounce  brass  ;  that  is,  eight  oiihces  of  '"*  *"""■ 
zinc  to  sixteen  of  copper  in  the  poimd.     Sixteen-ounce  brass,  the  two  metals 
licinj:  eiiual,  is  a  beautiful  golden  alloy,  called  "  prince's  metal."     Other  com- 
liiiiations  are  made  to  produce  pinchbeck,  Manheim  gold,  and  other  alloys 
Miitalile  for  cheap  jewelry,  and  ware  for  gilding  and  silvering.      Urass  is  as 
agreeable  a  metal  to  work  as  i)ure  silver.     In  thin  plates  it  can  be 
stamped  and  embossed  in  any  form.     It  spins  up  beautifully  in  a 
lathe.     It  can  be  drawn  out  into  delicate  wire  ;  and  is  so  malleable,  that  it  can 
k'  iieatcn  out  almost  like  gold-leaf  itself  for  the  purposes  of  cheap  gilding. 
The  metal  is  susceptible  of  a  high  polish.     It  does  not  rust  by   Advantages 
exposure,  and  has  a  great  deal  of  the  beauty  of  gold.     It  is  the  °'  '"^"**- 
universal  material  of  which  chandeliers  and   gas-fixtures   are   made ;   being 
su>eei)tible  of  rich  coloring,  bronzing,  and  silvering  by  chemical   Things  made 
])ru(i'sses,   and   of  shaping   into   the   most    elaborate    forms    by  °f  brass. 
stanijiing  and  embossing.     Hrass  was  at  one  time  the  exclusive  material  out  of 
which  the  works  of  docks  were  made.     Steel  works  are  now  beginning  to  be 


Sheet-brass. 


used  to  a  verv  large  extent  ;  but  brass  holds  its  own  for  all  cheap  c-locks,  and 
indeed  is  popular  in  every  grade  of  time-piece  'p  to  the  great  machines  put 
in  the  towers  of  our  city  halls  and  churches.  Its  beaut)',  and  freedom  from 
rust,  insure  its  ])oi)ularity.  Brass  is  also  extensively  consimied  in  the  manu- 
facture of  ])ins.  It  is  drawn  out  into  wire.  It  is  clipped  bv  machinery 
into  pieces  of  the  right  length,  which  are  jjointed,  headed,  and. 
after  being  tinned  l)y  agitation  and  boiling  in  a  solution  of  tin, 
are  stuck  into  papers  for  the  market,  all  by  machines  especially  invented  for 
the  purpose.    The  machine  for  putting  them  up  in  papers  is  an  American  idea, 


^TT'TT 


:.,  t ; 


,1 


344 


IXI)L\STh'/Al.    ///STORY 


and  saves  thousands  of  dollars  of  expL'tiso  annually.  A  {i^reat  deal  of  l)rass  is 
also  consumed  in  the  inaniitacture  of  buttons.  Uiir  forefathers  were  foiul  of 
brass  buttons,  and  wore  them  regularly  upon  the  ubiquitous  l)lue  dress  coat. 
Brass  Hrass  buttons  are  still  a  regular  part  of  the  uniform  of  ti\e   irmv 

buttons.  .,,,,1  ,,.^yy  of  ti^L-  I'nited  States.     They  are  struck  from  siiects  of 

Qat  me*-'  and  stamped  with  the  national  coat  of  arms,  and  with  proper  \v\WX' 
'•■_'.,  iiow  that  they  are  for  gov  en  aent  use.  Hacks  and  eyes  of  (helper 
i.vnal  ur,  Ven  fastened  on  by  solder!  .  The  ornamental  work  of  machinery 
ai'.!  i.i'i^....-  e(iuii)ments,  the  pegs  i  -on  which  pictures  are  hung,  andirons 
penii,  candle  i  "  s,  and  a  hundreil  ol  ects  in  daily  use,  are  made  of  this  hcauti- 
ful  and  serviceable  alloy. 


KSIKKUKOOK   I'F.N-MANLKAtTORV,  CAMOBN,  N.J. 


BRONZK    WARK    AM)    STATUAKV. 

f  Jr-  Bronze  is  the  most  beautiful  of  the  alloys  of  co])per.  It  has  been  in  use 
from  antiquity.  Much  of  what  was  called  brass  among  the  ancients  was  in 
Ancient  use  reality  bronze.  It  was  sujiposed  that  the  ancients  had  learned  the 
of  bronze.  r^^^  ^f  hardening  pure  cojjper  so  as  to  make  the  metal  servi(  cahle 
for  axes  and  daggers :  it  is  now  believed  that  this  hardened  copper  was 
only  bronze  also.  The  art  of  hardening  copi^er  is  said  to  be  lost :  the  fact 
is,  chemical  analysis  had  resurrected  the  art.  The  copper  l)atfle-axes  found 
by  Dr.  Schliemann  at  Troy  have  been  drilled,  and  the   drillings  analyzed. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


345 


Peducting  the  sand,  the  following  was  the  result  in  the  case  of  the  three 
wii|Hii\s  tested:  (i)  copper  95S,  and  tin  38;  (2)  copper  906,  and  tin  8; 
(!)  copper  923,  anil  tin  74.  This  slight  addition  of  tin  made  the  metal  a  soft 
broiuc  which,  being  compacted  by  good  smithing,  produced  a  weapon  with 
a  hard  ctlge.  It  is  probable  that  the  ancients  did  not  clearly  understand  that 
i\w.  \w\  tin  were  distinct  nielals ;  for  they  used  the  terms  "brass"  and 
'•|)ron/.e"  interchangeably.  The  brazen  axes  which  slew  Agamemnon,  gave 
rise  to  so  many  glowing  epics  anil  dramas  among  the  (Irecian  poets,  and 
gave  Sliakspeare  his  suggestion  for  his  tragedy  of  "  Hamlet,"  were  properly 
true  jjroiue.  'I'he  statue  in  the  harbor  at  Rhodes,  under  whose  legs  passed 
for  years  the  incoming  and  outgoing  boats  of  that  busy  isl.T  'lipping-port, 
was  also  of  bronze. 

Ikonze  has  always  been  devoted  to  great  uses.  First  \  i^as  metal  of 
war:  ihen,  when  iron  began  to  be  wrought  into  blades  aii  ariiior,  bronze 
bceainc  the  favorite  material  for  heroic  statues.  It  was  .  jspv.  .  ut  important 
it  was  beautiful,  and  more  enduring  than  marble  ;  and  th.'  sc\  ptoi  uses  of 
foiiiul  great  satisfaction,  when  his  conception  had  beer  ib'^Hied  '°"*'- 
in  '  .  1  rumbling  clay  model,  in  seeing  it  reproduced  i  .11  diately  and  easily 
in  tliis  noble  metal,  iusteail  of  being  obliged  to  await  the  slow  process  of 
ciittini;  the  statue  from  marble,  and  to  run  all  the  attendant  risks.  After  the 
invention  of  gunpowder,  bronze  again  became  a  fixvorite  metal  in  war. 
Naijoloon  employed  it  in  the  cannon  with  which  he  sul)dued  the  whole  of 
Kiirope.  Its  strength  was  rnly  about  half  that  of  wrought  iron ;  but  its 
beauty  pleased  the  cultivated  French,  who  loved  to  lavish  upon  every  thing 
whiih  belonged  to  them  —  their  gims,  as  well  as  upon  their  dress,  their  build- 
ings, and  all  articles  of  construction  —  their  national  fondness  for  color  and 
for  decoration,  and  the  resources  of  a  lively  imagination.  The  metal  resisted 
wear  extremely  well,  and  bronze  guns  were  the  rage.  The  F^uropeans  also 
emi>loyed  bronze  for  commemorative  monuments,  arches,  and  statues.  The 
Japanese  and  Chinese  have  used  bronze  from  very  distant  centuries ;  but  their 
fondness  for  it  had  little  to  do  with  its  use  in  Europe. 

The  first  experiments  in  modern  times  to  ascertain  the  mingling  propor- 
tions of  copper  and  tin  were  in  1770  at  Turin.  There  the  proportion  of 
twelve  or  ffiurtrrn  pirtj.  nf  tin  to  n"f'  '"inilr'^''  of  ropp'^r  w.m  five^i,!  upon  as 
the  best.  The  French  made  many  experiments  a  few  years  later.  Composition 
They  decided  tipon  eleven  parts  of  tin  as  the  maximum,  and  eight  °'  bronze. 
as  the  minimum,  to  one  hunilred  parts  of  copper.  The  French  learned  to 
mix  in  a  small  percentage  of  lead  and  zinc  also.  At  p'-esent,  one  to  ten  is 
the  standard  proportion.  Manufacturers  vary  from  this  s'andard  freely,  how- 
ever, to  produce  special  effects.  For  a  hard  bronze,  they  mix  the  metals  in 
the  proportion  of  seven  to  one.  For  machinery  bearings  and  medals,  eight 
to  one  is  the  rule ;  for  statues,  four  to  one  ;  for  flexible  tenacious  bolts  and 
nails,  twenty  to  one  ;  and  for  speculum  metal,  two  to  one.     In  whatever  pro- 


I>1 


i^M  A 


fell 


^1 


ft 


J? 


Durability. 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


portion  the  compound  is  made,  bronze  is  the  most  ihirable  of  metals,  cx(  cpt 
gold  and  platinum.  It  ac(niircs  a  fine  rich  color  by  exposure,  whitii  is 
callcil  "  i)atina  ;  "  but  it  docs  not  rust.  I'lxposcd  to  the  wcailiLT, 
it  lasts  forever.  It  lias  tiie  jicculiar  ])roperty  of  bccouuny  mul. 
leable  by  temi)ering  ;  and  it  can  l)c  given  a  black,  red,  brown,  green,  or  silvery 
patina  by  oxidation  or  sulphurization. 

Up  to  the  i)resent  decade  the  use  of  bron/e  in  the  United  Slates  has  hoen 
confined  to  the  manufacture  of  bells,  cannon,  and  statuary.  Williiu  tln'  hist 
twenty  years  the  country  has  crossed  the  thrcshokl  of  a  genenii  manul'.u  turo 
of  the  metal.  The  last  two  decades  will  always  be  taken  as  the  real  bcymiiing 
of  the  prcHluction  of  general  bron/.e-ware  in  the  United  States.  Hiilurto 
bron/e  has  been,  as  of  old,  tiie  heroic  metal.  It  has  been  sacred  to  arms 
and  statuary,  bells  being  the  only  form  in  which  it  was  utilized  for  any  dn- 
'  mestic  purposes.  Now  it  comes  more  prominently  into  popularity  in  tiic 
domestic  arts.  It  retains  its  rank  as  the  uiiapi)roai  liable  material  for  grrat 
statues  ;  but  it  is  losing  ground  for  use  in  cannon,  in  whic  h  form  it  has  liccn 
extremely  popular  in  tlie  last  two  wars  ;  and  it  is  now  being  made  up  iiuu 
a  thousand  objects  for  the  decoration  and  glorification  of  homes  and  cities. 
Since  the  war  of  i86i  the  government  has  distributeil  to  the  different  ( ities 
and  villages  of  the  country  a  large  number  of  bronze  cannon  to  be  incited 
up  into  statues,  in  honor  of  the  victories  and  heroes  of  the  war,  to  graic 
public  scpiares  and  parks  ;  antl  factories  for  manufacturing  bronze  objects  for 
common  use  have  started  up  all  over  the  industrial  portions  of  the  land. 
In  the  Revolutionary  war  the  peaceful  old  statue  of  King  George,  in  Ni.nv- 
York  City,  was  tumbletl  down,  ami  converted  to  warlike  uses  by  being  united 
up  into  good  republican  bullets.  At  the  present  time  a  change  is  goiui;  on 
which  might  be  com])ared  to  the  overthrow  of  the  brazen  arms  and  statue 
of  Mars,  and  the  melting  up  the  warlike  material  into  objects  of  beauty  and 
peaceful  luxury. 

The  bronze-manufacturers  of  the  United  States,  previous  to  1861,  were  lew, 
and  far  between.  The  establishments  of  the  Messrs.  .Ames  at  Chicopee,  .Mass.. 
and  of  the  .Meneelys  at  Troy,  N.V.,  were  the  princijjal  ones  in  the  country  ;  and 
there  were  only  a  few  others  sprinkled  about  here  and  there  in  the  Ivist- 
^  em  States.  These  factories  made  bells  in  times  of  peace,  and  cast  cannon  in 
times  of  war.  The  so-called  brass  guns  used  in  the  Mexican  war,  in  the 
In  eof  struggle  of  1861-65.  anil  in  the  army  on  the  plains  in  figlitini,' 
bronze-  Indians,  were  made  of  bronze.     They  were  cast  solid,  and  bored, 

and  were  nearly  as  strong  as  iron.  They  were  known  as  Xajx)- 
leons  in  the  army,  to  distinguish  them  f^om  iron  and  steel  guns. 
The  expense  of  bronze  limited  its  manufacture  to  these  two  articles  and  to  the 
occasional  statues  which  public  gratitude  or  jirivate  liberality  caused  to  be  set 
up  in  some  opulent  city.  The  beauty  of  bronze  caused  it,  however,  to  be 
prized  in  the  arts.     For  many  years  manufacturers  tried  to  discover  a  method 


manufac- 
tories. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


347 


lor  liiniizing  other  substances,  so  that  the  growing  refinement  of  the  public 
Wsti  might  be  gratified  by  the  purchase  of  objects  whicii  slioukl  have  the 
appiaiiiHe  of  l)ron/.e  witiiotit  its  cost.  Various  washes,  powders,  and  alloys 
were  Nniught  out  one  alter  the  other.  A  compound  of  tin.  rcgulus  of  anti- 
iiioin .  ind  lead,  was  once  employed  as  an  imitafion  bronze.  The  manufacturers 
oi  iiiuntains,  vases  for  the  decoration  of  grounds,  doorstep-statuary,  and  other 
iiict.il  work,  gave  that  alloy  u|)  for  zinc  c(jvered  with  copper  by  the  eleitric.^ 
|in)(i>s.  'I'hey  then  discovered  the  solution  of  (  hloride  of  l)latin^m.  which 
will  nive  almost  any  color  to  co])per,  brass,  iron,  or  new  bronze,  (heap  sub- 
btituus  for  bronze,  and  powders  and  washes,  are  still  largely  used  :  they  can 
lit'  Miti  in  ( lianckliers,  (heap  statuary,  and  coarse  decorative  metal-work.  Hut 
tluri  has  been  a  decided  in(  rease  in  the  employment  of  real  bronze  since 
iSdi.  No  one  wants  an  imitation,  if  he  can  afford  the  real  thing. 
.\iiKri(  ans,  particularly,  have  a  hatred  for  shams,  whether  it  be  in   f"'"'      , 

'  •'  Increase  in 

tJK'  iinifessions  of  their  pul)lic  men,  or  in  so  simple  a  mailer  as  the  use  of  real 
U\A>  of  Washington  which  adorn  their  mantle-pieces.  Besides  1*86°"" "'"" 
thh.  ilure  has  been  a  growth  of  the  sense  of  color  in  this  country. 
A  rii  li  dark  wall-pajier  i;>  wanted  now  where  a  whitewashed  wall  answered 
bcl'oiv.  The  oUl-time  white  piasler-of-l'aris  statuette  no  longer  pleases;  but  it 
must  lie  colored  to  resemble 
bron/e,  or  must  be  of  that 
opiiknt  metal  itself.  ''"'-^2 
tii.in,L;e  in  taste  and  the  growth 
of  pnisperity  have  prei)ared 
tlic  way  for  a  sale  of  real 
bronze  objects.  'I'he  result  is 
alriMily  seen  in  the  factories. 
(\)iinriis  wiiit  h  formerly  pro- 
ciiu  i.il  house-harilware  of  iron, 
siicii  as  locks,  hinges,  latches, 
metal  ornaments,  t*v:c.,  have 
chaiij^ed  over  to  bronze.  All 
liandsome  houses  are  now  fur- 
nished, to  a  large  extent,  witii 
bronze  metal-work  and  fasten- 
ing's, as  far  as  the  tloors  and 
windows  are  concerned,  the 
lit;ht-colored  bronzes  being 
l)rcfcircd  for  the  i)urpose. 
Public    buildings    and    stores 

hav(j  also  adopted  this  style  of  work.  The  whole  world  is  vistonished  and 
dilighted  with  the  l^eauty  of  American  bronze  hardware,  which  displays  great 
taste,  and  originality  of  pattern.     The  manufacturers  of  clocks,  inkstands, 


I.A!<T   MOMENTS    UKIIINU   TIIK   SCENES. 


'^"''^^W^l 


^v 


P  I;     Uii 


flH  »i 


,8) 


348 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


% 


(•ij{ar-hol(lcrs.  thermometers,  and  Yankee  notions  in  general,  are  also  now 
flooding,'  tlie  country  witli,  and  sending  ahroail  to  a  certain  extent,  haniUunK- 
wares  of  this  popular  material.  For  this  class  of  objects  the  darker  liroiucs 
are  used  ;  many  of  the  cheaper  pieces,  however,  being  simply  of  in)n,  hut 
japanned  to  reseml)le  bronze.  Purely  ornamental  bron/e-work,  sik  h  as 
statues,  vases,  jxjts,  trays,  iVc,  are  not  yet  made  in  America.  W;  arc 
behind  the  rest  of  the  world  in  that  ros])ect.  Yankee  genius  loves  to  ino- 
(luce  the  useful,  giving  it  a  beautiful  fi)rm  :  but  there  is  not  yet  a  disiini  tivv.- 
development  of  that  in<lepen(lent  passion  for  the  purely  beautiful  whicii  leads 
a  i)eople  to  go  largely  into  the  manufacture  of  exclusively  ornamental  ohjoc  ts. 
That  will  come  in  time  ;  in  fact,  is  already  coming  :  but  the  progress  in  bron/cs 
is  not  yet  sufticient  to  be  dwelt  upon.  Mron/e  i)usts  of  eminent  men,  and 
statues  for  parks  and  jjublic  places,  are,  however,  now  very  commonly  niadi'. 
I'here  is  a  genuine  passion  for  bron/e  for  that  department  of  art.  Tlu' 
richness,  dignity,  and  strength  of  the  alloy  are  asserting  themselves,  and 
the  manufac  turers  are  reaping  a  rich  harvest  therefrom. 

American  development  in  bronze-work  will  doubtless  come  during  the  next 

twenty  years  more  largely  from  studying  the  ideas  of  the  Japanese  than  from 

analvzing  those  of  the   Kuroi)eans.     The    laiJanese   have  unietlv 

Advantage  -        n  i  j    \  1         '.' 

of  studying     Spent  an  immense  amount  of  thought,  experiment,  and  patient 
Japanese        manual  labor,  upon  ornamental  bronze-work  since  the  sixth  (  entuiv, 

productions. 

and  have  attained  an  excellence  in  the  art  enjoyed  by  no  other 
nation,  although  they  have  made  the  least  bustle  about  it  of  any  nation.  Their 
alloys  are  very  numerous  and  very  rich.  They  call  them  by  the  color  \vlii(  h 
predominates  in  them  when  they  are  finished.  'I'heir  "green  copper"  is  (om- 
poseil  of  copi)er.ind  lead,  or  co|)per,  tin,  and  lead.  "  lllack  copper"  is  prodiw  ed 
by  uniting  the  three  metals  dil'ferently.  The  "  purple  copper  "  is  copper  and 
lead  again.  One  beautiful  alloy  is  matle  of  four  parts  of  copper,  and  six  of 
silver;  and  the  fiimous  and  peculiar  dark-blue  Shakudo  is  made  ly  adding 
to  copper  from  two  to  five  per  cent  of  gold.  The  metal  can  be  made  of  any 
hue  anrl  richness.  .American  workmen  are  now  studying  Jajjanese  dcsit,'ns : 
when  they  come  to  study  the  raw  material,  good  results  may  be  expected  to 
follow. 

The  principal  factories  of  bronze  statues  in  the  United  States  now  are  that 
of  Robert  Wood  &  Company,  Philadeljihia,  and  that  of  the  Ames  ('oin])any 
at  Chicopee,  Mass.  The  statues  made  at  these  shops  are  either  of  life  or 
Principal  heroic  size.  There  are  no  colossal  works  by  them  yet.  Tlio 
bronze-man-  Uiiitcil  States  have  liO  colossal  statues.  One  is  proposed  of  a  liglit- 
ufacturers.  ],Q,,„g  j,-,  Ne^y-York  harbor,  to  be  presented  by  the  French,  and  to 
be  called  "  Liberty  enlightening  the  World."  It  will  be  two  hundred  and 
twenty-five  feet  high  with  its  pedestal,  if  ever  erected,  and  will  cost  one 
million  francs  ;  but  it  will  not  be  sent  here  until  the  United  States  build  a 
pedestal  for  it  to  stand  on,  and  at  present  nothing  is  being  done  about  it. 


Ill  other  wore! 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


34  y 


nr.LLs. 


LIKBRrY-UKU.. 


Tlu'  story  of  the  bell  should  always  he  written  by  a  poet :  indeed,  the  bell 
lib  liiiii  a  favorite  theme  with  tin.'  jioets  of  all  ages  and  countries  since  its 
iiiviniKMi  and  introdtKtioii  to  the  towers  of  castles,  churches,  and  poetic  hii- 
urt'it  hiiildings.  No  sound  speaks  to  men  with  siuh  "  a  various  tory  of  beiu. 
Iant;u.ige  "  as  the  clan^'  of  a  j^reat  lail.  It  always  annonnc  es  soniellMMj,'.  Once 
tlie  hells  of  a  tower  were  rung  to  scatter  the  storms,  it  being  believed  that  the 
iioly  sOiWvl  would  have  a  siibjtij^'ating  efiecl  upon  the 
ik'iiKiUs ;  but  that  custom  has  passed  away,  and 
MOW  llie  bell  s])eaks  only  to  tell  something  impoilaut 
to  tiu'  people  living  within  the  sound  of  its  voice. 
It  sii;ii.ili/.es  the  sweetest  and  most  tender  in(  ideiUs 
III  liii .  It  attends  us  to  the  grave.  It  alarms  a  com- 
nuiniiv  to  meet  a  danger.  There  is  always  some- 
thiiiL;  of  melan(  holy  in  the  voice  of  a  great  bell,  even 
oil  llu'  most  joyful  occasions,  and  the  sotmd  is  alwavs 
full  of  sympathy.  \  great  bell  without  that  trace  of 
iml, 111!  holy  is  worthless.  In  l'',iiro])e  it  has  always 
jiuii  the  (  ustom  to  inscribe  upon  the  bell  a  legend 
of  Mime  sort  ;   and.  from    imong  the  many  in  Latin, 

the  following  may  be  taken  to  show  with   how  many  voices  the  same  iron 
tongue  can  speak  to  the  jjcople  of  a  town  :  — 

"  Kuiu'r.i  ])l.in);o  ;  fulj^ura  frinno  ;  s;il)l).itn  |).iiipn  ; 
Kxi'ito  Icntos  I  (lissipo  vciitos  ;  pato  cruciitos." 

In  other  words,  — 

"  1  mourn  the  deaths  ;  I  t)rc;ik  the  lightnings  ;  I  mark  the  salibalhs; 
1  arouse  the  shjw  ;  I  scatter  the  winds  ;  I  appease  the  cruel." 

Aiul  this  :  — 

*' I.audo  Deum  verum  ;  pleticm  voco  ;  cnngrcgo  clcrum ; 
Defiinctos  ploro;  pcstem  fugo  j  fcstani  que  honoro." 

That  is  to  say,  — 

"  I  praise  the  true  God  ;  I  call  the  people  ;  I  convoke  the  clergy ; 
I  mourn  the  dead ;  I  frighten  the  plague  j  I  honor  the  feast." 

Schiller.  Tennyson,  T'dgar  A.  Poe,  and  nearly  all  the  great  national  poets, 
have  given  us  a  song  of  the  bell.  "  The  Hells  of  Shandon  "  shows  how  ui^i- 
vcrsal  is  the  love  of  this  powerful  mover  of  the  sentiments  and  feelii  j:s. 

The  early  bells  of  the  United  States  were  all  imported  from  Enc;lrind,  whence 
•nlone,  for  a  long  period,  were  to  be  obtained  the  supplies  of  tin  which  enter 
into  their  composition.     Not  many  were  wanted:    yet  the  early  Early beiit 
settlers  of  America  were  a  very  religious  peo])le,  and  the  wliit;    imported. 
spires  of  their  churches  dotted  the  dark  brown  and  green  of  every  landscape  ; 


,n 


350 


INDUSTRIAL    II /STORY 


..I'f*!'! 


and  it  was  desired  to  hang  a  l.cll  in  as  many  of  ih:  .^pircs  as  possible.  So  there 
was  sonietiiini;  of  a  di  mand  for  bells,  anil  the  ships  from  England  broui^ht  all 
that  were  ordered.  (Jccasionally  one  was  hung  in  a  state-house  also.  Anions 
this  class  was  the  famous  bell  imported  in  1752  for  Independence  Hall  at 
Philadelpiiia  ;  which,  being  cracked  on  trial  by  a  too  energetic  stroke  of  the 
clapper,  was  recast  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Isaac  Morris  of  Philadelphia. 
The  new  bell  was  inscribed  from  Lev.  x\v.  10,  "Proclaim  liberty  throughout 
the  land  unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof;  "  also,  "  By  order  of  the  Asscinhly 
of  the  Province  of  Penn.  for  the  State  House  in  Phil.  ;"  and,  "  Pass  &  Stow, 
Phil.,  MDCC'LII."  After  the  tariff  of  184::,  which  gave  those  who  (hose  to 
take  up  bell-founding  as  a  regular  business  the  protection  of  a  duty  of  ihiity- 
five  per  cent,  a  number  of  small  factories  were  started,  some  of  which  at'tcr- 
w.ards  attained  celebrity  ;  among  them  being  that  of  the  Meneely  lirothirs  at 
Troy,  N.Y.,  the  one  at  Boston,  and  that  of  the  Eevin  Brothers  Manufacturing 
Company  of  Kast  Hampton,  Conn. 

'I'lic  hells  whi(  h  ha\e  been  made  in  the  United  States  have  been,  so  far.  of 

moderate  size,  with  few  exceptions.  The 
conditions  of  society  here  have  not  hicii 
BeUs  mr.de  f^vorable  to  tile  production  of 
in  United  moustcr  tocsius  as  in  some 
'**^^'  other    countries.      Royalty  and 

priestcraft  have  resorted  to  colossal  IjcILs  in 
all  ages  to  impress  the  common  pcojilc  with 
the  jiower  of  their  rulers ;  and  Europe  is 
filled  with  monster  castings  of  this  descrip- 
tion, the  fifty-seven-ton  affair  at  Mos(  ow 
being  the  largest;  while  imperial  China  ami 
Japan,  with  kindred  aims,  have  hung  tre- 
mendous fifteen-foot  bells  in  nearly  all  tJic 
great  cities  of  their  respective  empires.  In 
the  United  States,  where  the  democratic 
spirit  prevails,  where  pomp  and  circum- 
stance are  not  employed  to  strengthen  the  authority  of  ('hurch  and  State,  and 
all  things  are  gaugeil  by  a  common  rule  of  beauty  and  utility,  bells  have  I'ound 
•  their  use,  and  have  only  been  made  large  enough  to  subserve  the  wants  and 
pleasures  of  the  j)eople.  The  largest  bell  ever  made  in  the  country  was  ( ast 
at  Boston  fc-r  the  City  Hall  at  New  York.  It  weighed  twenty-three  thonsaml 
pounds,  was  eight  feet  across  at  the  mouth,  six  feet  high,  and  six 
inches  and  a  half  thick  where  the  clajjper  struck  it.  A  few  four 
and  five  ton  bells  have  also  been  cast ;  but  the  majority  of  those  made  average 
a  thousand  i)oun(ls'  weight  only  for  churches  and  city  halls,  and  four  hundred 
pounds'  weight  for  fiictories. 

The  tone  of  a  bell  is  entirely  within  the  control  of  the  manufacturer.    Its 


JAPA.NIiSE    BELL. 


Size  of  bells. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


35 1 


softness  and  sweetness  can  be  varied  by  using  different  proportions  of  copper 
aiul  lin.  'Tid  putting  in  a  little  lead  or  silver.    Its  pitch  is  varied  l)y   .^^^^  ^f 
the  si/e  and  diameter.     Kor  instance,  the  bells  ringing  the  first,   beu,  how 
third,  lifth,  and  oightii  of  the  scale  are  cast  relative,  with  diame-   ■*»*='""""'*• 
ters  of  thirty,  twenty-four,  twenty,  and  fifteen,  and  weights  of  eighty,  forty-one, 
twenty-four,  and  ten.    'I'he  ease  of  graduating  tlie  tone  has  led  to  the  adoption 
of  chimes  of  bells ;  and  churches  in  all  the  large  cities  of  the  country,  and  in 
some  of  the  smaller  ones,  have  within  the  last  twenty  years  purchased  them. 


CHUKCH-UELL. 


and  the  communities  have  been  filled  with  the  music  of  "  sweet  chimes  of 
magic  bells."  The  most  ancient  chime  in  the  country  is  that  in  a  picturesque 
ruin  in  the  southern  part  of  California.  It  is  a  relic  of  the  Spani.-ih  occupation. 
The  Jesuit  missionaries  from  Mexico  built  a  number  of  massive  mission-houses 
in  that  part  of  the  country,  and  hung  in  them  bells  Imiught  from  Europe.  One 
of  these  structures,  being  erected  in  a  region  occasionally  shaken  by  earth- 
quakes, was  made  with  a  dome  ten  feet  thick,  in  order  that  it  might  resist  any 
possible  shock ;  and  the  bells  wore  hung  in  the  arches  of  a  low  buttressed  wall, 


V    .P: 


WA 


U'i.t 


352 


/A'D  rs  TKIA  I.    HIS  TOR  Y 


separate  from  the  main  building.  In  irony  at  the  calculations  of  man,  an  carth- 
quaice  crushed  the  massive  central  ImiUling,  ami  has  left  the  bells  hanuin"  in 
their  arched  colonnade  to  the  present  day.  'i'he  most  interesting  chime  in  the 
country  is  that  at  Cornell  University,  in  Ithaca,  N.Y.  There  are  ten  IjcUs 
the  largest  weigiiing  4.VSS9  pounds,  anil  the  smallest  230.  They  reprcsciii  the 
notes  of  1),  (i,  A,  1>,  C,  1),  l^,  F,  K  sharp,  and  (1.  The  largest  of  liiesi  hcUs 
bears  various  legenils,  as  follows  :  "  The  gift  of  Mary,  wife  of  Andrew  1 ).  W  hite 
First  President  of  Cornell  University,  '.;'')0  ;  "  "  (ilory  to  Clod  in  tlio  highest 
and  on  eartli  jjeace,  good  will  toward  men  ;  "  "  To  tell  of  Thy  loving  kindness 
early  in  the  morning,  and  of  'I'iiy  tnnii  in  tiie  night-season."  Also  the  follow- 
ing, written  for  the  i)urpi)se  by  James  Russell  Lowell :  — 


Fri 


f'N 


"  I  call,  as  fly  the  irrcvticiblc  lioiirs, 

Futile  as  air,  or  strong  as  fate,  to  make 
Your  lives  of  sand  or  granite  :  awful  powers. 
Even  as  men  choose,  they  cither  give  or  take," 

Upon  the  nine  other  bells  are  couplets  from  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam," 
beginning  with  the  smallest,  as  folk)ws  :  — 

"  King  out  the  old,  ring  in  the  new  ; 
Ring  out  the  false,  ring  in  the  true. 

Ring  out  the  grief  that  saps  the  mind; 
Ring  in  redress  to  all  mankind. 

Ring  out  a  slowly-dying  rausc. 

And  ancient  forms  of  party  strife  ; 

King  in  the  nolikr  modes  of  life. 
With  sweeter  maimers,  purer  laws. 

Ring  out  false  pride  in  |)hue  and  blood; 
King  in  the  lonnnon  love  of  good. 

Ring  out  tilt  slander  and  the  spite  ; 
Ring  ill  the  love  of  truth  and  riglit. 

Ring  out  the  narrowing  lusi  of  gold  ; 
Ring  out  the  thousand  wars  of  (jld. 

Ring  out  old  shapes  of  foul  disease ; 
Ring  in  the  thousand  years  of  )«  ace. 

Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free. 

The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand  ; 

Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land  j    ■ 
King  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be." 


01-     THK    IN  I  TED    STATES. 


353 


On  this  last  bell  is  also  the  inscription,  "  This  chime  the  gift  of  Miss  Jennie 
McGraw  to  the  Cornell  University,  1868." 


I'lIIMR   OF   liEM.S. 


Aincriran  manufacturers  arc  not  very  confident  of  the  value  of  silver  in 
bells,  ;iii(i  tiiey  generally  prefer  clear  mixtures  of  copper  and  tin.     The  pro- 
portion is,  for  musical  bells,  six  of  copper  to  one  of  tin  ;    horse-   silver  in      / ^ 
bells,  Hipper  four,  tin  one  ;  and  large  bells,  three  to  one.     Cattle-   *"'"^-         *^ 
bdls  arc  made   of  iron  and  copper.     They  are  not  intended  to  do  any  thing 
exccjit  make  a  noise.     Steel  bells  have  been  experimented  with   Composition 
sonu'  in  J'Jigland  ;  but  they  are  harsh  in  sound,  and  not  popular.   °'  ''*"*• 
A  tV«  fire-alarm  bells  have   been   used  in  the   United  States,  cotisisting  of  a 
hiavy  liar  of  steel,  coiled  spirally,  and  mounted  upon  a  sounding-   Fire-aiarm 
board.     'I'hey  have  been  abolished,  however,  by  the  new  system   '''"*• 
of  fire-alarm,  which  jjrovides,  not  for  ringing  a  great  tocsin  to  agitate  the  town, 
but  tor  ringing  a  gong  in  every  engine-house  by  means  of  the  telegraph,  and 
thus  {,'i\  ing  the  alarm  only  to  those  who  need  to  know  about  the  existence  of  a 
firi'.     Table-bells  are  now  made  of  silver^gold,  and  Cerman  sijyer.     Those  in 
the  form  of  a  little  gong,  mounted  upon  a  little  slender  rod,  which,  in  turn,  is 
iiupporteil  upon  a  small  jjcdestal,  are  the  most  popular.     Bronze  Bronze 
gongs  are  made  of  all  sizes,  from  the  terrific  monsters  shaped  like   i^^i*- 
a  warrior's  shield,  which  the  waiters  bang  at  the  railroad  eating-houses,  to  the 
liny  bell  like  bronzes  in  alarm-clocks  and  oftice-anntinciators.     The  casting  of 
bells  is  so  simple  a  process,  that  it  need  not  be  described.     The  gong  —  that 


X 


'^mm 


354 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


M      ■! 


\A  -'M 


tMi 


«t' 


■■,'x 


is,  the  gong  of  the  Chinese  sort  —  is  made  by  forging  under  a  heavy  hammer 
Number  o(      There   are   now  about   thirty-five   estabUshments   in  the   I'nited 
beu-manu-      States   engaged  in  tiie  production  of  bells  :  a  portion  ot  thtir 
actones.        product  is  sold  abroad.     The  imports  of  bells  have  stopped. 

It  is  not  probable  that  great  bells  will  ever  form  a  special  feature  of 
American  life.  The  tendency  of  things  is  not  in  that  direction.  Circat  bolls 
Future  of  are  only  valuable  to  alarm  a  town  and  the  inhabitants  of  tlic  sur- 
beiu  in  U.S.  rounding  country.  In  the  days  of  the  hand  fire-engine,  ii  was 
important  that  every  able-bodied  man,  in  a  city  where  there  was  any  sijccial 
Value  of  accumulation  of  wealth,  should  be  warned  v,  henever  any  of  tl,e 
great  bells,  buildings  of  the  place  caught  fire,  so  that  he  might  lend  his  efforts 
to  stay  the  conflagration.  Steam  fire-engines,  public  water-works,  and  the 
telegraph  alarm-bell,  have  superseded  the  need  both  o*"  a  call  to  the  population 
of  the  place  and  the  use  of  great  bells.  During  the  lute  war,  heavy  l)c!ls 
were  useful  to  call  in  the  people  of  the  rural  towns  to  hci.  the  news  of  some 
great  victory  or  great  defeat ;  but  cannon-fiiing  answc  :eu  very  well  in  the 
absence  of  bells  then,  and  probably  will  in  the  future. 

LEADMANtJFACTURES, 

/  /  Lead,  though  the  humblest  of  the  metals,  hr.s.  piaye  .  irs  part  royally  in  the 
drama  of  human  life.  When  gunpowder  \v;,i  inven  ea,  lead  was  the  one 
material  of  which  n^'ssiles  could  be  mado.  Uj  exisis^ice  dictated  the  form  of 
weapons,  and  change'l  the  art  of  war;  and  not  only  that,  but  il  decided  the 
fate  of  all  rude  natirjiis,  aud  changed  the  history  of  the  world.  When 
chemistry  b'-^ught  it''  r';sourrc-  )  bear  upon  the  m(>tal,  lead  beca>ne  useful  to 
man  in  beautifying  hi..  *!v,  'Jinyj  with  color;  and,  when  machinery  was  applied 
toward  fashioning  it,  it  was  found  serviceable  for  a  variety  of  objects  for  which 
no  other  metal  has  been  able  to  do  equally  well. 

Lead  was  found  scattered  along  the  co.ist  of  North  America,  hero  and 
there,  by  the  earlier  settlers,  as  will  be  more  fully  described  elsewhere  ;  and  its 
B  ri  u  f  '"^nuf^cturc  for  common  purposes  began  long  before  the  Revo- 
lution. It  was  chiefly  employed  for  bullets.  The  metal  was 
obtained  at  the  store,  and  the  huntsman  cast  his  own  bnllcts  by 
hand.  In  the  government  armories,  balls  were  made  for  the  use 
of  the  army ;  but  there  was  little  general  manufacture  of  lead  for  the  market, 
for  that  or  any  other  purpose,  until  after  'he  Revolution.  .After  the  peace  of 
1783  the  uses  of  lead  increased.  It  was  found  that  oil-paint  had  a  tendency 
to  preserve  wooden  dwellings  from  <leray.  Very  few  dwellings  had  been 
painted  before  the  war.  Paint  was  costly,  it  being  all  imported ;  and  it  w.:s 
regarded  as  a  worldly  and  sinful  luxury  in  most  of  the  colonies,  especially  in 
New  England.  When  it  was  found  that  paint  not  only  beautified,  but  was  of 
positive  utility,  a  perfect  epidemic,  of  coloring  houses,  barns,  and  other  wooden 


lead  was 
chiefly  for 
bullets. 


^'■i.^- 


OF    rilE    UNITED   STATES. 


35S 


buildings,  set  in,  and  the  home  iiianufacture  of  it  began,  A  factory  to 
make  lead-paint  was  started  in  Philadelphia  before  1800:  by  1820  uiedtor 
there  were  several  in  New- York  City,  and  still  others  west  of  the  p*'"' 
Alleghanies  and  elsewhere  in  operation.  Other  factories  in  Brooklyn,  Albany, 
Hostoii,  Buffalo,  and  the  West,  soon  followed.  Then  the  manufacture  of  small 
shot  had  been  invented.  In  1782  a  plnniber  living  in  Bristol,  by  the  name  of 
Walts,  dreamed  that  he  was  caught  out  in  a  rain-storm,  which  turned  to  lead 
;is  it  fell.  This  suggested  the  idea  of  shot-making.  He  went  up  into  a 
thun  li  and  poured  out  some  melted  lead,  which  fell  into  water  below,  and 
liciainc  shot.  'I  he  idea  was  taken  up  quite  generally.  In  1807  Early  shot- 
I'aiil  Heck  built  a  large  shot-tov/er  on  the  Schuylkill,  a  hundred  making, 
and  seventy  feet  high,  which  he  thought  would  supply  the  whole  United 
States.  He  could  not  supply  the  United  States,  however ;  and  several  other 
fa(  tories  were  built  in  the  country  in  succeeding  years.  Four  were  built  at 
New-Vork  City,  with  a  capacity  of  over  three  thousand  tons  per  annum ;  and 
seven  were  built  at  St.  Louis.  Virginia,  Baltimore,  and  otiier  localities,  were 
c{liiil)ped  with  shot-towers  also ;  and  they  ha\e,  in  fact,  sprung  up  all  over  the 
country.  The  census  of  1870  showed  seven  of  them  in  active  operntioD, 
prodiK  ing  about  five  thousand  tons  of  shot  annually.  Besides  these  rists  of 
lead,  various  others  were  introduced  at  different  periods ;  and  the  United  Sitatcs 
lia\e  embarked  in  the  manufacture  of  lead  therefor  in  a  greater  or  less  degree. 
Print  ipal  among  these  uses  of  lead  is  its  application,  either  in  the  form  of 
the  pure  metal  or  an  alloy,  to  pipe-making,  and  the  manufacture  of  type, 
emery-wheels,  solder,  table-ware,  sheet-metal,  the  keys  of  musical  instruments. 
Babbitt  metal  for  the  bearings  of  machinery,  &c. 

Lead  derives  a  great  part  of  its  importance  from  its  useful  alloys.  In 
combination  with  antimony  it  makes  a  metal  good  'or  type  -0  bearings  of 
machinery,  and  ornamental  metal-work,  being  white.  id, 
capable  of  a  polish,  and  producing  a  sharper  casting.  Tb  iloy 
melts  more  readily  than  lead,  and  is  harder.     With  tw«.     \  per 

It  is  harder  in  the  fc^     ^oTan  alloy,  and 

of  solder,  by  mix- 
i  metal  with  which 
ire,  at  635°  :  but  in 


^ 


u^' 


The  use  of 
lead  fts  an 
•ll"y.        ^ , 


cent  of  tin,  lead  produces  pewter. 

mo'e  fusible ;  a  fact  which  is  turned  to  use  in  the  makin 

ing  ecjual  parts  of  tin  and  lead,  and  in  the  production 

naturalists  can  take  delicate  castings^   Lead  melts,  whei    ^ 

the  form  of  an  alloy  co.iiposed  of  lead  i,  lji5muilL.2,  tin  i,  it  fuses  at  201°; , 

which  is  considerably  less  than  that  of  boiling  water.     When,  therefore,  it  is 

desired  to  form  a  mould  of  some  delicate  tissue  or  subst.ir;re  which  would  be  , 

destroyed  by  boiling  water,  this  useful  alloy  is  available  for  tlie  purpose. 

I'crhaps    type-founding,    next   after  that   of    bullet-making,    is  the   most 
ancient  industry  in  which  the  peojjle  engaged  in  produi  ng  useml  articles 
from  lead.      Type  was  cast   in   this   country  as  early  as      735.   Type- 
The  i.iioneer  in  the  art  was  Christopher  Saws  (or  Sowes),  who  '"■'''''«• 
began  printing  at  Gerrnantown,   Fenn.,  and   cast   the   type   required  in  his 


'>. 


.,"  -  '}•.■:  »;. 


I 


''^^::$^ 


iW. 


'WSBimmmf 


■^rn 


'WW^^ 


mm 


;<!,(>  ,*'» 


356 


/AV;  US  TKIA  L    HIS  TON  Y 


business,  executing  therewith,  in   1743,  the  second  IJible  printed  in  Anu  lii  a 
it  l)eing  in  tiie  dernian  language.     Type  was  cast  by  several  printers  siihse 

quentlo  him,  including  I'ranklin 
among  others.  In  1 796  I'.inney 
and  Ronaldson  of  i;(linlnirj^li 
established  type-foundinj;  as  a 
regular  business  at  I'liilailtliihia, 
having  a  ])retty  hard  time  dt"  it 
for  a  few  years,  but  finally  oh- 
taining  State  aid,  couiimTin.;  all 
difliculties,  and  building;  \\y  a 
business  which  was  the  onum  of 
the  i)resent  great  establishnu'iu  of 
Mackellar,  Smiths.  <S:  Jordan.  He- 
tore  the  close  of  the  century  i  \nvifi 
Bruce,  also  of  lulinburgh,  st.irted 
the  business  at  New^ork  Citv. 
Mr.  Druce  w.is  an  ingenious  man, 
and  invented  improvements  in  the 
methods  of  type-founding  whidi 
developed  the  business.  The  oii 
ginal  method  was  to  cast  each 
letter  by  hand,  one  at  a  lime.  A 
copi)er  mould  was  maile  for  the 
type,  the  letter  being  stani|ic(l 
into  the  lower  end  of  the  mould, 
or  matrix,  with  a  steel  die,  and  the 
matrix  capable  of  being  opened 
to  take  out  the  letter.  The  ma- 
trix was  ]tut  uito  a  little  wooden  or  iron  box  having  a  h<)])])er  to  admit  the 
melted  metal.  The  workman,  holding  this  in  his  left  hand,  dipped  enough 
metal  for  a  letter  from  the  melting-pot  with  a  small  iron  ladle.  He  por.red  it 
in,  and  gave  the  matrix  a  sharp  jerk  upwards  as  high  as  his  head  to  settle  tlic 
metal  into  the  finest  lines  of  the  type  and  to  condense  it.  He  then  ])ressed 
a  spring,  opened  the  matrix,  shook  out  the  type,  closed  the  box,  and  went 
on  as  before.  The  average  rate  of  casting  was  400  letters  an  hour.  Mr. 
David  J5nice  invented  an  improvement  in  181 1  by  which  500  typt  could  be 
cast  in  an  hour.  In  1812  a  duty  of  thirty  per  cent  was  laid  upon  foreign 
type,  in  place  of  the  previous  fifteen  per  cent.  This  was  a  great  help  t(. 
American  makers.  Ikjdi  at  Philadelphia  and  New  York  the  Dusmess  mioii 
became  importan'  In  1813  David  and  George  Bruc  began  the  first  stereo 
typing  establishment  in  the  United  States.  In  1831  Mr.  David  Bnice.  jun.. 
patented    the     )nly   successlu!    tyi'C-castuig    machine    which    has    ever    been 


<«ilJ 


PRrMKK  S   SIAM). 


r)/'     rilF.     UNITED    STATES. 


357 


mn*!c 


It  was  the  product  of  years  of  experiment  and  study.  It  has 
rjiitiuU  superseded  the  little  hand-moulds,  and  has  gone  into  general  use 
in  Anit-rican  factories  and  in  many  luiropean.  In  this  machine  the  type- 
iiiet.il  is  kept  in  a  melted   condition 


i!i  :i 


AlllSKl     nm     IVl'l'.. 


small  iron  reservoir  by  means  of 

1  ";•-•  iet.      From  the   reservoir  it   is 

|niin|",(i,  under  great  pressure,  through 

a  sli.il  nip[)le,  into  the  matrix  of  the 

\s\K.  which  ])re,;ents  itself  to  tl>e  ni]) 

iilr;  sinuiltancously  with  tlie  downward 

..iroke  (if  the   piston.      The   quantity 

,)f  nu;t;i!l  pumped  from  the   reservoir 

ill  cK  h  case  is  just  enou;.rh  to  make 

,inv  Irtlcr.     .\  blast  of  cold  air  i)lays 

u'lDii  tlie   mould,   die    iiielal   hardens 

instantly,  the  mould  recedes,  the  tyjie 

i:,  caM  out  into  a  hopper,  the  mouUi 

lioses   again.   ;  ml   moves   forward    to 

rc|icai    tile    process.      The    speed    of 

lasliiig    wa->    imreased    about    three 

tinier  by  this  machine,  and  the  pro- 
portion  of   imi)erfert    type   materially 

iliiiiinislied.  ISy  an  imj)rovenH  nl  in- 
vented by  J.  A.  T.  Overend   of  'im 

Francisco,  in   1875,  the  s[)ced  of  the  machine  was  increased  to  a  hundred 

types  a  minute.     .Xfter  coming  from  the  mould,  type  has  to  be  smoothed  l)y 

rubbing  on  a  stone  slab  ;    and  the  jet-end  must   !)c  cut  off,  so   that  all  the 

types  shall  be  exactly  the 
same  length,  In  type-found- 
ing, certain  letters  of  the 
alpha]>et  are  given  greater 
prominence  than  others. 
This  is  due  to  the  fre- 
((uency  with  which  the  dif- 
^  ferent  letters  occur  in  the 
IP  Knglish  language.  The  pro- 
portion in  which  they  are 
cast,  and  in  which  they  <h  » iir 
in  print,  is  about  as  follows  : 
e,  1.500  :  t,  900  ;  a.  850 ; 
n.  ,^40  ;  c,  m,  300  ;  f  250 ; 
<!,  50  ;    j.  X.  40  ;    7..  20  ;    fi. 


Mil  111...  MACIIINK 


n,  0.  s.  i,  800  ;    I1,  ^140  ;    r,  620  ; 
w,  y,  200  ;    g,  p.  I  70  ;    1),  i6q  ; 


d.  440  ,   1.  400 
k,  80; 


I  JO 


%  *4'' 


-^.:f 


50  ,  ff.  40  ;   fl. 


ifi.  ffl,"  15  ;  a;.  10  ;  ut.  5.     In  capital  letter^  the  ..ifferences 


^Ui. 


358 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


W 


y^ 


>y 


LEACXUTTKK. 


are  not  so  great ;  but  I,  T,  A,  and  E  lead  in  importance,     Tiie  best  type- 
metal    is   coiniJosed  of  fifty  parts  of  lead,  and  about  twenty-two  jjarts  of 

antimony  for  hardness,  twenty-two  of 
tin  for  toughness,  and  four  of  (oppcr 
for  tenacity.  'I'he  copper  is  kit  out, 
however,  very  often.  It  is  replaced  by 
copper-focing,  i)ut  on  by  the  electro 
process  invented  by  Dr.  L.  V.  Newton 
of  New- York  City.  A  metal  very  much  like  that  used  for  type  is  enijiloved 
in  stereotyping.     It  will  be  referred  to  under  the  head  of  "  Stereotyping." 

The  manufacture  of  lead-paint  was  begun  in  America  by  John  I  l.irrison 
of  Philadelphia,  a  young  man  who  believed  that  a  large  numl)er  of  clieniir;il 
Manufacture  products  which  wcrc  being  |)rocurcd  from  abroad  might  l)e  in;ule 
ofieadpaint.  jjy  Q,,r  own  people.  Having  finisheil  a  thorough  ediKation  in 
chemistry  by  a  course  under  the  celebrated  j()sej)h  Priestley  of  iMi.i^iand, 
Harrison  started  a  factory  of  sulphuric  acid  and  white-leiul  in  Philadelphia 
in  1798,  and  prospered  from  the  very  first.  The  house  of  John  T.  Lewis  \ 
Hrothers,  founded  in  1807,  afterwards  went  into  the  same  business.  Ihe 
manufacture  soon  extended  all  over  the  country.  It  became  parti(  ulaiiy 
successful  in  Hrooklyn,  N.Y.,  owing  to  the  growth  of  the  connnunities  in  that 
imuK'diate  vicinity.  .'\t  the  present  time  there  are  145  factories  engaged  in 
the  production  of  paints,  the  manufacture  of  lead  pigments  being  a  part  nt 
their  business.  They  enii)loy  3,000  hands,  and  produce  about  »^  17,000,000 
worth  of  goods  annually  in  fair  years.  Of  the  total  number,  thirty-four  are 
in  Pennsylvania,  sixteen  in  Massachusetts,  eleven  in  New  York,  fourteen  in 
Ohio,  ten  in  Missouri,  and  lour  in  Illinois.  ,  i 

The  i)rincipal  |)igments  made  from  lead  are  minium,  or  red-lead  (which  is 
easily  ])roduce(i  by  exposing  litiiarge  at  a  continued  low  redhcat  to  the  a(  tion 
2^  of  the  air),  white-lead,  a  (arl)onale  of  the  metal,  chrome-red.  and  ( lirome- 
yellow.  Tiieyare  all  beautifid,  brilliant,  and  valuable  pigments.  Oxide  ol  /iiK 
now  contests  with  white-lead  the  favor  of  builders  ;  but  the  importan(  c  of  the 
j)igment  is  scarcely  affected  by  the  comi)elition. 

White-lead  was  originally  made  in  Holland;  and  invention  has  thus  tar 
failed  to  supersede  the  "  Dutch  process  "  of  its  manufacture.  Some  variati(in> 
in  the  details  have  been  made  in  America ;  but  the  process  is 
essentially  the  same  in  principle  as  that  invented  by  the  ])eoi)Ie 
who  taught  Ncjrthern  Europe  the  arts  of  industry.  To  prei)are  the  ])igment, 
the  purest  metallic  lead  is  obtained.  Originally  it  was  subjected  to  the  chenii- 
Mode  of  '''*'   o[)cration    in    the    form   of  loose   rolls   of  sheet-load.      The 

manufactur-    American  method  is  to  cast  the  lead  into  circidar  gratings  lookinj; 
'"'■  very  nnich  like  shoe-buckles.     In  whichever  shape  prepared,  the 

lead  is  put  into  earthen  jars,  with  a  litde  vinegar  at  the  bottom,  the  lead  being 
supported    by   earthen   ledges   from   coming   into   contact  with  the  vinegar. 


White-lead. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


359 


Sometimes  the  pots  have  openings  in  the  sides  to  permit  a  free  circulation  of 
the  vapors  set  free  in  the  process.  An  immense  collection  of  the  jars,  tens  of 
thousands  in  number,  are, then  packetl  in  alternate  layers,  with  layers  of  some 
fcrnuiiting  material  which  will  give  out  carbonic-acid  gas.  Originally  stable- 
manure  was  employed.  At  present  spent  tan-bark  is  preferred.  The  layers 
of  jars  and  bark  arc  carried  up  sometimes  twenty  feet  high,  the  bark  being 
kept  out  of  the  jars  by  sheets  of  lead  and  by  boards.  A  large  building  being 
filled  in  this  way  is  then  closed.  The  fermentation  sets  free  a  large  (juantity 
nl  larlionic  acitl.  Basic  acetate  is  first  formed  on  the  surface  of  the  lead  in 
the  i>ots,  which  is  decomposed  by  the  carbonic-acid  gas,  forming  carbonate 
and  tree  acetic  acid.  'I'hc  latter  again  acts  on  the  lead.  Very  little  vinegar 
IS  roijuired  ;  and  the  process  goes  on  continuously,  assisted  by  the  heat  of  the 
IcniK Illation,  until,  at  the  cud  of  ten  or  twclsc  weeks,  fermentation  stops. 
The  proix'ss  is  then  at  an  end.  The  slack  is  then  taken  to  pieces.  The  lead 
IS  foiiiul  in  its  original  form,  though  increased  in  bulk  and  weight,  and  con- 
verted into  a  very  white  antl  soft  carbonate.  If  the  conversion  has  not  been 
th(iriMi,i;lily  done,  a  can  of  metallic  or  blue  lead  will  be  found  in  the  interior 
of  some  of  the  pieces.  The  pieces  of  lead  arc  now  thrown  into  large  tanks 
filled  with  water,  in  which  they  rest  upon  shelves  of  (ojijier  full  of  holes. 
riiev  are  beaten  to  separate  and  pidverize  the  (  arbonate.  the  water  preventing 
ihe  line  dust  from  poisoning  the  air  and  injuring  the  uorkmen.  Grinding, 
and  wasiiing  in  water,  then  ft)llow,  until  the  carbonate  is  rediu  ed  to  an  im- 
lial|)alile  powder.  It  is  then  dried  in  steam  pans  (jr  upon  tile  tables,  ami  put 
iij)  for  the  market.  The  carbonate  obtained  in  this  way  is  superior  to  that 
olitaiiied  in  any  other  ;  but  a  very  fair  cduunercial  article  is  made  by  boiling 
solutions  of  nitrate  or  acetate  with  litharge,  and  precipitating  the  solution  with 
carbonic  acid.  White-lead  is  not  alone  employed  as  the  best  white  paint  ;  but 
it  constitutes  the  body  of  almost  all  other  paints,  it  being  colured  by  intermix- 
tare  witii  other  pigments. 

Chrome-yellow  is  obtained  by  precipitating  a  solution  of  nitrate  of  lead 
with  (  hromate  of  potash,  and  washing  and  drying  the  product.     The  red,  a 
hri^jht  powder,  is  obtained  from  the  yellow  by  boiling  it  with  lime   chrome- 
or  some  other  alkali  ;   also  by  digesting  levigated  litharge,  by  boil-   yellow. 
inf;  with  neutral  yellow  chromate  of  potash,  iVc,     A  green  lead  is  also  made. 

Considering  how  far  a  pound  of  oil-paint  goes  in  coloring  a  house  or  a 
fence,  the  consumption  of  pig-lead  in  paint-making  must  be  regarded  as 
enormous.  It  now  amounts  in  the  United  States,  yearly,  to  about  Aduitera- 
50.000  tons.  Notwithstanding  the  cheapness  uf  lead-paint,  it  is  •'°"- 
laijjely  adulterated  for  the  market  by  small  dealers  with  whiting.  The  powder 
is  absolutely  white,  and  does  not  discolor  ;  but  it  does  not  make  so  brilliant 
a  paint. 

When  the  use  of  paint  began  to  become  general  in  this   country,  the 
favorite  colors  were  white  for  houses,  churches,  and  wooden  stojes,  —  the  color 


^ 


'TITT,, 


<  '   I  M. 


■»( 


300 


INDUSTRIAL    JIISTORY 


;-lf^ 


! 


' 


V 


contbriuing  to  the  simplicity  of  that  age,  —  green  for  window-blinds,  \\\\y\  xtt 
for  barns.  Rcil  barns  are  still  common  on  the  farms  of  the  country  ;  althmii'h 
drab  and  brown  paints  have  come  into  jjopularity  within  the  last  twenty  years 
and  threaten  soon  to  supersede  both  red  and  white  for  wooden  builcliii  ■,  of 
all  kinds. 

Shot-making  is  the  simplest  of  mechanical  processes.  The  only  jilad'  in 
the  process  where  any  special  judgment  is  retiuired  is  in  the  preparation  of 
Modern  pro-  'h*-'  I>ig->»<-'tal.  Most  manufacturers  regard  the  presence  of  aivnic 
cess  of  shot-  in  the  metal  as  absolutely  necessary.  Very  cheap  lead  is  usiii  in 
"""  '  *'  shot-making,  and  the  presence  of  one  or  two  per  cent  of  arsinu 

gives  it  fluidity.  .\  i)ot  of  lead  is  melted.  ICither  white  arsenic  or  urpinK'nt 
(the  sulphuret)  is  put  into  the  centre  of  the  mass,  and  a  cover  ])ut  upon  ilu; 
pot,  and  sealed  down.  A  chemical  combination  takes  place  in  a  few  honrs ; 
and  the  pot  is  then  opened,  and  the  metal  tested  by  i)ouring  a  little  of  it 
through  a  strainer  at  a  moderate  height  into  water.  The  globules  of  lead  are 
round,  if  the  mixture  has  been  maile  in  the  right  jiroportion  ;  they  are  kiis- 
shaped,  if  there  is  too  much  arsenic  ;  and  irregular  in  shape,  if  too  little.  If 
the  metal  is  all  right,  it  is  cast  into  i)igs  for  use.  It  is  converted  into  shot  by 
fusing  it  at  a  low  height,  and  letting  it  drain  through  colanilers  at  the  lop  of 
a  tower.  The  drops  harden  on  the  way  ilown,  and  fall  into  water.  The 
imperfect  shot  are  separated  from  the  others  by  letting  them  roll  down  in- 
clined planes.  The  good  ones  go  down  with  speed,  and  shoot  off  into  proper 
receptacles :  the  irregular  ones  go  down  more  slowly,  and  drop  off  upon  the 
floor.  They  are  sorted  into  sizes  by  being  shaken  in  sieves.  The  height  of  a 
shot-tower  is  from  150  to  250  feet.  One  in  Baltimore  is  256  feet  high,  ami  is 
probably  the  tallest  in  the  world.  .\n  American  method,  patented  by  I  )aviil 
Smith  of  New  York  in  1848,  aimed  to  dispense  with  these  tall  towers,  which 
stand  up  above  the  other  buildings,  like  ancient  obelisks,  in  every  city  where 
they  are  erected.  A  shorter  tower  is  used,  and  a  powerful  current  of  cold  air 
is  blown  up  through  the  falling  shot  by  means  of  machinery. 

About  the  last  of  the  great  manufactures  of  lead  to  be  introduced  in  this 
country  was  that  of  sheet-lead  and  lead  pipe  :  it  is  now,  however,  the  principal 
Sheet-lead  consumer  of  the  metal.  There  are  about  twenty-five  factories  en- 
and  lead  gaged  in  making  lead  pipe  and  sheet-lead,  having  an  annual  prod- 
'"'"■  uct  of  {5 1 5,000,000  worth  of  goods.     They  are  located  princii)ally 

in  the  Middle  States.  Sheet-lead  is  easily  made  by  rolling.  It  is  generally 
cast  into  plates  six  inches  thick  for  the  purpose,  and  is  gradually  worked  down 
between  two  heavy  iron  rollers.  Lead  pipe  was  formerly  made  by  hand ; 
sheet-lead  was  turned  up  into  a  pipe,  and  the  edges  soldered.  Large  pipes  are 
still  made  in  this  way.  All  attempts  to  cast  lead  pipe  have  proved  to  be  too 
cumbersome  and  slow.  The  method  in  use  is  that  suggested  in  1797  i)y 
Bramah,  the  inventor  of  the  celebrated  English  lock  of  that  name,  and  patented 
by  him.     The  process  was  introduced  into  the  United  States  in  1 840  by  Tatham 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


3<^' 


fc  Hrotliers,  who  patented  an  imjjrovemcnt  upon  it  in  the  genuine  Yankee  way. 
It  (onsibts  in  pouring  lead  into  a  cylindrical  cavity  in  a  block  of  cast-iron, 
ivhii  h  is  kept  at  a  heat  suliticient  to  UK-.t  leatl,  and  then  forcing  the  lead  out 
again,  under  a  pressure  of  two  hundred  or  three  hundred  tons,  with  an  hydraulic 
,ili|)ar.uui,  througli  an  annular  space  the  size  of  the  pipe  ie(iuired.  The  steel 
rod,  or  core,  which  forms  the  bore  of  the  pipe,  is  fasten'.'d  to  the  piston,  and 
Masses  ihrougli  the  cavity  containing  the  lead,  and  out  through  the  hole  in  tiie 
tii|i  ol'  the  chamber.  It  rises  slowly  with  the  piston,  which  crowds  the  melted 
mdai  out  of  the  chamber  through  the  annular  opening  above  formed  by  the 
(lie  and  the  core.  The  pipe,  as  it  cools,  and  rises  slowly  above  the  top  of  the 
machine,  is  coiletl  around  a  large  drum  above.  In  one  process  tlie  piston  rists 
jnio  till' chamber  of  mehed  metal :  in  the  other  the  piston  descends,  the  die 
liciiig  in  tlie  i)iston,  and  the  core  projecting  upwaril  through  it  from  the  bottom 
of  the  ( liamber.  An  old  method  of  making  lead  pipe  was  to  cast  a  heavy 
lylindcr  of  lead  with  a  bore  of  the  exact  si/e  recpiired,  and  then  gradually  to 
work  tliis  down  under  rollers,  using  a  mandrel  to  keep  the  bore  open.  It  is 
not  yet  entirely  obsolete. 

Lead  pipe  is  very  convenient  for  domestic  purposes,  because  it  can  be 
readily  bent  to  any  angle  re(iuired.  If  the  water  within  it  freezes,  and  bursts 
the  jiipe,  the  latter  can  be  easily  repaired.  The  only  tlrawback  to  utility  of 
lead  |)i|ies  is,  that  the  water  they  distribute  through  the  houses  '*■'*  p'p'- 
of  our  cities  often  corrodes  the  lead,  and  becomes  thus  impregnated  with 
poison.  The  evil  is  obviated  by  keeping  the  pi])es  always  full  of  water,  and 
Idtini,'  tlie  water  which  has  stood  in  them  any  length  of  time  flow  out  before 
(Irawini;  water  for  cooking  or  drinking. 

For  ornamental  purposes,  lead  is  alloyed  with  seventy-five  per  cent  of 
antimony.  It  makes  a  hard,  white  alloy,  capable  of  taking  a  high  polish.  It 
is  the  material  generally  used  in  the  keys  of  flutes. 

STEREOTYPING. 

There  are  serious  objections  to  printing  newspapers  and  books  from  type. 
A  form  of  type  is  always  liable  to  be  "  knocked  into  pie,"  as  it  is  called  in  a 
printinj^-office.     If  the  edition  of  the  book  or  the  newspaper  is  large,  it  cannot 
lie  jirinled  expeditiously  upon  one  press.     It  is  necessary  to  set  several  at  work 
upon  exactly  the  same  job.     Not  only  would   it  be  expensive  to  keep  type 
enough  on  hand  to  "  set  up  "  some  pages  more  than  once,  but  it  would  be  still 
more  so  to  set  them  up.     A  better  way  is  to  cast  the  page  of  type  Economy  of 
in  type-metal.     IJy  making  a  mould  of  the  page,  as  many  plates  »tereotyp- 
tan  be  cast  from  it  as  may  be  desired,  and  thus  several  presses    "*' 
can  be  employed  at  once.     The  plates  have,  in  addition,  this  advantage  :  they 
can  he  stored  up  in  the  lumber-room,  and  kept  for  years,  if  necessary ;  so 
'hat,  if  a  new  edition  of  the  almanac,  pamphlet,  or  book,  is  desired,  it  can  be 
printeil  without  encountering  the  cost  of  comi)osition. 


I 


u 


l?i 


^., 


A^„ 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


^.<, 


1.0    I^KA  1^ 

■tt  I2ii  12.2 


mil 


I.I 


S  114  — 
«  u&  122. 


T^ 


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/ 


w 


Fhob 
Sdmoes 
CarparatJon 


^ 


IF 


V 


\ 


\ 


V 


tt  WHT  MAM  STRUT 

WIMTn,N.V.  MSM 

(7l«)tn-4S03 


4^ 


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6^ 


I 


\ 


\ 


.1 


'I 

III 


362 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


No  books  or  papers  were  printed,  in  the  early  days  of  America,  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  justify  a  resort  to  the  process  of  stereotyping.  After  the  war  of 
First  stereo-  ^^^^  printing  increased,  and  the  need  of  stereotyping  was  felt. 
typing: estab-  David  and  George  Bruce  added  to  their  printing-business  in  New- 
lithment.  YqxY  City  a  stereotyping  estabhshment  in  1813.  It  was  the  first  in 
the  country.  Since  that  time,  scarce  any  large  book-printing  or  newspaper 
establishment  has  failed  to  add  a  stereotype-room  to  the  resources  of  tiie 
business. 


HARPER  S  I'RINTING-HOUSE. 


The  method  adopted  by  Mr.  Bruce  was  to  oil  the  surface  of  the  page  of 
type  to  be  copied,  and  pour  upon  it  plaster  of  Paris  in  a  liquid  form.  This 
Bruce's  substance,  when  wet,  hardens  in  a  few  minutes,  and  makes  an 

method.  excellent  mould.  The  moulds,  having  set,  were  taken  off,  dried 
in  a  furnace,  put  in  a  casting-box,  and  dipped  into  melted  stereotype -metal. 
The  metal,  having  cooled,  *as  taken  from  the  mould.  It  was  carefully  ex- 
amined for  defective  letters,  and  corrected  by  chiselling  out  the  bad  letters, 


OF  THE    UNITED    STATES. 


iH 


papers  is 
done. 


and  inserting  type.  It  was  then  planed  on  the  back,  and  nailed  to  a  wooden 
block  for  the  press.  This  method  lias  been  practised  in  the  United  States 
down  to  the  present  day.  It  is,  however,  rapidly  going  out  of  use.  It  long 
ago  disappeared  from  the  large  daily  newspaper-offices,  and  has  been  icplaced 
in  most  of  the  large  publication-houses  by  another  system.  , 

In  the  great  newspaper-offices  the  new  method  is  called  the  "  papier- 
raaciic  "  process.  A  few  hours  before  the  pages  come  down  from 
the  t)i)c-room  the  stereotypers  begin  to  prepare  heavy  sheets  of  ,t°^otypin» 
paper,  in  order  to  make  the  mould  from  'hem.  A  sheet  of  thin  of  news- 
tissue-paper  is  spread  out  on  a  smooth  iron  table.  It  is  brushed 
with  some  sort  of  sizing.  Another  sheet  of  tissue-paper  is  laid 
upon  it,  and  brushed  smoothly  down.  This,  again,  is  sized,  and  another  sheet 
laid  on.  A  dozen  sheets  of  tissue-paper  are  thus  put  together,  forming  a 
moist  sheet  of  thick,  heavy  paper  of  extremely  fine  texture.  When  the 
forms  come  down,  one  of  these  thick  sheets  is  laid  upon  the  page,  and  ham- 
mered down  with  a  heavy,  long-handled  brush,  the  stiff  hrirs  of  which  drive 
the  paper  into  the  finest  lines  of  the  type.  A  great  deal  of  the  lappr  is 
beaten  down  between  the  type.  The  heavy  indentations  in  the  pan^^r  are 
then  smoothly  smeared  with  wet  marble-dust,  and  another  of  the  thi-  .  sheets 
laid  on,  and  cemented  to  the  first  one  by  hammering  with  the  brush.  The 
form  is  then  slid  off  upon  an  iron  steam  table,  and  put  under  a  press,  where  it 
quickly  dries.  The  sheet  of  paper,  or  papier-mach^,  is  then  taken  off.  It 
makes  a  perfect  mould,  and  can  be  used  for  the  casting  of  a  dozen  plates  if 
desired  ;  and  indeed  it  sometimes  is  desired,  the  casting  of  each  requiring  only 
two  or  three  minutes,  The  papier-mach(^  matrix  has  another  advantage.  It 
can  be  put  into  a  flat  iron  box  for  the  casting  of  a  perfectly  flat  plate,  or  into  a 
semicircular  one,  or  one  describing  any  segment  of  a  circle,  for  the  j.  "oduction 
of  a  curved  plate.  It  is  this  style  of  mould  which  has  made  possible  the  use  of 
stereotype-plates  upon  a  cylinder,  and,  per  consequence,  the  invention  of  the 
perfecting  web-press.  It  takes  about  twenty-five  minutes  to  cast  three  plates 
of  the  page,  counting  from  the  moment  the  original  page  of  type  is  received  in 
the  stereotype-room.  By  the  plaster-of-Paris  process  it  would  take  several 
hours,  and  the  plates  would  be  imperfect  then  ;  whereas  by  the  other  process 
they  arc  absolutely  correct.  This  system  was  the  invention  of  several  men, 
l)ut  was  first  made  practical  by  Charles  Crashe.  It  was  brought  out  in  1 86 1 . 
Printers  pooh-poohed  at  it  at  first,  and  "  The  New- York  Herald  "  refused  to. 
adopt  it ;  but  Mr.  Thomas  N.  Kooker,  the  old  foreman  of  Horace  Greeley  in 
"The  Tribune  "  office,  saw  its  advantages,  and  tried  it  in  his  office.  It  worked 
well,  and  was  instantly  -adopted.  All  the  large  newspapers  of  the  country 
have  since  taken  up  and  now  employ  this  process,  if  they  do  any  stereotyping 
at  all. 

The  other  new  system  referred  to  is  also  an  American  idea.     It  originated 
with  Joseph   A.   Adams,   a  wood-engraver  of  New- York   City,  who   repro- 


3*4 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\ 


duced  an  engraving  by  means  of  it  about  1839,  and,  about  1843,  employed  it 
in  producing  various  large  borders  and  engravings  for  Harper's  illustrated 
books.  It  has  been  greatly  improved  in  various  details  by  Wilcox,  Kilmer 
Adams'*  Lovejoy,  Gay,  Knight,  and  others.  The  plan  is  to  oil  tiie  page 
proeeit.  of  jypg  go  jh^t  the  mould  will  not  adhere,  or  to  cover  it  with 
finely-powdered  graphite.  A  thick  sheet  of  the  best  pure  yellow  beeswax 
cast  in  a  shallow  box,  is  brought  down  upon  the  page  under  heavy  hy- 
drostatic pressure.  An  exact  impression  is  thus  obtained  even  of  the  finest 
engraving.  Finely  pulverized  graphite  is  then  dusted  upon  the  wax,  coating 
it  uniformly  in  every  line  and  depression,  the  excess  being  blown  awav. 
A  new  way  of  applying  the  graphite,  invented  by  Silas  P.  Knight,  is  to 
pour  a  torrent  of  water,  into  which  the  graphite  has  been  stirred,  upon  the 
mould.  The  wax  matrix  is  then  attached  to  the  negative  wire  of  a  battery, 
and  placed  in  a  solution  of  sulphate  of  copper.  The  graphite  serves  as  a 
conducting  medium,  and  a  film  of  copper  begins  to  form  immediately  upon 
the  face  of  the  wax  matrix.  The  mould  is  generally  left  in  the  solution 
over  night.  In  the  morning  the  copper  is  vrtick  enough  to  be  removed. 
A  little  quicker  plan  than  this  has  been  invented  by  Knight.  He  takes 
the  wax  mould  dusted  with  graphite,  and  powders  it  with  iron-filings.  He 
then  pours  on  a  solutiqn  of  sulphate  of  copper.  The  acid  leaves  the  copper, 
and  forms  sulphate  of  iron  ;  while  the  copper  is  deposited  in  a  f  Im.  This  is 
afterwards  thickened  by  the  electrotype  process.  The  copper  plate,  when 
finally  obtained,  whatever  the  details  of  the  process,  is  removed  from  the  wax, 
tinned  upon  the  back,  and  then  laid  face  downwards,  when  stereotype-metal 
is  bound  on  it,  giving  it  the  thickness  of  a  regular  stereotype-plate.  It  is  then 
trimmed,  planed,  and  fitted  to  the  press  in  the  usual  way.  Or  only  a  thin  back 
of  stereotype-metal  is  given  to  it,  and  it  is  mounted  upon  a  wooden  block. 
This  plan  of  making  the  plates  is  more  leisurely  than  the  other,  is  a  more 
agreeable  method  for  the  workmen,  and  is  adapted  to  the  finer  work  of  books 
and  engravings.  The  number  of  impressions  which  can  be  taken  from  electro- 
type-plates is  about  three  hundred  thousand. 

If  printing  was  the  "  art  preservative "  when  in  its  crude  infancy,  \vhat 
is  it  now,  when  the  pages  of  a  book  can  be  cheaply  cast  in  metal,  and  stored 
away,  for  centuries  if  need  be,  and  then  brought  out  to  reproduce  the  thoughts 
of  a  generation  of  thinkers  for  the  benefit  of  other  ages? 


TIN-WARE. 


Tin  is  one  of  the  most  expensive  of  common  metals,  and  most  serviceable. 
While  the  average  price  of  commercial  iron  is  only  twenty  dollars  a  ton,  tin 
Utility  o(  costs  about  three  hundred  dollars  a  ton.  The  metal  is  as  liand- 
tin-ware.  some  as  silver,  and  possesses  the  properties  of  incorrosibility,  and 
of  remarkable  adhesion  to  iron  ;  which  makes  it  remarkably  useful  in  the  arts. 


€F   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


365 


and  woiikl  alone  have  given  it  great  value,  even  did  it  not  ally  so  satisfactorily 
with  lead  and  copper.  Tin  was  once  used  in  solid  form  for  dishes  for  the 
table  and  for  cooking-utensils,  on  account  of  its  beauty  and  incorrosibility.  In 
that  form  it  was  expensive.  When  it  was  fount^  how  readily  sheet-iron  could 
be  plated  with  it,  and  thus,  for  all  practical  purposes,  a  sheet  of  metal  obtained 
answering  all  the  retjuirements  of  pure  tin,  but  at  one-tenth  the  cost,  tin-ware 
came  into  general  use.  The  restless  mind  of  the  New-England  Yankee, 
which  ever  ran  in  the  direction  of  improving  the  utensils  of  every-day  life, 
seized  upon  the  idea  of  producing  dishes  and  house-ware  from  tin  plates, 
and  hii'  ingenuity  and  enterprise  have  made  the  United  States  the  largest 
consumer  of  tin-ware  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  In  introducing  the  ware  to 
the  [jublic,  the  Yankees  resorted  to  that  important  agency  in  trade,  the  roving 
peddler,  who,  with  a  wagon  loaded  with  plates,  milk-pans,  tea-kettles,  dippers, 
cups,  pails,  &c.,  threaded  every  highway  and  lane  in  the  country,  and  brought 
his  travelling  store  and  its  tempting  display  of  ware  before  the  eyes  of  every 
housewife  in  the  land.  Tin-ware  recommended  itself  not  only  on  account  of 
its  beauty,  but  its  lightness  and  general  convenience.  The  milk-pan  was, 
before  its  advent,  a  heavy  earthen  article  ;  the  milk  and  water  pail  a  heavy 
bucket  of  wood,  roinantic  enough  for  its  association,  but  dreadfully  tiresome 
to  milkmaids,  farmers'  boys,  and  whoever  had  to  carry  it  to  and  from  the 
pasture  and  the  well.  The  dipper  was  a  heavy  pewter  scoop.  All  the  ware  of 
the  household  and  the  cans  and  pots  of  the  store  were  clumsy  and  fatiguing 
contrivances.  Tin-ware  brought  ease  of  handling,  security  against  breakage, 
and  beauty.  To  be  loved,  it  needed  only  to  be  seen  ;  and  the  untiring  peddler 
who  went  through  the  land  like  the  missionary  of  a  new  gospel  of  comfort 
created  a  veritable  revolution  by  means  of  it.  Forty  years  ago  the  peddler 
wxs  the  busiest  and  one  of  the  most  prosperous  of  our  countrymen.  Since  he 
took  to  selling  tin-ware,  however,  tin-shops  have  been  opened  in  every  com- 
munity ;  and  each  city  and  village  now  depends  for  its  supply  upon  its  local 
makers.  Farming-towns  are  still  supplied  to  a  great  extent  by  the  peddler. 
The  growth  of  the  manufacture  of  tin-ware  is  surprising.  Formerly  confined 
to  the  sterile  soil  of  New  England,  it  has  extended  all  over  the  republic,  and 
no  corner  of  the  remotest  region  is  too  far  in  the  backwoods  not  to  have  been 
invaded  by  it.  The  number  of  shops  where  tin,  copper,  and  sheet-iron  ware 
are  made  was  6,646  in  1870 ;  the  number  of  hands  employed  was  25,283  ; 
and  the  value  of  the  goods  produced,  $40,636,000.  Over  3,400  of  the  shops 
were  in  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States.  The  tin-ware  made  is  not  entirely 
for  culinary  and  pantry  use,  though  it  is  principally  so.  A  great  deal  of  it 
consists  of  gutters  for  roofs,  flues  for  the  distribution  of  hot  air  from  fur- 
naces, &c. 

Besides  the  use  of  tin  for  the  plating  of  sheet-iron,  the  metal,  is  also 
employed  in  coating  a  wide  variety  of  other  small  iron  articles  to  protect 
them  from  rust.    Stirrups,  bits,  &c.,  are  among  the  number. 


366 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


TOYS. 


Tin  toys. 


Plate  tin  is  now  extensively  consumed  in  the  manufacture  of  tovs  for 
children.  It  is  lighter  than  wood  or  papier-machd,  is  cheap,  and  can  In-  easily 
fashioned  by  the  use  of  dies  and  stamps.  The  business  is  of 
recent  development.  The  largest  house  in  the  business  is  that  of 
Leo  Schlesinger  &  Co.,  New  York.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  playlliings 
have  become  so  necessary  a  part  of  Amer;:in  life,  that  the  trade  in  tiicm  has 
suffered  the  least  of  all  by  the  hard  times.  Playthings  are  a  luxury ;  but,  even 
if  there  is  retrenchment  in  the  family,  the  children  have  to  be  amused  just 
as  much  as  ever,  and  playthings  are  bought  for  them  in  scarcely  diminished 
numbers.  Besides,  there  is  a  growing  demand  for  American  toys  aliroad. 
Their  ingenuity  is  unequalled.  A  great  (juantity  of  them  now  go  to  I'.urope 
and  South  America.  In  the  manufacture  of  toys,  the  principal  expense  is 
the  preparation  of  the  dies.  These  are  subjected  to  iong  and  rough  work, 
and  consequently  must  be  made  of  the  hardest  steel.  They  must  be  made 
with  great  nicety  too,  so  that  the  different  parts  of  a  toy  will  fit.  Some  of 
the  plainer  toys  require  only  one  or  two  dies :  others  require  four,  six,  and 
even  nine.  From  four  to  ten  weeks  are  necessary  for  the  making  of  tlie  dies 
for  a  single  toy.  In  working  up  the  tin  into  a  toy,  presses  are  used.  In 
making  a  plain  and  unpretentious  horse  for  every-day  use,  a  sheet  of  tin  is 
cut  into  the  proper  shape,  placed  in  a  press,  and  rounded  out  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  form  one  side  of  the  proposed  animal.  The  two  sides  are  next 
passed  through  a  couple  of  cutting-machines  for  the  purpose  of  trimming  off 
the  superfluous  metal,  and  are  then  sent  to  another  part  of  the  building,  fitted 
together  in  a  mould,  soldered,  and  sent  to  the  floor  above,  where  the  completed 
animal  assumes  a  coat  of  paint,  and  is  turned  out  for  use  as  a  black,  white, 
sorrel,  or  bay,  at  the  discretion  of  the  painter.  The  manufacture  of  a  horse 
is  a  comparatively  simple  operation ;  but  in  making  a  yellow  lamb,  standing 
on  a  smooth  tin  platform,  with  a  painted  bell  about  his  neck,  the  animal  jKxsses 
through  fifteen  pairs  of  hands  before  appearing  in  a  finished  state.  S.  group 
representing  a  boy  leading  his  horse  to  a  manger  is  of  still  more  elaborate 
construction,  and  goes  through  at  least  thirty-five  operations  before  being 
packed  for  removal.  Of  all  toy  animals  the  horse  is  the  most  popular,  and  he 
consequently  appears  in  nearly  every  variety  of  shape  and  size.  The  largest 
and  handsomest  is  the  "  Dexter,"  whose  graceful  form  is  made  of  zinc  instead 
of  tin.  180,000  "  Dexters  "  are  lK)rn  and  arrive  at  maturity  in  one  factory  in 
New  York  every  year,  and  nearly  6,000,000  horses  of  a  smaller  breed  were 
turned  out  during  the  past  twelve  months.  One  of  the  simplest  playthings  made 
is  the  putty-blower,  well  known  to  every  school-teacher  in  the  country,  .'\bout 
2,880,000  of  these  infernal  machines  were  put  upon  the  market  by  this  one 
firm  during  the  year  1876.  The  effects  of  the  falling  off  in  the  number  of 
emigrants  to  this  country  during  the  past  few  years  do  not  seem  to  have 


OF   THE    UNITED  STATES. 


m 


reached  toy-land  as  yet ;  for  last  winter  nearly  10,000  emigrant-wagons,  pro- 
vided with  one  horse  and  two  wheels  each,  were  made  and  sold  by  one  firm. 
One  of  the  best  selling  tin  toys  manufactured  is  the  hose-carriage,  of  which 
seventv-three  different  sizes  and  shapes  are  made.  Fifty  kinds  of  express- 
wagons,  fifty-nine  kinds  of  steam-cars,  and  twenty-five  kinds  of  horse-cars,  are 
manutactured.  The  newest  plaything  in  the  market  is  the  livery-stab'e ;  and 
the  swinging  cradle  immediately  preceded  it,  with  an  American  eagle  at  either 
end,  instead  of  the  guardian  angel  of  tradition  and  song.  One  of  the  most 
important  departments  in  the  toy  establishments  is  presided  over  by  young 
men  whose  inventive  minds  are  constantly  engaged  in  producing  new  toys,  and 
"improvising  amendments  "  upon  those  already  in  vogue.  All  the  paints  used 
in  toy-making  are  mixed  by  the  operatives  themselves  before  using,  and  in  the 
process  of  painting  alone  all  the  larger  toys  pass  through  half  a  dozen  or  half 
a  score  of  hands  and  brushes.  It  is  estimated  that  the  annual  production  of 
a  single  manufactory  will  often  aggregate  between  40,000,000  and  50,000,000 
toys. 

Tin  plates  are  prepared  simply  by  dipping  the  sheets  of  brightened  iron 
into  a  bath  of  melted  tin. 


Zinc-paint. 


APPLICATIONS   OF   ZINC. 

Zinc  is  good  for  a  great  many  things  besides  the  making  of  brass.    It  is  an 
important  rival  of  lead  in  the  manufacture  of  house-paint.     It  is  a  popular 
material  for  putting  under  stoves  to  prevent  coals  and  ashes  from  importance 
dropping  upon  the  carpet.     It  is  often  made  into  hot-air  flues  for  »'  *'"«• 
furnaces  in  the  warming  of  dwellings.     It  is  also  now  largely  used  in  architect- 
ure for  ornamental  and  fire-protection  purposes. 

The  manufacture  of  white  oxide  of^zinc  for  the  purposes  of  paint  is  a 
French  invention.    The  process  of  making  the  oxide  directly  fi-om  the  ore, 
instead  of  from  the  pig-metal,  is  purely  an  American  idea.      It 
grew  out  of  the  experiments  of  Mr.  Richard  Jones  of  Philadelphia 
about  1849,  and  was  first  put  into  practice  by  the  New- Jersey  Zinc  Company 
of  New- York  City,  which  was  incorporated  in  1849,  *nd  set  about  the  manu- 
facturing of  oxide  from  the  ore  at  Newark,  N.J.    The  company  Develop- 
was  very  successful,  and  has  developed  its  business,  until  it  has  forty  ment  of 
furnaces  engaged  in  the  production  of  zinc-paint.     It  was  followed    °  "*''''■ 
in  the  business,  about  1853,  by  the  Pennsylvania  and  Lehigh  Zinc  Company  at 
Bethlehem,  Penn. ;  and  a  third  company  was  established  in  1855,  called  the 
I'assaic,  which  put  up  its  works  at  Communipaw,  on  New- York  harbor.    The 
zinc-paint  soon  recommended  itself,  from  the  fact  that  it  was  not  pr(^?,,  of 
poisonous  ;  and  the  manufacture  of  it  has  become  enormous.    The   manufactur- 
process  of  manufacture  has  one  spectacular  feature.     The  ore  is  '"'" 
ground  up  fine,  mixed  with  coal-dust,  and  charged  into  a  blazing  furnace  in 


f> 


2i- 


^t 


368 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  proportion  of  six  hundred  pounds  of  ore  to  three  hundred  pounds  of  coal 
The  heat  sublimes  the  zinc.  The  vapors  rise  up  through  a  pipe  at  the  top  of 
the  stack.  The  pipe  ends  just  above  the  stack,  under  an  inverted  funnel 
which  covers  it  like  a  hood.  A  strong  current  of  air  is  drawn  up  throuj^h  this 
funnel  by  fiowing  apparatus  ;  and  the  vapors  of  the  stack  are  thus  carried  up 
through  the  funnel,  mingled  with  atmospheric  air  which  enters  at  the  open 
base.  A  very  vivid  combustion  of  the  zinc  takes  place  within  the  hood,  iii^, 
metal  unites  with  the  oxygen  of  the  air  with  a  pale  blue  flame,  and  riislK;,  up 
into  a  huge  pipe  above  in  the  form  of  oxide  of  zinc.  The  current  of  floatin;j 
particles  and  gases  is  now  carried  a  long  distance  through  pipes  into  a  tower 
where  it  is  partly  cooled  by  dripping  water,  and  thence  into  another,  where  the 
air  is  strained,  as  it  were,  by  huge  flannel  bags  stretched  horizontally  across  tiie 
building.  The  oxide  collects  upon  the  bags,  and  is  from  time  to  time  siiaken 
off"  into  cotton  flues,  or  teats,  which  coniluct  it  into  receptacles  below.  It  is  put 
into  bags  and  pressed  to  get  out  the  air,  and  then  ground  with  blanched  linseed- 
oil  for  market.  It  is  claimed  that  zinc-paint  thus  prepared  has  greater  purit\, 
durability,  and  brilliancy  than  lead-paint.  It  makes  a  valuable  pigment,  c  er- 
tainly ;  but  its  most  valuable  (juality  is  the  fact  that  it  is  not  poisonous,  and 
that,  therefore,  the  workmen  may  handle  it  without  sufiering  from  the  disease 
known  as  painter's  colic. 

A  recent  application  of  zinc  is  to  the  construction  of  the  cornices  of  build- 
ings. On  the  business-streets  of  a  city,  where  the  walls  of  the  buildings  are 
Zinc  of  stone  or  brick,  and  the  roofs  sheeted  with  tin  or  a  gravelly 

cornicet.  composition  designed  to  protect  it  from  fire,  it  has  freciuently  been 
fouiid  that  the  buildings  often  take  fire  and  burn  down,  when  there  is  a  fire 
across  the  street,  because  the  cornices  are  inflammable.  The  wooden  corniee 
is,  therefore,  an  element  of  danger  to  a  store.  Within  the  Ixst  twenty  years 
American  builders  have  been  experimenting  with  cornices  made  of  metal,  and 
they  find  zinc  well  adapted  to  the  object.  It  can  be  easily  stamped  or  beaten 
into  any  pattern  desired  ;  resists  fire ;  and  is,  when  painted,  indestructible  by 
the  elements.  It  is  so  cheap,  too,  that  it  has  brought  handsome  cornices 
within  the  means  of  all ;  and  the  invention  has  really  been  the  means  of 
improving  the  architectural  appearance  of  our  former  exceedingly  plain 
business-streets,  as  well  as  their  security. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


%H 


hundred  pounds  of  coal, 
.igh  a  pipe  at  the  ici])  of 
ndcr  an  inverted  funnel, 

is  drawn  up  through  liiis 
tack  are  thus  carried  uj) 
diich  enters  at  the  open 
:e  within  the  hood.  The 
blue  flame,  and  ru-,he>  up 
The  current  of  tloatini; 
irough  pipes  into  a  tower, 
:e  into  another,  where  the 
ed  horizontally  across  liie 
rom  time  to  time  siiaken 
:eptacles  below.  It  is  put 
nd  with  blanched  linseed- 
epared  has  greater  inint\, 

a  valuable  pigment,  ( er- 

it  is  not  poisonous,  and 
uffering  from  the  disease 

1  of  the  cornices  of  l^uikl- 

walls  of  the  buihlings  are 

d  with  tin  or  a  gravelly 

ire,  it  has  frequently  l)een 

>wn,  when  there  is  a  fire 

The  wooden  cornice 

lin  the  last  twenty  years 

lices  made  of  metal,  and 

easily  stamped  or  beaten 

lainted,  indestructible  by 

ught  handsome  cornices 

ally  been  the  means  of 

)rmer  exceedingly  plain 


how  flrtt 
obtained. 


CHAPTER   IV.  r 

f. 

THE   MANUFACTURE   OF  WOOL 
GENERAL    HISTORY    OF   THE    WOOLLEN-MANUFACTURE. 

ONE  of  the  very  first  cares  of  the  early  colonists  of  America  was  to  obtain 
an  ample  supply  of  materials  for  clothing.  This  for  many  years  they 
boM{;ht  from  the  Dutch  ships  which  came  across  the  sea  to  trade,  j^,,^^,  ,„ 
and  from  the  English  at  home,  paying  for  their  cloth  with  tar,  cioth'.ng. 
boards,  tobacco,  hides,  and  other  rude  products  of  the  farm  and 
forest.  In  1660  a  law  was  passed  in  England  prohibiting  the 
Dutcii  from  trading  in  the  colonies,  and  requiring  the  colonies  to  trade  only 
with  England  direct.  This  cut  off  all  access  to  a  market  in  which  goods 
might  be  bought  cheaper  than  in  England,  and  led  the  colonists  to  ihink  of 
manufacturing  their  goods  as  far  as  possible  for  themselves. 

Nevertheless,  the  manufacture  of  woollen  came  into  existence  as  a  public 
industry  very  slowly.     It  was  not  the  desire  of  the  home  government  that  the 
colonies  should  manufacture  for  themselves.     It  was  the  constant  study  of  the 
men  who  directed  the  government  to  find  ways  in  which  the  colonies  might  be 
made  useful  to  the  capitalists,  traders,  and  factory-owners  of  England.     Mac- 
pherson  gave  expression  to  the  sentiment  prevailing  in  England  ide««o( 
when  he  said,  "  The  original  intent  of  planting  those  colonies ;  viz.,   Engiuh  on 
to  be  a  benefit  to  their  mother-country,  to  which  they  owed  their  **"  *"  '***' 
being  and  protection."    The  way  in  which  it  was  sought  to  make  them  a 
"  benefit "  was  to  compel  them  to  sell  to  England  all  they  had  to  sell,  and  buy 
from  her  all  they  had  to  buy.     The  first  Lord  Sheffield  expressly  said  that 
"  the  only  use  "  of  the  colonies  was  a  monopoly  of  their  trade,  and  the 
carriage  of  their  produce.     Lord  Chatham  declared  that  "  the  British  colonists 
of  North  America  had  no  right  to  manufacture  even  a  nail  or  a  horseshoe." 
A  law  of  Virginia,  passed  in  1684,  to  encourage  textile  manufactures  in  that 
province,  was    promptly  annulled   by   England.      In    1731    the  England'! 
carriage  of  woollen  goods  and  hats  from  one  colony  to  another  poWey- 
was  forbidden  by  law.    The  exportation  of  woollen  was  also  forbidden.    The 


^•1  i.'l' 


>h'ife 


[f, 


370 


/AU  L'S  I A  lAL    Ills  /  U.V  K 


Jiill 


object  of  England's  policy  was  to  keep  the  Americans,  a  race  of  farmer.-,  and 
foresters,  raising  tobacco,  sugar,  indigo,  lu'mp,  iS:c,,  and  getting  tar,  piicji 
rosin,  and  limber  from  tiu'  forrsls,  \\iii(  ii  tlioy  slioiild  sell  lo  tiie  inoliicr-coun- 
try ;  and  to  make  them  depenil  upon   liritish  factories  absolutely  Ibr  tikir 

clothing,  tools,  rurnitinv, 
carriages,  and  ail  oiIrt 
manulaclures.  'I'liis  pulicy 
meant  mischief.  It  «  mil,! 
not  go  on  forever.  NO 
nation  can  imiduce  at;ri- 
cultur.il  products  entm^Ji 
so  as  lo  have  a  suflii  iont 
surplus  to  pay  fur  tlu'  ni.iii- 
ulactures  it  consunies.  I'hi.' 
'  colonies  could  nol.  'I'lu'v 
nc\er  exported  enoiij^li  to 
England  to  pay  for  wiiat 
ihey  l)ought  of  her ;  ;uiil 
never  could  have  paid  tor 
what  tiiey  bougiil  at  all, 
except  that  they  sold  large 
quantities  of  iJrovisions  to 
the  West  Inilies  and  otlicr 
countries  in  exchange  for 
money,  in  spite  of  the  laws  which  forbade  it.  Tiie  colonies  got  poorer  and 
poorer  under  this  policy.  In  1760  they  bought  ^2,500,000  worth  of  goods 
from  Kngland,  and  sold  to  her  only  ^"750,000  worth  ;  and  in  1771  thi'y 
bought  about  ^4,100,000  worth,  and  sold  only  ;^i, 350,000  worth  of  goods. 
They  were  nearly  luineil  by  it. 

This  interference  with  the  freedom  of  the  colonists  to  trade  and  manufac- 
ture led  to  two  results.  First  tiiey  took  to  wearing  leather  garments,  because 
Effect  of  ''^'-"y  ^""1^'  rarely  afford  the  imported  woollens.  The  men  wore, 
Engiiih  for  a  long  period,  waistcoats  and  breeches  of  Indian-dressed  skins, 

*"*  '^^'  — a  custom  which  survived  until  the  Revolution,  and  made  its  last 

appearance  historically  in  the  uniforms  of  the  Continental  regiments.  'I'lie 
women  wore  leather  jerkins  and  petticoats  very  largi.-ly  ;  and  in  some  of  the 
colonies  the  clothing  of  the  bed  was  almost  entirely  of  leather.  The  sheets 
alone  were  of  linen.  A  second  result  was,  tiiat  industry  not  permittetl  to 
flourish  in  the  open  air  did  so  in  the  shade.  Tiie  women  learned  to  weave 
and  spin  ;  and  a  large  cpiantity  of  woollen,  hemp,  and  linen  cloth  and  other 
goods,  was  made  in  the  privacy  of  the  household  throughout  the  whole  coun- 
try. Nearly  every  fiimily  wove  a  part  or  the  whole  of  its  own  clothing  and 
blankets ;   and  many  which  had  skill   in  the  art  had  many  pieces  over  and 


1776. 


Oh    THE    UNITE  I)    STATES. 


37» 


above  their  own  wants  to  sell  the  merchant.  'I'lic  law  rould  not  reach  their 
priuiU'  factories.  In  1750  a  factory  of  woollen  hatij  in  Massachusetts  was 
(Ictl.intl  a  nuisance,  and  supitressed.  Parliament  could  cluh  down  the  ripen- 
in,!,'  liiiit  which  hung  in  i)lain  sight  on  the  branches  ;  hut  the  million  buds  form- 
iim  111  secret  under  tlie  hark,  w]ii(  h  a  favoring  time  would  eveiUuaiiy  bring  out 


DOUBl.K-ACTlN(i  <.1(1. 


intii  bloom,  were  beyond  its  reach.  In  1765  a  society  was  formed  in  New 
\ork  to  encourage  the  home-manufacture  of  woollens.  The  enthusiastic  mem- 
lier.-,  signed  a  pledge  not  to  buy  imported  cloth,  and  not  to  eat  the  meat  of 
slice])  or  lamb.  'i"he  great  want  of  the  country  was  a  supply  of  wool ;  and  the 
killing  of  mutton  was  discouraged  by  this  society  and  by  public  sentin>ent,  in 


'      *<»s' 


•'"U,   % 


■1  *.  .  i.  1 


M  -*■  h--' 


il 


I  il 


I- 


37a 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


order  not  to  diminish  the  sources  of  the  supply.  Homespun  cloth  lici  ame 
the  rage.  The  Federal  troops  were  dressed  in  it ;  and  Washington,  wlien 
inaugurated  as  l*resident,  wore  a  brown  suit  of  it. 

The  manufacture  as  carried  on  at  that  time  was  of  the  simplest  descrip- 
tion.   The  wool,  being  washed,  was  combed  as  nearly  straight  as  possililo  by 
simplicity  of   ^^"  lards,  with  leather  backs  and  wire  teeth,  held  in  the  liaiuls  of 
••riy  ma«u-    the  operator.     'I'he  wool  was  detached  from  the  cards  in  a  lonjj 
'"""•  soft  roll,  which  was  then  made  into  yarn  ujwn  the  simple  spimiinjr. 

wheel  of  those  days.  A  large,  light  wheel,  kept  constantly  in  motion  l)y  iln; 
hand  of  the  goodwife,  and  afterwards  by  her  foot  by  means  of  a  tK.ulIc, 
caused  a  single  spindle  to  revolve  with  great  velocity ;  and  this  spindle  na\  c  to 
the  yarn  its  twist,  the  dexterous  fingers  of  the  operator  regulating  the  supply 
of  wool  and  the  consequent  size  of  the  yarn.  The  cards  were  made  by  iiaiul. 
Many  people  are  still  living  who  either  made  those  old  hand-cards  for  spinning, 
or  who  spun  the  yam  and  wove  the  cloth  of  the  whole  family,  year  in  ami  year 
out.  The  cioth,  after  being  woven  on  the  simple,  slow  moving  hand-loom  of 
the  colonial  days,  was  sent  out  to  be  fulled.  Every  village  and  country  had 
its  fuller  and  dyer,  and  this  individual  was  the  only  one  in  the  industry  wlio 
carried  on  his  business  publicly  and  for  a  number  of  customers.  Dyeing;  was 
not  well  practised  then,  and  colors  were  seldom  fixed  so  that  they  would  nol 
run.  Bright  colors  were  liked  by  gentlemen  for  coats  in  that  age,  —  l)rif,'hl 
blue,  scarlet,  claret-color,  &c.  But,  while  a  great  deal  of  cloth  was  made  of 
those  hues,  it  always  behooved  the  wearer  of  the  coat  to  keep  out  of  the  rain. 
The  Continental  troops  often  presented  a  forlorn  appearance  from  the  faded 
aspect  of  their  uniforms,  which  was  forlomer  even  than  that  of  the  weather- 
beaten  regiments  of  the  war  of  1861,  because  the  Continentals  made  some 
pretence  of  style,  while  the  regiments  of  1861-65  did  not. 

In  1 791  Alexander  Hamilton  made  his  celebrated  report  on  manufactures, 
Hamiiton't  in  which  is  found  one  of  the  few  records  of  the  state  of  the 
report.  woollen  industry  at  that  time.      His  references  to  wool  are  the 

following :  — 

"  To  all  the  arguments  which  are  brought  to  evince  the  impracticability  of 
success  in  manufacturing-establishments  in  the  United  States,  it  might  have 
been  a  sufficient  answer  to  have  referred  to  the  experience  of  what  has  been 
ab-eady  done.  It  is  certain  that  several  important  branches  have  grown  up 
and  flourished  with  a  rapidity  which  surprises,  affording  an  enconraf;ing 
assurance  of  success  in  future  attempts.  Of  these  it  may  not  be  improper  to 
enumerate  the  most  considerable. 


"VIII. 
silk  shoes. 


Hats  of  fur  and  wool,  and  mixtures  of  both,  women's  stuff,  and 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


373 


"  Besides  manufactories  of  these  articles,  which  arc  carried  on  as  regular 
trades,  and  have  attained  to  a  considerable  degree  of  maturity,  there  is  a  vast 
sniu:  of  household  manufacturing,  which  contributes  more  largely  to  the 
<{ii|i|ilv  of  the  community  than  could  be  imagined,  without  having  made  it  an 
ol)ji-'  t  of  ^articular  incjuiry.  Great  (juantities  of  coarse  cloths,  coatings,  serges 
and  tlannels,  linsey-woolseys,  .  .  .  and  various  mixtures  of  wool  and  cotton, 
and  of  cotton  and  flax,  are  made  in  the  househoUl  way,  anil  in  many  instances 
to  111  extent  not  only  sutVicient  for  the  supply  of  the  fai  lilies  in  which  they 
arc  made,  but  for  sale,  and  even,  in  some  cases,  for  exportation. 


women's  stuff,  and 


'•  In  a  country  the  climate  of  which  partakes  of  so  considerable  a  [)ropor- 
tioii  o{  winter  as  that  of  a  great  part  of  the  United  States,  the  woollen  branch 
cannot  be  regarded  as  inferior  to  any  which  relates  to  the  clothing  of  the  inhab- 
itants. Household  manufactures  of  this  material  arc  carried  on  in  different 
parts  of  the  United  States  to  a  very  interesting  extent.  Hut  there  is  only  one 
lirani  h,  whi(  h,  as  a  regular  business,  can  be  said  to  have  acquired  maturity  : 
this  is  the  making  of  hats.  Hats  of  wool,  and  of  wool  mixed  with  fur,  are  made 
in  large  quantities  in  tlifferent  States  ;  and  nothing  seems  wanting,  but  an  ade- 
(liiatf  suj)ply  of  materials,  to  render  the  manufacture  commensurate  with  the 
(Icmaiul.  A  promising  essay  toward  the  fabrication  of  cloths,  cassimeres,  and 
other  woollen-goods,  is  likewise  going  on  at  Hartford  in  Connecticut.  Speci- 
imiis  of  the  different  kinds  which  are  made,  in  the  possession  of  the  secretary, 
evini  c  that  these  fabrics  have  attained  a  very  considerable  degree  of  perfection. 
Tiicir  (lu.iiity  certainly  surpasses  any  thing  that  could  have  been  looked  for  in 
so  short  a  time  and  under  so  great  disadvantages,  and  conspires,  with  the  scanti- 
ness of  the  means  which  have  been  at  the  command  of  the  directors,  to  form 
the  culogiiun  of  that  public  s|)irit,  perseverance,  and  judgment  which  have  been 
able  to  accomplish  so  much.  To  cherish  and  bring  to  maturity  this  precious 
einl)ryo  must  engage  the  most  ardent  wishes  and  proportionable  regret,  as  far 
as  the  means  of  doing  it  may  appear  difficult  and  uncertain.  Measures  which 
should  tend  to  promote  an  abundant  supply  of  wool  of  good  quality  would 
probably  afford  the  most  efficacious  aid  that  present  circumstances  iiermit.  To 
encourage  the  raising  and  improving  the  breeo  of  sheep  at  home  would  cer- 
tainly be  the  most  desirable  expedient  for  that  purpose." 

Farther  on  Mr.  Hamilton  alludes  to  the  fabrication  of  carpets  and  carpet- 
in};,  "  toward  which  some  beginnings  have  been  made."  He  also  remarks,  "  It 
is  doubtful  if  American  wool  is  fit  for  fine  cloths," — a  statement  which  sounds 
strangely,  seeing  that  all  our  fine  cloths  are  now  made  from  American  wools, 
and  the  coarser  fabrics  from  those  which  are  imported. 

The  woollen-manufacture  did  not  change  its  character  as  a  private  occupa- 
tion immediately  after  the  Revolutionary  war,  as  might  have  been  supposed, 
even  though  emancipated  from  the  chains  imposed  upon  it  by  English  policy. 
New  ways  are  slowly  learned,  and  there  was  a  lack  of  capital  in  the  country  to 


ir'-,    It!,,. 


r«  *k 


m 


)"Pr 


374 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


bniW  factories.  Iksides,  after  the  treaty  of  peace,  a  flood  of  nianufariinvd 
goods  of  all  kinds  was  again  poured  into  the  country  from  England,  against 
Tariffs  of  which  there  was  no  power  in  Congress  to  offer  the  shield  of  a  pro. 
1804  and  i8w.  tective  tariff.  When  Congress  was  equipped  with  the  power,  it  was 
thought  best,  at  first,  not  to  exercis(^  it  in  respect  to  woollens.  Wool  was 
admitted  free  of  duty;  but  no  protective  duty  was  levied  on  cloths  until  1804, 
when  fifteen  per  cent  was  levied.  In  1S12  this  was  increased  to  thirty  per 
cent.  Under  these  two  laws  the  dormant  buds  awoke  and  .he  nianufac  tui\- 
biof  ned  into  being. 

rhere  had  been  no  factories,  except  fulling-mills,  until  1 791,  when  ••  ilic 
promising  es:  ly  "  was  made  at  Hartford.  In  i  794  a  successful  factory  was 
Rise  of  opened  in  Byfield  Parish  in  Newbury,  Mass.,  where  tiie  work  was 

factories.  douc  by  machinery.  The  same  year  the  first  carding-niac  hinr  in 
the  country  was  set  up  at  I'ittsfield,  Mass.,  one  of  the  early  centres  of  the  wool- 
len-industry, where  also  the  first  broad  loom  in  the  country  was  atterwanls 
set  in  motion.  In  iSoi,  1S04,  and  iiSo5,  other  carding-machines  were  startLij. 
Gray  mi.xed  broadcloth  of  good  quality  was  made  at  I'ittsfield  as  early  as  1804. 
Madison  wore  a  suit  of  black  broadcloth  of  American  make  at  his  inauguration 
in  1809,  —  an  act  which  well  became  that  eminent  statesman,  who,  thoiigli  a 
free-trader  in  principle,  openly  advocated  the  policy  of  i)rolcction  to  home 
manufactures  as  essential  to  the  strength  and  prosperity  of  the  republic,  and 
who  had  presented  to  Congress  the  original  tariff  bill  which  it  had  adojitcd. 
In  1S09  a  woollen-mill  was  put  u])  in  Northern  New  York,  at  Oriskany,  in  Onei- 
da County  ;  and  others  followed  it  within  a  {c\\  years  in  that  region.  In  1.S12  a 
large  mill,  for  those  days,  was  started  at  Middletown,  Conn.,  for  the  niakini;  ol' 
fine  cloths  and  cassimercs.  Kvery  day  thirty  or  forty  yards  of  broadcloth  were 
made,  which  would  sell  from  nine  lo  ten  dollars  a  yard  by  the  jiiece.  Small 
factories  for  coarse  cloths  were  now  getting  into  operation  in  all  dirci  tions 
throughout  the  country,  but  especially  in  Massav  luisetts,  New  Hanipsliire.  u'd 
Connecticut,  which  were  both  wool-growing  and  extremely  enterprising  .States. 
Blankets  were  being  made  in  Connecticut  in  considerable  quantities.  .S\i|ier- 
fine  cloths  were  making  at  Northampton  and  elsewhere,  which  were  ])atriotii  .illv 
claimed  to  be  superior  to  the  imported  goods.  The  wool-s\ii)ply  was  not  yet 
sufiicient  for  the  needs  of  tlie  country.  I!ut  a  merino-fever  was  raging  :  wn'il 
rose  to  a  dollar  and  a  half  and  two  dollars  a  pound  ;  heavy  importations  of 
sheep  were  taking  place,  and  farmers  giving  a  degree  of  attention  to  breedni;;, 
incited  thereto  by  the  high  prices,  which  i)romised  ere  long  to  give  the  nianu- 
fiicturers  an  am])le  supply  of  excellent  and  cheap  home-grown  fleece.  The 
war  of  I S 1 2  gave  a  fresh  impulse  to  manufacturing;  and,  during  those  three 
years  in  which  it  was  in  progress,  it  was  im])ossible  to  fake  up  a  ncws))ai)er 
without  seeing  in  it  some  notice  of  a  new  woollen-fiictory  wliich  had  l)ren 
started,  or  some  new  style  of  American-made  woollen-goods  which  manufac- 
turers were  essaying  to  make. 


OF    THE    UXITED    STATES. 


375 


Ihe  census  of  iSio  reported  that  the  manufacture  of  wool  was  at  that 
time  still  mostly  in  families.     The  production  was  roughly  valued  at  $25,608,- 


lAVKV    HKOAU    lOO.M, 


"f^S.      Althout^h    the   spinniiiLtjcmiy,   tlic    power-loom,    tlie   nap-cutter,   and 
various  ingenious  machines,  were  now  in  practical  use  in  factories,   Household 
this   liousehold   manufacture  appears  to   have   been   a  thing  the   manufac- 
pcoplu  wore  slov/  to  give  up.     It  was  a  valuable  source  of  income   *"'"" 
to  [n'oplc  of  moderate   means.     Women   could  then   do  but   few  things  to 


376 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


make  their  time  a  source  of  revenue,  besides  spinning  and  weaving ;  and  the 
generation  of  men  and  women  of  1810  did  not  relinquish  the  household 
manufacture  until  they  had  passed  off  t  scene  of  earthly  toil  and  struL;"le. 
This  household  employment  was  also  priced  by  public  men,  for  the  sake  of 
its  influences  upon  the  character  of  our  people.  Henry  Clay,  speaking  of  the 
lives  of  farmers  and  mechanics,  said  they  tended  to  " beget  a  peculiarly  la^cr 
disinterested  love  of  truth,  and  exempted  them  in  a  good  degree  from  ijiosc 
sudden  impulses  to  which  those  who  move  in  the  more  excitable  walks  oi  life 
are  more  frequently  liable,  and  which,  though  sometimes  leading  to  great 
actions,  are  oftener  the  prolific  source  of  error."  And  it  was  upon  iH:o|)le 
working  among  the  pure  associations  of  family  life  that  these  induLiKcs 
exerted  their  most  powerful  eftect.  In  the  fall  of  18 14  thirty  bales  of  woollens 
were  sent  from  Berkshire  County,  Massachusetts,  to  Albany,  in  one  shipment ; 
and  one  economist  of  those  days,  speaking  through  the  columns  of  a  lialti- 
more  newspaper,  said  of  it,  — 

"  These  cloths,  it  adds  much  to  our  pleasure  to  learn,  were  mostly  manu- 
factured in  private  families,  —  the  plan  that  of  all  others  we  wish  may  he 
pursued,  as  it  brings  the  7vhoU  labor  of  the  people  into  active  and  healthful 
employment,  and  is  without  the  many  objections  to  which  large  establishments 
are  liable.  It  is  astonishing  to  be  informed  of  the  extent  to  which  this  inilu^try 
is  applied.  Many  of  the  most  elegant  belles  that  trip  our  streets  are  covered 
with  superb  shawls,  and  otherwise  protected  from  the  cold,  by  the  labor  of 
their  own  hands,  —  hands  that  heretofore  chiefly  held  a  romance,  or  touched  a 
piano.  These  household  manufactures  are  a  sort  of  clear  gain  to  our  country, 
and  we  particularly  exult  at  the  progress  they  make." 

Alas  for  the  simplicity  of  the  times  of  our  bright-eyed,  dear  old  grand- 
mothers !  How  many  of  their  daughters  who  now  trip  the  streets  are  "  covered 
with  si'perb  shawls,  and  otherwise  protected  from  the  cold,  by  the  labor  of 
their  own  hands  "  ?  It  is  to  be  feared  that  too  many  of  them  have  resumed 
the  romance  and  the  piano. 

So  long  did  the  home-manufacture  retain  its  charm,  even  after  factories 
were  established,  that  work  of  the  early  factories  simply  wove  the  yarn  that  had 
been  spun  at  the  houses  in  the  country  round ;  and,  when  the  maidens  and 
spinsters  in  the  household  gave  up  the  spinning-wheel  and  hand-loom,  they 
simply  did  it  to  go  to  the  factory,  and  resume  work  there. 

After  18 1 6  card!  ig-niills,  fulling-mills,  and  woollen-factories  increased 
rapidly  in  every  part  of  the  country.  In  1832  the  protection  to  woollen- 
manufactures,  which  had  been  lowered  slightly  after  the  war,  was 
increased  to  fifty  per  cent,  and  a  few  years  of  great  prosperity  were 
enjoyed  by  the  trade.  Under  the  descending  tariff  of  1836,  which 
brought  the  duties  down  to  twenty-nine  per  cent  in  1842,  an  era 
of  depression  occurred;  but  in  1842  protection  was  again  decreed  by  a  duty 
of  forty  per  cent,  which  changed  the  face  of  things.     New  vigor  was  imparted 


Rapid  in- 
crease of 
mills  after 
1816. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


377 


to  wool-growing  and  wool-manufacturing,  and  preparations  were  made  for  the 
erection  of  woollen-factories  in  great  numbers,  especially  in  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania.  Every  village  with  a  mill-stream  aspired  to  have  its  woollen- 
mill,  particularly  if  situated  in  a  pastoral  region.  Public  meetings  were  held  in 
all  such  places  to  raise  subscriptions  to  the  stock  of  the  mills ;  corner-stones 
were  laid  with  impressive  public  ceremonies,  and  odes  written,  beginning, 

"  Hail,  Enterprise  !   whose  rising  sun 
This  day  beams  forth  its  light;  " 

and  public  dinners  were  given  in  commemoration  of  the  new  era  in  village 
affairs,  at  which  extraordinary  toasts  to  "  Liberty,"  "  Public  Spirit,"  "  Our  Own 
Village,"  "  Our  Guests  from  the  Neighboring  Towns,"  &c.,  were  drunk  enthusi- 
astically. It  was  a  period  of  great  excitement,  adventure,  and  public  satis- 
faction. .American  invention  took  tire  sympathetically  during  this  period,  and 
was  stimulated  to  improve  upon  the  looms  and  other  apparatus  then  in  use, 
and  a  great  many  valuable  ideas  were  patented  during  that  period.  l}y  1850 
the  number  of  factories  had  increased  from  about  twenty-five  in  1810  to  1,559, 
employing  39,252  hands,  and  producing  ^43, 207, 545  worth  of  goods.  The 
growth  of  production  year  by  year  had  been  as  follows :  — 


In  foiindcries  .... 
(  In  factories,  the  family  manu- ) 
I  factures  not  being  reported,     ) 

In  fr.Llories 

In  factories 

In  factories 


$25,608,788 

14,528,166 
20,696,999 
43.207.545 


1850. 


The  development  of  1850  was  chiefly  in  the  Middle  States.  One-ha'.i  of 
the  woollen-mills  in  the  country  were  in  the  three  States  of  Pennsylvania,  New 
York,  and  Ohio.  More  than  one- third  of  the  whole  number  were 
in  New  England.  A  beginning  had  been  made  in  the  prairie 
States  of  the  West,  and  Virginia  was  employing  no  less  than  a  hundred  and 
twenty-one  factories  in  the  art.  In  the  great  mountainous  and  volcanic  regions 
of  the  Far  West,  which,  according  to  Judge  Kelley,  are  destined  to  be  the 
greatest  wool-producing  country  of  the  world,  there  was  as  yet  no  trace  of  the 
woollen-industry.  California  had  neither  mills  nor  sheep.  There  was  not  a 
mill  west  of  the  Missouri  River,  and  not  one  in  the  States  of  New  Jersey, 
South  Carolina,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Kansas,  and 
Minnesota.  In  spite  of  the  unequal  distribution  of  the  industry,  the  develop- 
ment was  very  satisfactory.  It  kept  pace  with  population,  and  it  stimulated 
population  ;  for  it  enhanced  the  profits  of  agriculture  by  creating  a  large  home- 
market  for  wool,  and  it  brought  into  the  country  a  large  body  of  emigrants  to 
work  in  the  factories  and  settle  on  the  public  lands. 


378 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\t 


Struggles  of 
woollen- 
manufac- 
turers. 


The  woollen-manufacture  of  the  United  States  has  had  the  misfortune  to 
be  constantly  subjected  to  alternate  chills  and  fever,  owing  to  causes  entirely 
beyond  the  control  of  the  mill-owners.  It  was  now  to  encounter 
one  of  its  periodic  chills.  The  duties  were  lowered  a  trifle  after 
1846,  and  in  1857  they  had  been  reduced  about  one-half  what 
they  were  in  1842.  This  brought  upon  the  factories  again 
the  almost  undiminished  force  of  foreign  competition.  Their  pliglit  was 
aggravated  by  the  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania  mills  enlarging;  iluir 
capacity  to  a  great  extent,  and  by  the  erection  of  a  hundred  and  thirty-eight 
new  mills,  many  of  them  of  unusual  capacity,  in  different  parts  of  the  coun- 
try; also  by  the  panic  of  1857,  which  brought  about  hard  times.  Tiie  total 
production  of  the  country  had  slightly  increased  by  i860;  but  four  hundred 
and  forty-seven  factories  which  were  running  in  1850,  and  a  number  of  otiiers 
built  during  the  interim,  had  closed  their  doors,  discharged  their  operatives, 
and  ceased  to  do  business.  Tiicy  were  mostly  small  concerns,  built  to  make 
local  markets  for  the  wools  of  their  several  counties ;  but  a  large  amount  of 
the  earnings  of  the  people  was  invested  in  tiiem,  and  the  disaster  was  a  serious 
one.  Many  of  the  mills  were  sold  out  by  the  sheriff,  to  the  great  loss  of  the 
original  owners.  Of  the  mills  wjiich  cloo^d,  sixty-five  were  in  Connecticut,  a 
hunilred  and  nine  in  New  York,  a  hundred  and  ten  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
seventy-six  in  Virginia.     It  was  a  blue  time  for  the  woollen-industry. 


CRClMnoN    I.OOM-W()RKS,   WORCESTER,    MASS. 

ITie  most  encouraging  feature  of  this  era  was  the  fact,  that,  though  nearly 
every  woollen-mill  in  the  country  was  in  straits,  the  quantity  of  woo)  actually 
Encourage-  consumcd  was  fully  maintained  ;  and  the  farmers  of  the  coimtry. 
ments.  finding  the  market  for  their  fleeces  unfailing,  were  encouraged  to 

go  on  and  enlarge  their  Hocks  and  production.  This  was  a  remarkable  era  of 
merino-breeding,  particularly  in  the  great  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and 
Kentucky.  The  flocks  of  that  region  multiplied  extremely  fast  from  1S50  to 
i860;  and  so  much  attention  was  paid  to  the  care  of  the  sheep,  that  the  wool 


OF  THE   UNITED  STATES. 


379 


produced  was  of  the  most  admirable  quality.  It  found  such  a  ready  sale  in 
the  general  market,  that  wool-growing  in  New  England  received  a  check  on 
account  of  it.  The  flocks  of  New  England  actually  decreased  from  1850  to 
i860.  Mr.  John  L.  Hayes,  one  of  the  high  authorities  on  this  subject, 
attributes  the  excellent  quality  of  the  wools  which  have  resulted  from  the 
breeiling  of  this  particular  era  to  the  rural  and  economical  habits  of  the 
American  people  in  large  part.  He  says,  "  There  are  certain  qualities  com- 
mon to  tlie  varying  breeds  which  are  due  to  the  influence  of  our  climate  and 
soil,  but  especially  to  the  system  of  keeping  consequent  upon  the  thrifty 
habits  of  our  people ;  and  the  most  influential  feature  in  their  keeping  is  the 
fact  that  our  sheep  arc  uniformly  and  liberally  fed,  and  hence  produce  a 
uniform,  sound,  and  healthy  fibre."  Tiie  finest  wool  at  the  Exhibition  of 
1851  in  London  was  from  the  State  of  Tennessee.  Alexander  Hamilton  was 
"cioulitful  if  American  wool  was  fit  for  fine  cloths."  The  quality  of  fleece 
bred  in  the  years  from  1S50  to  i860  was  fit  for  the  finest  cloths;  and  from 
that  era  to  this  the  fine  cloths  of  the  United  States  have  been  almost  exclu- 
sively niailc  of  American  wools,  while  it  is  into  the  coarser  fabrics  that  the 
imported  wools  have  principally  gone. 

A  new  era  in  the  woollen-industry  dawned  with  the  Morrill  tariff  of  1861, 
and  the  war  which  broke  out  in  our  territory  before  the  end  of  the  year. 
The  Morrill  tariff  was  not  a  war  measure,  although  it  became  a  Morriii  tariff 
law  in  the  very  midst  of  the  excitement  which  preceded  the  war.  °'  '**'• 
It  was  introduced  into  Congress  March  12,  1S60;  and  was  enacted  March  2, 
1S61.  It  gave  to  woollen-goods  a  protection  ranging  from  thirty  to  forty  per 
cent;  which  was  a  great  advance  from  the  low  standard  of  1S57.  Once  a 
law,  it  was  powerfully  supplemented  in  its  operation  by  the  war.  The  two 
causes  combined  were  followed  by  extraordinary  results. 

'I'lie  United  States  have  never  yet  gone  into  a  war  with  factories  enough  to 
supply  regiments  in  the  field  with  clothing  and  the  people  at  home  too. 
The  country  has  been  obliged  either  to  resort  to  leather,  as  in  the  Revolution, 
or  buy  cloth  abroad,  as  in  1S12,  1S45,  and  1S61-65.  It  has  even  been  the 
fact,  that  all  the  flags  of  the  United  States  have  hail  to  be  purchased  outside  of 
our  own  country.  In  an  address  delivered  at  Philadelphia  in  1865  it  was 
stated  tiiat  "all  our  flags  arc  grown,  spun,  woven,  and  dyed  in  England  ;  and 
on  tl-.e  last  Fourth  of  July  the  jiroud  .American  ensigns  which  floated  over 
every  national  ship,  post,  and  fort,  and  every  ])atriotic  home,  flaunted  forth 
upon  the  breeze  the  industrial  ilependence  of  America  upon  England."  ^\■hen 
the  hostilities  of  1861  broke  out,  therefore,  and  it  became  necessary  to  clothe 
scvcr.1l  hundred  thousand  men  for  the  field  and  a  larger  number  for  the  local 
defence  of  the  several  States,  the  woollen-cloth  for  the  purpose  could  not  be 
found  in  the  United  States.  Not  only  was  tlie  country  absolutely  short  of  a 
supply  of  common  woollen-cloth  North  and  South  too,  but  there  was  another 
fact  in  the  situation.     It  had  not  yet  entered  upon  the  manufacture  of  the 


38o 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


more  elegant  classes  of  goods.  Before  1861  the  flictories  had  "attempted 
scarcely  any  thing  beyond  common  goods  of  the  coarser  kinds."  Duiing  the 
gloomy  days  of  the  war,  an  association  of  i)atriotic  ladies  at  \Vashin"ton 
pledged  liiemselves  to  wear  notiiing  except  of  American  fabrication ;  ;iinl  tliey 
found,  much  to  their  chagrin,  tiiat  the  variety  of  worsted  dress-gt)oils  niaiiutac- 
tared  here  was  of  an  extremely  limited  character,  and  the  goods  were  of  a 
common  class  at  tliat.  This  scarcity  of  cloth  and  of  elegant  goods,  the  in- 
creased consumption,  and  the  protection  of  a  timely  tariff,  matle  an  iiuuKdiate 
and  lively  market  for  American  woollens.  The  manufacturers  were  not  slow 
to  take  advantage  of  it. 

During  one  period  of  the  war,  a  large  number  of  the  cotton-mills  of  the 
country  were  obliged  to  suspend  operations  for  the  want  of  the  raw  material. 
,.,    „  There  was  so  little  cotton  to  be  had,  that  the  material  r()^e  iri)in 

Woollen-  '"'" 

manufac-  eiglity-eigiit  dollars  a  bale  to  nine  hundred  and  a  th.ousaiid  dollars. 
tures during    j^-^   ^,„^.   ^^j„i^j    nianufacture  cotton   at  that   price.      Mill-owners 

the  civil  war. 

closed  their  doors.  .At  one  time  it  is  said  that  there  was  not  a 
single  cotton-spindle  in  operation  in  the  whole  of  Lowell.  The  woollen  manu- 
facturers, on  the  contrary,  fountl  themselves  stimulated  into  wonderful  aetivity. 
The  government  was  calling  continually  for  enormous  (luantities  of  goods.  .\ 
fresh  demand  for  .American  goods  sprang  up  among  the  people,  and  the 
several  States  came  into  the  market  to  buy  uniforms  for  their  re-organi/ed  regi- 
ments of  militia.  The  mills  which  were  in  operation  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  soon  found  themselves  overwhelmed  with  orders  for  their  gootls.  and  a 
large  number  of  them  were  engageil  to  run  exclusively  upon  goods  for  the 
armies  in  the  field.  Under  the  influence  of  this  new  state  of  things,  a  great 
many  of  the  woollen-factories  which  had  been  shut  up  during  the  previous  hard 
times  were  re-opened  and  set  at  work.  Hundreds  of  new  factories  were  huilt 
in  the  great  wool-growing  region  of  the  West :  new  mills  were  ereited  in  nearlv 
every  one  of  the  Southern  States  for  the  production  of  warm  fabric  s  for  .irniy 
and  people.  In  aildition  to  all  this,  another  thing  took  place.  The  (otton- 
mill  owners  of  the  North,  seeing  such  a  demand  for  woollens  from  both  the 
government  and  the  i)eople  generally,  and  not  caring  to  keep  their  own 
machinery  idle,  resolved  to  turn  a  portion  of  their  establishments  to  the  iiianu 
facture  of  woollens.  They  bought  expensive  machinery,  and  put  it  into 
operation.  Operatives  were  plenty,  in  consequence  of  the  closing  of  the 
cotton-mills ;  and  there  was  no  difficulty  in  manning  every  spinning-jack  and 
loom  with  competent  hands.  Every  machine  was  run  so  as  to  produce  the 
greatest  amount  of  goods,  and  in  many  cases  the  mills  were  run  night  and 
day.  It  was  an  era  of  great  prosperity.  The  woollen-machinery  of  the 
country  was  more  than  doubleil  during  the  war. 

After  the  war  there  was  a  falling-off  in  the  woollen-machinery  of  the  coun- 
try, owing  to  the  restoration  of  the  cotton-supply  and  the  conversion  of  mills 
from  the  woollen  to  the  cotton  manufacture.     But  the  South,  being  bare  of 


OF    TflE    UNITED    STATES. 


381 


goods,  became  a  large  buyer  from  the  North  at  this  time ;  and  this  served 
to  stiiinilate  toward  the  building  of  more  new  mills,  and  to  prevent  a  decline  in 
the  in;iiuiliitturing  capacity  of  the  country.  As  the  abnormal  con-  ^ 
sumption  of  woollen-goods  by  the  government  ceased  as  suddenly  manufactur. 
almost  as  the  demand  for  them  from  this  quarter  arose,  the  wants  '"'  •'"''*  *'" 
of  the  South  prevented  the  tide  from  turning  against  the  manufac- 
turers ;  and  so  they  continued  to  reap  a  golden  harvest.    The  state  of  things  in 


1  II  M\    ■\  Al  II'  II  1 


1870  as  compared  with  1850  and  i860  will  show  the  extraordinary  influence 
of  the  tariff  and  the  war,  and  the  subsequent  demand  from  the  South,  in 
putting  this  important  industry  once  more  upon  its  feet.  The  figures  are 
taiitn  from  the  census  rejjorts :  they  refer  only  to  the  manufacture  of  woollen- 
clotiis,  and  cloths  of  mixed  wool,  cotton,  and  silk,  the  carpet  and  worsted 
factories  not  being  included. 


38a 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


=3 

1850. 

i860. 

1870. 

Alabama 

.... 

6 

'4 

Arkansas 

.... 

•  ■  •  • 

13 

California 

.... 

I 

5 

Connecticut     . 

'49 

84 

108 

Delaware 

9 

4 

11 

District  of  Columbi 

a 

I 

•  • . . 

Florida    . 

•  •  •  • 

.... 

I 

Georgia    . 

3 

II 

46 

Illinois     . 

16 

21 

109 

Indiana    . 

Zl 

79 

'75 

Iowa         .        . 

I 

13 

«S 

Kansas    . 

.... 

•   •   •  • 

9 

Kentucky 

25 

37 

'=5 

Louisiana 

«  •  •  ■ 

I 

2 

Maine       .        . 

36 

26 

107 

Maryland 

38 

27 

3< 

Massachusetts 

119 

«34 

I8s 

Michigan 

'S 

16 

S4 

Minnesota 

.... 

.... 

10 

Mississippi 

.... 

4 

II 

Missouri  . 

I 

II 

156 

New  Hampshire 

61 

5' 

77 

New  Jersey 

41 

35 

29 

New  Mexico    . 

•  •  •  • 

•  •  •  • 

New  York 

249 

140 

252 

North  Carolina 

I 

7 

y- 

Ohio 

130 

"5 

"'3 

Oregon     . 

.... 

I 

9 

Pennsylvania  . 

380 

270 

457 

Rhode  Island  . 

45 

57 

65 

South  Carolina 

•  •  •  • 

I 

'5 

Tennessee 

4 

I 

1 48 

Texas 

1 

3 

20 

Utah         .        . 

•  •  •  • 

•  •  •  • 

'5 

Vermont  . 

72 

46 

65 

Virginia   . 

121 

45 

68 

West  Virginia . 

.... 

.... 

74 

Wisconsin 

9 

>5 

64 

Total 

I.5S9 

1,260 

2,891 

The  following  table  shows  the  production  in  all  the  States  at  three  difTerent 
periods.  This  includes  a  space  of  thirty  years,  during  which  time  a  remark- 
able change  occurred  in  the  ratio  of  production  in  several  of  the  States. 
Massachusetts  had  the  lead  in  the  beginning,  and  has  kept  it  ever  since ;  but 
the  production  of  Pennsylvania,  which  was  $5,321,860  in  1850,  had  increased 
to  $27,580,586  twenty  years  later,  thus  placing  her  second  in  the  list,  the  rank 
which  for  many  years  was  occupied  by  New  York. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


383 


i860. 

>870. 

6 

14 

•  •  •  ■ 

'3 

I 

5 

84 

108 

4 

It 

.... 

.... 

II 

I 

46 

21 

109 

79 

•75 

13 

H 

•   •   •  • 

9 

37 

•=5 

I 

2 

26 

107 

27 

31 

•34 

iSs 

16 

54 

•  •  •  ■ 

10 

4 

II 

II 

•S<i 

S' 

77 

3S 

29 

140 

252 

7 

52 

"S 

223 

I 

9 

270 

457 

57 

65 

I 

•5 

I 

148 

2 

20 

.... 

'5 

46 

65 

45 

68 

•  •  •  • 

74 

'5 

64 

1,260 

2,891 

tes  at  three  different 
lich  time  a  rcniark- 
I'eral  of  the  States. 
it  ever  since ;  but 
850,  had  increased 
in  the  list,  the  rank 


AI.ib.iiii'T  • 

Arkansas 

Cilifimiia 

CimiR'ilicut 

DcKiw.ire 

District  of  Columbia 

Florida     . 

Ccoi'nia    . 

Illinuis     . 

Iiuliana    . 

Iciwa 

K.iii'-as    . 

Kinliaky 

Louisiana 

M.iinc 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri  . 

New  Hampshire 

New  Jersey 

New  Mexico 

New  Yorlv 

Norili  Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon    . 

I'ennsylvania 

Rhode  Island 

South  Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah        . 

Vermont . 

Virginia  . 

West  Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Total 


1850. 


^6,465,2 1 6 

25I,OCXD 

2,400 

88,750 
206,572 
205,582 

13,000 

318,819 

753.300 
295,140 

» 2.770, 5''S 
90,242 


56,000 

2.127.745 
1,164,446 

7,030,604 

23.750 
1,111,027 

5,321,860 
2,381,825 

6,310 
15,000 

1,579,161 
841,013 

87,992 

*43.207,54S 


i860. 


5191,474 

150,000 

6,840,220 

'53.035 


464,420 
187,613 

649.77' 
127,640 

845,226 

45,200 

1,717,007 

605,992 

'9.655.787 
139,246 

158,507 

'43.025 
2,601,653 

1,085,104 

5,870,117 

291,000 

825,000 

85,000 

8,191,675 

6,915,205 

80,000 

8,100 

38.796 

2,938,626 
7 '7.827 

172,720 


$61,894,986 


1S70. 


589,998 

78,690 

1,102,754 

17,371,048 

576,067 

500 

47 '.523 
2,849,249 

4.329.7" 
1,647,606 

'53. '5° 
'.312,458 

30,795 

6,398,881 

427,596 

39,502,542 

1,204,868 

219,862 

'47.32J 

1,256,213 

8,766,104 

1,903,825 

21,000 

14.394.786 

298,368 

3,287,699 

505.857 
27,580,586 
12,558,117 

34.559 
696,844 
152,968 
199,600 
3,619,459 
488,352 

475.763 
1,250,467 


*' 55.405,358 


In  i860  the  number  of  worsted-establishments  in  the  country  was  three  : 
in  1870  it  was  102.    The  carpet-factories  had  not  changed  :  there  were  213  in 
i860,  and  215  in  1870.    These  figures  show  amazing  progress,  wonderful 
The  States  of  the  South   (excluding  Virginia),  which  had  only  P'ogress. 
tliirty-two  factories  of  woollen  goods  in  1850,  and  eighty-one  in  i860,  contained 


-ty.ry^r-K^fm- 


V.     "^  '1      •  , 


384 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


730  factories  in  1870,  mostly  small  concerns,  to  be  sure,  and  producing  a 
coarse  class  of  fabrics,  but  still  busy  factories,  and  affording  a  large  local 
market  for  the  fleeces  from  the  plantations  and  farms.  There  win;  a,,. 
woollen-factories  in  the  West  as  compared  with  258  in  i860.  In  Ohio,  ^^.^v 
York,  and  Pennsylvania,  932  woollen-factories  had  been  put  into  operation  as 
against  525  in  i860;  while  twenty-nine  had  been  built  west  of  liic  Rocky 
Mountains.  In  i860  Massachusetts  had  two  worsted-factories,  and  Rhode 
Island  had  one.  There  were  no  others  in  the  United  States.  In  1.S70  inere 
were  102,  eighty-seven  of  them  being  in  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and 
Pennsylvania. 

There  had  been  equally  interesting  progress  in  the  fabrics  produced.  P.ifore 
i860,  the  cloths,  carpets,  and  woollen-goods  of  the  country  generally  were  of 
the  coarse  or  common  makes.  Scarcely  any  thing  had  been  attempted  in  the 
line  of  fine  goods.  After  i860  the  factories  began  to  make  fine  goods  of 
every  description.  Particularly  was  this  the  case  after  1864,  in  whi(  h  year  a 
more  (iivorable  adjustment  of  the  tariff  was  made.  It  was,  in  fact,  under  the 
act  of  1864  that  the  distinctively  fine  goods  were  chiefly  undertaken.  New 
machinery  was  bought,  and  old  machinery  was  adapted  to  new  uses.  Coarse 
arti(des  were  still  made  ;  but  the  mills  now  began  to  produce  fine  sliawis, 
worsteil  dress-goods,  fine  cassimeres,  broadcloth,  hosiery,  alpaca  fabric  s, 
mohair-poplins,  mohair-lustres,  chinchilla  cloakings,  astrachans,  embroidered 
table-covers,  druggets,  Axminster  carpets,  and  almost  every  other  variety  of 
elegant  wool-fabric.  Kntire  success  was  attained  with  every  class  of  goods; 
unless,  perhaps,  the  finest  broadcloth  be  alone  excepted.  If  the  manufac- 
turers lacked  a  machine  proper  for  the  new  purposes  to  which  they  were 
adapting  their  mills,  they  invented  it.  They  frequented  the  world's  fairs,  and 
studied  styles  and  processes.  They  acted  on  the  old  principle,  wl\i<h  is 
expressed  in  a  homely  but  forcible  way  in  the  motto  at  the  head  of  the  cards  of 
a  bill-poster  at  Atlanta,  Ga.,  for  1878  :  — 

"  It  is  not  birth,  nor  rank,  nor  state, 
It's  get  up  and  get,  that  makes  man  great." 

The  manufacturers,  during  this  period  of  ten  years,  displayed  unexampled 
energy,  and  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  their  trade  they  were  able  to 
furnish  almost  the  whole  of  the  immense  supply  both  of  coarse  and  fine 
goods  required  by  this  market.  This  market  too,  be  it  known,  had  increased 
threefold  in  power  to  consume  from  i860  to  1870.  The  new  styles  of  goods 
were  distinguished  by  greater  softness  and  strength,  owing  to  the  qualities  of 
American  wool.  The  staple  goods,  such  as  cassimeres,  ingrain  carpets,  iSjc, 
displayed  better  style,  improved  finish,  and  softer  and  more  agreeable  colors. 
The  delaines  became  so  perfect,  that  a  celebrated  importer  at  New  \'ork, 
who,  when  called  as  a  witness  in  a  trial  at  court,  had  asserted  his  iiidd- 
libility   in   detecting  the   differences   in   fabrics,  was   astounded  to  discovel 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


38s 


that  lie  had  sworn  to  the  identity  of  foreign  woven  and  American  printed 

(ItlaiiiL-s. 

Siiue  1870  depression  has  again  chilled  the  hearts  of  the  owners  of  the 
ttoolUn-mills.    This  is,  in  part,  owing  to  the  panic  of  1873,  and  the  hard  times, 
ind  utrciK  hment  of  personal  expenses,  which  have  reigned  ever  ^    ||^^_ 
'jjiii  I'.     It    has   l)eeii,  in  part,  (hie  to  the    immense   (|iiantity  of  manufac- 
ivoollt'iis  which  the  government  had  on  hand  in  1S66,  when  it  dis- 


turei  ilnee 
1870. 


[uukIciI  its  volunteer  army  of  a  million  of  nien,  and  sent  them  to 
their  homes.  The  government  had  more  cloth  than  ( ould  he  consumed  by 
ihe  regular  army  in  several  generations.  As  these  goods  were  liable  to  be 
(.aki)  by  mollis,  the  authorities  resolved  to  sell  them.  The  auctions  each  year 
depressed  the  price  of  coarse  cloths,  and  curtailed  the  sales  of  the  millii.     For 


SATINKILOUM. 


several  years,  the  Iiorse-car  drivers,  truckmen,  teamsters,  and  farmers  wore  the 
sky-lilue  uniform  overcoats,  or  clothing  made  of  that  blue  cloth  dyed  black, 
bought  from  the  government.  In  consecjuence  of  the  panic  and  the  depres- 
sion, the  woollen-mills  have  lost  a  great  deal  of  money.  Many  of  them  have 
passed  into  other  hands  at  a  loss.  It  is  a  fact  which  may  be  mentioned  here, 
that  nearly  every  woollen-mill  of  any  consequence  in  the  I'nited  States  has, 
by  rciison  of  these  regularly-recurring  periods  of  depression,  passed  out  of 


386 


l^rnUSTRIAl.    niSTOKY 


the  Dwnership  of  the  original  projectors  nt  a  |)ri(e  considoraljly  lower  dun  lu 
original  cost.  Owing  to  the  hard  times,  liic  production  of  the  mills  iiiis  Ihtii 
lessened,  so  as  to  lighten  the  burden  resting  upon  them  as  nuu  h  as  P(km1i|i 
I'ndcr  the  influences  of  tlecreased  proihu  tion  and  a  lower  rate  of  w.ij;i^,  iln,. 
interest  is  now  already  reviving.  Importations  have  l)een  cut  down  from  S^o,- 
000,000  in  1M72  to  ;S26,ooo,ooo  in  1S77.  Foreign  fabrics  are  being  ^ti  idjly 
driven  out ;  and  this  great  market,  wherein  45,000,000  of  people  l>iiy  <  l(,i|,, 
provisions,  and  ail  the  necessaries  and  comforts  of  life,  with  lis  wdihIhihI 
power  of  recuperation,  is  fast  bringing  l)ack  hope  and  energy  to  llie  luMris  of 
the  native  manufacturers.  The  industry  has  a  great  future  before  11,  and 
cannot  long  remain  under  the  clouds  that  now  surround  it. 


SFINNINC.    AND    WKAVINd. 

The  wire-toothed  cards  for  combing  out  the  wool  were  made  by  hand  in 
the  <lays  of  our  foref.ithers.  and  were  worked  by  hanil.  Oliver  l''.van<  ol 
Bvana'i  im-  M^^ry'**"'''  ""^  "^  ''^'-'  active-minded  inventors  of  tlie  kevolutinii- 
proved  m«-  ary  era,  invented  a  machine  to  prick  the  leather,  cut,  beml,  .ind 
'   ""^'  set  the  teeth  in  cards,  but  did  not  have  the  good  fortune  to  sir  it 

go  into  practical  _«cration.  Subsetiuently,  machinery  for  cutting  the  tcrtli, 
which  were  to  beset  in  the  leather  sheets  by  hand,  was  employed  at  WOniMcr 
and  elsewhere  in  New  Kngland.  The  teeth,  put  up  in  bags,  were  given  out  to 
families  living  in  the  country  round  about.  The  setting  of  the  teetli  w.is  ,1 
fireside  occupation  ;  and  the  business  employed  large  numbers  of  tiie  m-ntk' 
girls  of  that  day,  who  afterwards  became  the  mothers  of  rich  and  inlluituiil 
families  of  to-day.  In  1796  .Amos  Whittemorc  took  out  a  patent  ii.r  ,1 
machine  to  make  the  cards ,  and  this  invention  was  soon  followed  by  a  ni.i 
chine  to  do  the  carding,  and  the  two  new  processes  soon  superseded  tlu'  old 
ones. 

('arding  is  the  first  process  of  spinning.  The  wool  is  laid  upon  a  ftcd 
apron,  and  is  drawn  down  therefrom  to  a  large,  slowly-revolving  drum,  who^c 
whole  surface  is  covered  with  wire  card.  The  wool  is  taktn  up 
by  the  teeth  of  the  card,  and  combeil  out  between  the  large  (Iniin 
and  two  smaller  ones  revolving  in  contact  with  it,  but  in  the  o])posite  dirci  • 
tion.  The  wool  is  then  (letac:heil  from  the  main  drum  by  the  action  of  tin; 
dofTer,  —  a  sort  of  comb  moving  with  a  (juick,  hoe-like  motion  ;  and  it  Aowm 
from  the  carding-machine  in  a  broad,  thin,  gau/y  fleece,  through  a  smooth  steel 
funnel,  in  which  it  contracts  into  a  ribbon,  or  sliver,  into  a  large  tin  can. 
Ix)ng  wools  which  are  used  for  worsted-goods  are  made  into  a  sliver  on  tin' 
same  principle,  although  the  combing-machine  varies  from  the  one  destribed 
in  a  few  details.  The  slivers  are  now  carried  to  the  breaking-machine.  Two 
or  three  (or  more)  cans  are  placed  by  the  machine  ;  and  the  ends  of  the  slivers 
they  contain  are  laid  together,  and  passed  through  between  two  rollers,  wliidi 


Carding. 


01-     THE    UMTF.!)    STATh.S. 


3R7 


lei/c  .itul  <lr;i\v  tlu'm  forward,  and  pass  llu'in  on  lo  another  sit  «)f  rollers,  which 
move  tliroc  times  as  last  as  the  first.  As  a  eonse(|iien<  e  of  this  procesH, 
the  iriiited  slivers  (low  from  the  machine,  ami  are  ( oiled  in  another  larfje  tin 
,;in,  Ml  a  fresh  sliver  of  tiiree  times  the  length  of  the  ori^^inal  slivers,  liiree 
of  tlu' new  cans  are  carried  to  another  frame,  and  the  slivers  passed  ihrongh 
(ri">ii  sets  of  rollers  ;  and  ti\i>  process  is  repeated  sometimes  until  one  of  the 
slivi  r,  from  the  c  ardinj,'machine  is  drawn  out  to  fifteen  hundred  times  its 
iirit;ni.il  length,  although,  l>y  reason  ol  h.ivuiK  lieeii  incorporated  with  so  many 
,)l"  ii>  ( ompanions,  it  ha.s  been  rediu  ed  in  hulk  only  to  ahout  one-fourth  its 
(irijjiiial  size.  This  freijuent  dniwing  straightens  the  fibres  of  the  wool,  and 
livs  iluin  parallel  to  one  another.  The  idea  is  the  invention  of  Ri(  hard  .\rk- 
\vri^;lit  of  Kngland,  who  made  a  fortune  from  it.  and  added  as  uuk  h  to  the 
|irii(lui  tive  power  of  Kngland  as  though  liie  < ountry  had  doubled  its  jiopula- 
tmn  .\fter  the  drawing  is  completed,  two  slivers  are  united,  and  |)asscd 
iliriMinii  the  roving  frame,  where  they  are  drawn  out  so  fine  that  they  have  to 
lic  itti^teil  in  the  fr.iine  slightly  to  lioM  together.  The  roving  is  now  wound 
upuii  bobbins,  and  carried  to  the  spinning  mac  hinery. 


CAROINC-MACHINR.       CLBVBLANIl   MACHINE-WORKS. 


Spinning. 


Tile  original  spinning-jenny  of  Margreaves  of  Kngland,  invented  in  1767, 
had  eight  spindles  only ;  the  spinning-jack  of  to-day  has  often  as  many  as 
fniin  two  l-.undred  and  forty  to  tiireo  hundred.  They  are  m6unted 
uiutii  a  long  frame,  bearing  the  same  rel.ition  to  the  machine  as 
the  front  boanl  of  a  bureau-drawer  to  the  bureau,  which,  like  the  drawer  of 
a  gigantic  bureau,  can  be  pulled  out  a  distance  of  ten  or  more  feet  from  the 
mac  hinc  in  the  spinning  ])rocess.  It  runs  out  on  wheels  which  support  its 
weight.  The  bobbins  containing  the  rovings  are  placed  in  a  long  row  in  the 
spinning-frame,  and  the  ends  of  the  soft  yarn  are  carried  through  three  sets  of 


<:' 


.»*••■'.*&    Hji,.. 


388 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


rollers  to  tlie  spindles  on  the  frame.  The  second  set  of  rollers  moves  twii  e  as 
fast  as  the  first ;  and  the  third,  five  or  six  times  as  fast  as  the  second.  ISv  this 
means  it  is  still  further  attemiated.  The  twist  is  given  to  it  by  tlie  ^iniiillt's 
which  revolve  witii  great  velocity  as  the  long  frame  is  slowly  i)nlie(l  oui  lioin 
the  machine  as  far  as  it  will  go.  As  the  frame  is  run  back  again  to  it^  phuc 
the  twisted  yarn  is  wound  up  on  the  spindles  automatically,  and  the  iikk  hine 
started  again,  and  the  process  repeated.  The  twist  given  to  yarn  is  from  livc 
to  ten  turns  in  an  inch.     The  yarn   is   now  wounil  off  on  reels  in  iuuik^  five 


AMI    STAND. 


hundred  .md  sixty  yards  long.     The  nunil)er  of  hanks  to  a  jiound  indicate  the 

size  of  the  yarn  ;  as  No.  i.  No.  2.  and  so  on. 

For  weaving,  the  yarns  wliii  li  are  10   comiiose   tiie  warp  of  tlie   cloth  or 

carpet  are  woiuid  off  from  the  reels  uimn  a  long  roller  in  a  broad  baml  ot 
j)arallel  threads  the  width  of  the  intended  piece  of  stuff  The 
rollers  are  placed  in  the  loom.     .\  forest  of  wires,  or  stout  flinail--. 

cro.sses  the  loom  from  one  side  to  the  other,  each  one  carrying  an  eye  alioiit 


Weaving. 


OF    TIIF.    UNITED    STATES. 


3«9 


the  middle  of  its  length.  The  yarns  of  the  warp  are  passed  through  the  eyes 
of  the  liarness,  as  it  is  called,  and  thcnco  on  to  the  roller  at  the  front  of  the 
loom.  Tlie  office  of  the  harness  is  to  raise  one  set  of  the  threads  of  the  warp, 
and  depress  another  set,  so  as  to  leave  an  opening  through  which  the  shuttle 
can  he  thrown,  carrying  the  thread  of  the  woof,  and,  wiien  the  shuttle  has 
passed  through,  to  depress  the  upper  set  and  raise  the  lower  set,  thi.s  locking 
the  woof  in  its  place,  ami  opening  the  warp   anew  for  another  throw  of  the 


[^^.-fM^.. 


tii! 


if 

iM. 


SIllCAlilNU-.M.UIIIM:. 


shuttle.  This  is  the  principle  upon  which  all  Ioduis  arc  made  ;  but  great  inge- 
nuity lias  been  dis])layed  in  the  management  of  ihc  i)rinciple.  so  as  to  produce 
net  only  plain  goods  by  means  of  the  loom,  but  gootls  of  all  sorts  of  colored 
patterns,  .uid  varieties  of  surface.  Threads  of  different  colors  are  introduced 
tor  different  i)arts  of  the  warp  ;  and  a  large  variety  of  colors,  sometimes  eight 
or  ten,  are  introduced  by  multiplying  the  number  of  shiittles  and  the  apparatus 
for  throwing  them.     The  figures  in  weaving  arc  produced  by  the  fancy  loom, 


!i 


rjffvff 


'it 


390 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


SO  called,  the  invention  of  Mr.  William  Cronipton,  a  native  of  England,  l)\it 
living,  at  the  time  the  loom  was  projected,  in  this  country.  His  ijaliiu  was 
taken  out  in  1837.  The  looms  wore  I'lrst  used,  it  is  believed,  in  the  Middlesex 
Mills  of  Lawrence,  Mass.,  in  1840.  It  is  upon  this  loom  that  the  famv  (assi- 
meres  and  other  figured  cloth-fabrics  are  now  woven. 


m 


^HAWI.-I.OOM. 


After  weaving,  the  cloth  is  fulleil  by  washing  and  pounding  in  a  tank, 
where  it  is  subjected  to  the  action  of  heavy  iron  mallets.     It  is 
reduced  greatly  from  its  original  dimensions,  both  in  length  and 
width,  by  this  process.     It  is  then  dried  upon  the  tenter-frame  upon  which  it 


Fulllnf. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


39  J 


is  stretched.  Fulling  and  dyeing  complete  the  cloth,  and  it  then  needs  only 
10  be  (inished  to  be  ready  for  the  market.  Made  to  pass  over  rollers,  it  is  first 
s(rat(  hed  by  a  revolving  drum  upon  which  are  mounted  the  heads  of  the 
teasol-i)lant,  or  by  wire  teasels  ;  and  it  is  then  shorn  by  a  cutting-machine  with 
spiral  blades  on  a  cylinder  acting  against  a  straight  steel  blade,  which  cuts  the 
nap  perfectly  to  an  even  length.  This  helicoidal  shearing-machine  is  an 
American  invention,  dating  back  to  iSi2. 

In  the  mechanical  department  of  the  industry  the  American  mind  has  been 
extremely  prolific.     There  is  not  a  machine  in  the  whole  fixctory,  from  the 
picker  and  the   card  to  nap-cutter,  which  has  not   been  altered,   j„       g. 
Miiijroved,   and    made    to   do   better   and    fasicr   work    than    tiie   ments  of 


aehines  employed  upon  other  continents.     Some  of  the  machines 


American 
inventors. 


m: 

are  purely  of  American  invention.  The  wonilerful  Pigelow  auto- 
inati(  loom,  by  which  figures  of  any  description  can  be  woven  into  carpets,  is 
the  (onception  of  I'^astiis  li.  Higelow  of  Massachusetts,  who  took  out  his 
patent  in  1845,  and  achieved  what  luirope  had  given  up  as  hopeless.  English 
machinery  was  largely  importeti  at  on;>  time,  especially  during  the  war  :  but  the 
Kilbotirn  self-operate<l  jack,  a  home-invention,  has  superseded  many  of  tlie 
very  best  English  mi'les  ;  aiv\  the  Sawyer  spindle,  the  outgrowth  of  a  drought 
at  Lowell,  which  made  it  necessary  to  lighten  tlie  machireiy,  has  brought 
aliout  a  revolutiini  in  worsted  spinning,  being  lighter,  more  etticient,  and 
running  witli  ea>  u\)  to  eight  tliousaiui  revolutions,  being  at  twenty-five  per 
lent  higiier  speeu,  with  tliirty-three  per  cent  less  power,  tiian  the  common 
spindle. 

Tlie   machinery  fur  a  ten-set  woollen-mill,  all  of  American  make,  will  cost 
about  $70,000.     It  will  require    a  hundred-horse-power  to  drive   cost  of 
it,  and    155  hands  to   teiul    it.     In   staple    fancy  cassimeres   its   '■<=t<"y' 
production  will  be  from  1,150  to  1,200  yards  a  day. 


a  tank, 
ts.  It  is 
igth  and 

whicli  it 


HATS. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  uses  of  wool  arises  from  a  peculiarity  of  its 
stnu  ture.     The  fibres  of  wool   are  not  smooth  like  silk  and  flax,  but  they  are 
rouL^liiy  barbed  with  minute  imbrications  like  the  blades  of  some   useofwooi 
grasses,  or  the  branches  of  a  feather,  wiiicii  can  be  felt  by  pulling  in  making 
a  lock  of  wool  through  the  fingers.     Some  wools  are  less  roughly   ''"*'' 
liarl)ed  than  others,  and  some  fleeces  which  go  by  the  name  of  wool  —  as,  for 
instance,  that  of  the  Angora  goat  —  do  not  jwssess  the  quality  in  any  apprecia- 
lilo  degree.     Hut  real  wool  has  a  serrated  fibre.     This  peculiarity  renders  the 
shortest  kinds  of  wool  available  for  spinning,  because,  no  matter  what  the 
length  of  the  fibre  may  be,  the  barbs  of  the  wool  interlock  when  the  fibre  is 
twisted,  and  they  convert  the  fibre  into  a  practical  yarn.     This  peculiarity  has 
also  given  rise  to  a  class  of  fabrics  which  are  not  spun  at  all.     By  rubbing  a 


\'(i4l 


39» 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Hat-making 
one  of  the 
earliest 
colonial 
industries. 


lot  of  wool  together  in  hot  water,  the  interlocking  of  the  fibres  takes  i)la(  e  in 
a  marked  manner ;  and  the  result  is  the  felting  of  the  wool,  or  a  shrinking  into 
a  close,  compact,  thick  fabric,  which  is  serviceable  for  a  wide  variety  of  uur- 
poses.  The  most  popular  use  of  fabric  thus  made  is  for  the  manufaciurc  of 
hats.  The  idea,  however,  is  app'ied  to  the  making  of  piano-covers,  druggets 
beaver-cloths,  and  other  heavy  coatings  ;  the  wool  when  made  into  these  goods 
being  delivered  from  the  carding-niachine  in  a  broad,  thin  web,  whicli  is 
doubled  and  crossed,  and  otherwise  thickened,  and  then  subjected  to  steam- 
ing and  gentle  hammering.  Some  felt  seamless  clothing  has  also  been 
made. 

Hat-making  was  one  of  the  very  earliest  of  colonial  industries,  '!he 
wintry  storms  and  general  cool  climate  of  North  America  rc(iuired  tliat  the 
covering  of  the  head  should  be  warm  ;  and  so,  while  the  Si)aniards 
of  the  West  Indies  were  uaying  and  weaving  for  themselves  broad- 
brimmed  hats  of  straw,  tlie  Americans  went  into  the  making  of 
head-wear  of  thick  wool.  The  industry  began  in  New  Kngland : 
it  afterwards  extended  to  the  other  colonies.  In  Virginia,  in  1662, 
the  colonial  authorities  offered  a  premium  of  ten  pounds  of  tobacco  (the 
currency  of  those  days)  for  every  good  iiat  of  wool  and  fur  made  in  the 
province.  Hats  were  made  in  ahiiost  all  the  colonies;  and  in  1731  a  spedal 
committee  of  Parliament  reported  that  the  enterprising  Yankees  were  making 
10,000  hats  yearly,  and  were  actually  exporting  them,  with  other  things,  to  the 
continent  of  Europe  and  to  the  West  Indies,  —  a  piece  of  uni)araileied 
impudence  on  the  part  of  that  underbred  people,  and  ([uile  in  defiance  of 
the  welfare  of  the  people  of  Kngland  and  the  navigation  laws.  So  Parlia- 
ment, in  1732,  forbade  the  Americans  to  export  hats  or  felts,  'ilie  manu- 
facture continued,  however,  and,  indeed,  the  export  too  ;  and  in  1791 
Alexander  Hamilton  reported  the  business  to  be  in  a  thrifty  condition.  It 
has  been  in  that  condition  ever  since.  It  has  had  a  steady  development,  and 
has  increased  in  value  of  total  product  from  ^4,323,000  in  1810,  until  it  has 
reached  the  large  aggregate  of  about  ^30,000,000  at  the  i)resent  time.  The 
numl)er  of  establishments  making  hats  is  now  about  490,  employing  16,500 
hands. 

The  hats  of  the  Colonial  and  Revolutionaiy  era  v.  ere  broad-brimmed 
affairs,  originally  with  high  crowns,  but  afterward  with  low  crowns  i)arel\ 
Style  of  rising  above  the  top  of  the  head.     In  the  Revolution  it  was  the 

early  hats,  fashion  to  catch  up  the  brim  on  one  side  of  the  head  with  a 
cockade  and  feather,  also  to  catch  it  up  in  two  or  three  places,  producing 
the  regular  military  cocked  hat  and  the  hat  of  private  gentlemen.  Tiif 
cocked  hat  went  out  of  fashion  after  the  Revolution,  and  gave  ])lare  to  tlie 
soft  felt  of  various  forms,  and  the  tall,  stiff  stove-pijje  which  still  remain^ 
the  dress-hat  of  gentlemen.  The  white,  bell-crowned,  shaggy  hat  of  the  days 
succeeding  the  Revolution  has  gone  into  history  as  the  symbolic  hat  of  lirothu 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


393 


loiiatlian.  When  Kossuth  visited  the  country  in  1851  and  1852,  the  style 
of  hat  lie  wore  —  a  large,  soft  felt  —  became  the  rage  for  a  while,  and  was 
worn  for  a  few  years  with  a  feather.  At  present  all  sorts  of  soft  and  stiff 
felt  hats  are  worn,  varying  in  their  outlines,  size,  and  width  of  brim,  from 
vear  to  year,  in  response  to  the  American  taste  for  something  new  every 
siRcossive  .season. 

Ill  liat-iiiaking,  the  fur  of  raccoons,  beavers,  and  rabbits,  is  often  mixed 
with  the  wool  in  small  proportions.  The  right  mixture  being  obtained,  it  was 
first  felted  by  a  process  called  "  bowing."  The  bunch  of  fleece  was  Process  of 
tiathered  in  front  of  the  operator,  and  then  violently  agitated,  and  hat-making. 
tosseil  into  the  air,  by  twanging  the  string  of  a  stiff  bow,  and  applying  the 
strini;  to  the  wool.  The  (lying  fibres  would  fall  upon  the  table  in  a  thin,  even 
wel).  This  was  pressed  under  a  cloth,  and  another  layer  put  on,  until  the 
fabrii  was  thick  enough  for  use.  It  was  then  put  between  two  cloths,  im- 
mersed in  hot  water,  and  worked  into  a  cone,  which  was  shaped  upon 
a  h.it  block,  and  allowed  to  dry  in  proper  form,  when  it  was  napped  and 
finished  for  the  store.  This  was  the  original  process.  One  ir.an  could  make 
from  four  to  si.\  hat-bodies  in  a  day.  This  process  was  (piite  sufficient  for  the 
Icisuivly  days  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  but,  in  the  more  bustling  times  which 
succeeded  them,  it  became  necessary  to  increase  the  speed  of  manufacture, 
and  machines  were  introduced  to  form  the  bodies.  The  wool  was  carded  in 
the  usual  manner,  and  passed  in  a  thin  web  from  the  machine  to  two  revolving 
cones,  placed  base  to  base,  over  which  the  web  wound  in  a  zigzag  iiKinner. 
When  the  web  was  thick  enough  upon  the  cone,  it  was  cut  off,  the  two  cones 
cut  apart,  and  the  woolly  caps  removed  ;  when  the  process  went  on  again  as 
iiefore,  the  removal  of  tiie  cones  being  effected  with  great  rai)idity.  The 
cones  thus  formed  were  treated  in  the  usual  manner.  Another  machine  was 
also  made  to  produce  felted  hats  both  of  wool  and  of  fur.  The  fibres  were 
m.i(lc  to  fly  into  tiie  air ;  and  the  draught  of  air  passing  through  a  perforated 
lone  of  copper  or  one  of  wire  caused  ti.em  to  setUe  down  upon  the  cone 
L-veiily,  in  thickness  sufficient  for  a  body.  These  machines  cheapened  the 
cost  of  hats  materially,  ami  enabled  the  manufacturers  to  make  them  as  light 
•IS  one  ounce  if  they  chose  ;  whereas,  before,  a  perfect  hat-body  could  not  have 
been  made  to  weigh  less  than  three  or  four  ounces.  The  stiff,  tall  silk  hat, 
which  weighs  about  six  ounces,  is  still  made  chiefly  by  hand.  Its  texture  is 
mIIc  plush.  It  was  once  made  of  beaver-fur,  and  was  called  a  beaver  in  con- 
sequence. The  stiff  hat  made  of  brown  or  light-gray  wool  is  called  a  cassi- 
mere. 

I'or  summer  wear,  hats  are  now  made  largely  of  woven  straw.  Large, 
broad-brimmed  affairs  of  cork  are  made  for  seaside  and  country  wear,  being 
light  and  airy,  and  protecting  the  head  from  heat,  and  the  face  from  the  fierce 
ravs  of  the  sun.  . 


P  ^  1 


■'f'r'-.T'-fftiWf 


■!,       if!.. 


'"■  .^,fp*'^' 


394 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


CARPETS. 


The  progress  of  a  hundred  years  in  (:aq)ets  was  well  shown  at  the  Kxhihi- 
tion  in  Philadelphia  in  1876.  No  objects  in  the  fair  attracted  more  attention 
than  the  brilliant  display  of  rich,  soft  American  carpets ;  the  opulent  Axminster 
Improve-  '^'^^  ^ofin  in  the  Old  World  only  for  the  feet  of  emperors  and 
ment  in  noblemen,  showing  its  radiant  face  from  the  midst  of  tlic  tliron" 

carpets.  along  with  the  more  humble   but  still  agreeable  ingrains,  three 

plies,  Brussels,  and  tapestry  carpets.  In  1776  the  only  carpet  miule  in  the 
United  States  was  the  unpretentious  rag-carpet,  woven  with  a  stout  yarn  wari), 
and  a  woof  composed  of  strips  cut  from  the  cast-off  clodiing  of  the  people. 
From  the  hand-made  rag-cari)et  of  the  farmhouse,  to  the  aristocratic  .Axmin- 
ster, woven  in  intricate  and  showy  patterns  ni)on  a  powerful  automatic  loum 
one  of  the  highest  i)roducts  of  civilized  art,  is  a  hundred  years. 

The  first  regular  carpet  used  in  this  country  is  said  to  have  l)een  im])orte(l 
by  Kidd  the  pirate.  A  few  carpets  were  imported,  just  before  the  Revolution, 
Whoim-  ^"coxw  (Jreat  Britain  ;  but  they  were  too  expensive  for  most  peojjle. 
ported  the  In  17QI  the  first  cari)et-factory  was  built  in  the  city  ol"  I'hila- 
first  carpet,  ^j^^ipi^j^  j^y  WjHiam  Peter  Sprague.  It  was  followed  not  lont; 
after  by  others  in  the  same  city  ;  and  Philadelphia  soon  became  the  ]jrineipai 
seat  of  the  carpet-industrv  of  the  United  States.      It  has  nlwavs 

Carpet  in-  '  -  -'■ 

dustry  in  remained  so,  and  to-day  manufactures  about  one-half  of  all  the 
Phiiadei-         carijcts  jjroduced   in   the  United   States.      Its   fiictories  are  verv 

phia. 

numerous,  and  of  enormous  size.  The  city  has  a  very  extensive 
hand-loom  house-carpet  industry  also.  Up  to  1S45  carpets  were  woven,  en- 
Bigeiow's  tirely  by  hand.  In  that  year  Mr.  !<>.  B.  Bigelow  patented  a  power- 
invention,  loom  which  woulil  make  figures  that  would  matcii,  and  would 
weave  so  rapidly  as  to  increase  the  production  from  eight  yartls  a  day  (tlie 
average  of  hand-labor)  to  twenty-seven  yards  a  day  for  two-ply  carpet.  The 
same  machine  was  found  applicable  to  the  weaving  of  the  heavy  Brussels 
carpet  also.  It  was  employed  on  that  class  of  goods,  increasing  the  produc- 
tion from  four  to  twenty  yards  a  day.  This  invention  diffused  new  life  into 
the  carpet-business  of  the  country.  The  cost  of  carpets  was  so  reduced  by  it 
as  to  bring  the  goods  within  the  reach  of  all.  The  heavy  purchases  which  were 
made  by  the  people  had  the  legitimate  effect  of  leading  to  the  construe  tion 
of  a  large  number  of  new  factories  and  the  enlargement  of  old  ones.  America 
is  a  country  of  homes.  In  spite  of  the  emigration  of  population  from  one 
State  to  another,  the  American,  wherever  found,  makes  his  house  a  home,  and 
brings  into  it  the  charms  and  gentleness  and  grace  of  family-life.  In  tlie 
comfort  of  a  home  the  carpet  plays  an  exceedingly  important  part.  It  is 
absohitely  essential  to  the  quiet  and  happiness  of  the  home.  As  soon  as  its 
value  was  discovered,  it  found  its  way  into  every  dwelling,  from  farmhouse  to 
brown-stone  front ;  and  the  demand  for  carpets  has  therefore  been  regular, 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES.  395 

large,  and  unfailing.  The  value  of  the  carpet  is  so  great,  both  on  account  of 
its  beauty  and  its  capacity  for  deadening  the  sound  of  the  ibotfall,  that  it  has 
within  the  last  twenty  years  also  invaded  schoolhouses,  churches,  counting- 
rooms,  railroad-cars,  court-houses,  and  public  buildings  of  the  people.  Its 
use  is  now  universal. 

i'lie  growth  of  the  manufacture  after  1850  is  indicated  by  the   indication* 
following  statement  of  the  value  of  products :  —  °'  growth. 

1850 )J3,40i,234 

i860 7.857.636 

1870 2J,76'.S73 

1876 36,ot»,ooo 

The  mills  were  distributed  in  1870  as  follows :  — 

Connecticut 3 

District  of  Columbia i 

M.irylancl i 

Massachusetts 6 

Xew  Hampshire 3 

New  Jersey 2 

New  York 13 

Pennsylvania 184 

Wisconsin 2 

Total 215 


The  Axminster  carpets,  which  are  laid  down  only  in  the  most  luxurious 
houses,  and  cost  eight  dollars  a  yard,  were  first  inanufactured  at  Philadelphia 
in  1S68.    They  had  been  imported  into  tiie  city  of  New  York  Manufac- 
froin  France    under  the   name  of  "moquette."     They  were  all  tureof 
handmade.      The    Philadelphians   undertook   their  manufacture  caliTetsin 
with  ])ower-looms,  and  succeeded  so  well,  that  the  thick,  velvety   PhiiaUei- 
prodiict,  when  placed  side  by  side  with  the  French,  could  only  ^  '"' 
be  distinguished  from  it  by  its  own  superior  texture  and  cheaper  price.     The 
French  ma  cers  were  obliged  to  lower  their  prices  one  dollar  and  two  dollars  a 
jard  to  maintain  themselves. 

Carpets  are  now  imported  only  to  a  limited  extent.  We  can  now  make  all 
ihe  ingrain,  two-ply,  three-ply,  jute,  and  hemp  carpets  that  are  used  in  this 
I  uuniry.  We  have  the  capacity  to  produce  nearly  all  the  Brussels,  importations 
tapestry,  and  Axminster  carpets  also.  The  importation  is  there-  "'■'"•y  °ver. 
lore  limited  to  Turkish  and  Persian  rugs,  and  a  few  of  the  more  elegant  and 
costly  styles  of  velvety  and  fashionable  French  and  English  carpets,  which 
fashion  desires  because  they  are  foreign-made,  and  because  it  despises  that 
wliicii  the  multitude  can  have,  no  matter  how  beautiful  and  comfortable  the 
fabric. 


I  '.i 


396 


^vii 


B^'^^if 


m  ■  ■' 


II 


'1 

i 


INDUSTRIAL    IH STORY 


SHODDV, 


One  of  the  curiosities  of  the  wooUen-mamifacture  is  described  by  the  name 
above  given,  of  which  the  country  has  heard  so  much  since  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  of  1861,  and  whicii  has  come  into  common  use  to  designate  a  class 
of  vulgar  people  who  became  suddenly  rich  by  the  war,  and  went  ahmit  the 
world  aping  the  manners  of  the  aristocracy,  without  possessing  the  rcfnicment. 
breeding,  and  true  gentleness  which  distinguisli  aristocrats  from  tiic  nst  of 
mankind  more  than  their  money.  'I'licre  is  no  need  to  tell  any  man  who 
shouldered  a  musket  for  the  Union  in  any  of  the  earlier  volunteer  rc^Mnients 
of  New- York  State  as  to  what  shoddy  is  :  he  knows  already.  Four  or  five  of 
those  early  regiments,  composed  of  the  best  young  men  of  the  best  faniilics 
of  the  State,  marched  to  the  front  clad  in  rougii,  shaggy  uniforms  of  grav, 
which  disintegrated  by  the  mere  motion  of  the  body,  filling  the  uiiden  luihes 
and  shoes  f\ill  of  short,  gritty  wool,  and  wiiich  in  two  weeks'  time  were  in 
rags,  breaking  the  hearts  of  the  men  by  tlie  shabby  si)ectacle  they  iire>ente(l 
among  the  splendidly-dressed  regiments  of  the  other  Middle  States  and  of 
New  England.  Those  uniforms  were  made  of  siioddy.  Tiiey  were  a  (ll^^ra(e 
to  the  contractors  who  put  them  ujwn  the  men,  and  an  insult  to  the  men. 
Uniforms  were  too  often  made  of  this  sort  of  cloth. 

.Mthough  the  term  "  siioddy  "  lias  become  one  of  o])prol)riuni  from  this 
incident  of  the  war,  the  thing  itself  subserves  a  useful  purpose  at  times  in  the 
Importance  manufacture  of  woollen-goods.  It  has  already  been  noted  that 
of  shoddy.  (1.,^.  wool-supplv  of  the  I'nitcd  States  has  never  been  eiiual  to  the 
demand.  Carpet  and  other  coarse  wools  have  to  be  imported,  because  the 
country  does  not  raise  all  the  wool  it  consumes,  even  at  this  late  day.  Tiie 
scarcity  of  home-grown  wool,  and  its  high  price,  have  led  manulacturers  to 
study  the  ([uestion  of  introducing  other  materials  into  their  "'oolien-doths,  for 
the  purpose  of  cheapening  them,  and  of  obtaining  an  abundant  su])ply  of  raw 
material.  The  manufacturers  have  tried  cotton,  silk,  and  tlax.  and  still  ihc 
them  in  their  goods.  Whenever  one  of  these  three  materials  rises  in  ywt 
they  resort  to  the  others,  using  always  the  cheajier  in  the  greatest  (niantity. 
They  obtained  another  idea  on  the  subject  of  raw  materials,  however,  troni 
tlngland.  It  is  well  known  that  worn-out  clothing  of  cotton  and  linen  pos- 
sesses a  certain  market-value  for  Dajiermaking.  Peddlers  and  small  dealers 
take  the  clothing  wiiich  goes  technically  by  the  name  of  "rags  "  for  a  few  ( ent'- 
a  pound,  and  sell  it  to  the  paper-makers.  But  what  is  worn-out  woollen-c  loth- 
ing  good  for?  It  has  never  been  utilized  for  paper-making.  It  is  good  for  rag- 
carpets  ;  but  the  sujierannuated  woollens  of  forty-five  millions  of  jieople,  suth 
as  we  have  in  the  United  Slates,  would  stock  the  market  with  more  rag-carpets 
in  a  year  than  would  be  consumed  in  ten  or  twenty  years.  In  England  they 
studied  the  subject  of  picking  the  old  woollen-clothing  to  pieces  again,  and 
spinning  the  fibre  afresh,     k  machine  was  finally  invented  to  pull  the  cloths  to 


OF    THE    I  XI TED    STATKS. 


397 


nieces,  and  reduce  them  to  the  condition  of  iinspnn  wool.  The  fibre  suffered 
111  tlif  process,  and  the  wool  resulting  from  it  was  of  an  exceedingly  short 
sui)ie :  Imt,  l>y  reason  of  the  peculiarly  serrated  and  barbed  nature  of  woollen- 
ilbrc,  even  tiiis  very  short  staple  could  be  spun  into  a  yarn,  especially  if  it  were 
mixed  with  a  certain  proportion  of  long  staple  ;  which  yarn  was  available  for 
(loths. 


'^\\^N«*^^^?^ 


SIIODDY-l'ICKEB. 


The    l',iij;lish    went    into   the    shoddy  -  business    to   an    onoriiious    extent. 
Vorksliiie  became  the  wareliousc  of  the  cast-oiV  j^arments  and  hosiery  of  all 
l;iri)|ii.'.     'I'Ik'so   garments   were   t  arefuUy  assorted    there,  selling   ^^    ^^^ 
Mr  from   fifty  dollars  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  ton,  and   use  of 
wore  converted   into  shoddy  wool  bv  the   machinerv  set    tip  for   »f'°<i^>' ''y 

•'  -  -  '  English. 

die  i)iiii)ose,  and  sold  to  the  Kngiish  woollen  -  manuiactiirers. 
Tho  putting  of  shoddy  into  genuine  wool  was  a  clear  adulteration  of  the 
l.ittor.  The  completed  cloth  could  be  called  "all-wool  goods,"  and  sold  for 
'.he  iii.irket-valuc  of  such  goods  ;  yet  it  was  not  "all  wool  "  in  tho  right  sense 
ii!  the  term,  as  the  defrauded  l)iiyer  ijuickly  found  out  after  i)utting  on  a  suit 
I'l  1  iuthes  in  which  shoddy  was  present  in  any  considerable  proportion.  The 
>ho(l(ly  would  shake  and  rub  out  into  his  underclothing,  and  irritate  his 
inrson  ;  while  every  pocket  and  lining  would  gather  balls  of  loose,  gritty  wool, 
which  would  interfere  with  his  enjoyment  of  the  clothing.  This  was  the 
-huddy  working  out,  as  it  invariably  will  work  out  whenever  shoddy  goods 
ire  worn.  Hut  the  Kngiish  did  not  care,  because  the  larger  part  of  their 
wooiluns  were  sent  abroad  ;  and  they  suffered  no  pangs  of  conscience  as  long 


['■■•■ffrrtrfyr*' 


39« 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


as  it  was  somebody  else's  skin  which  was  scratched  by  the  shoddy,  and  not 
their  own. 

Since  1861  (and  possibly  from  a  little  earlier  date)  shoddy  has  lioen  made 
in  the  United  States.  There  are  only  about  a  dozen  mills  in  tlic  Imsiness  • 
y^^^j  these  are  chiedy  in  the  East.     Shoddy  is  not  much  'isrd  in  this 

•hoddy  in  Country  ;  but  it  is  somewhat.  Respectable  manufacturer^  aro  very 
the  United  careful  about  putting  it  into  their  cloths,  because,  if  tluy  ),'aini  1 
a  reputation  for  using  sho(hly,  it  would  injure  their  goods.  When 
ever  the  price  of  wool  goes  up,  however,  shoddy  comes  into  demand.  The 
material  is  employed  also  openly  in  the  manufacture  of  certain  (lasses  ot 
goods.  In  druggets,  table-covers,  heavy  over-coatings,  and  various  telted 
goods,  it  is  regularly  present,  its  utilization  being  justified  on  the  ground  tiiai 
it  saves  expense  to  the  human  race,  and  is  a  means  of  turning  to  use  wliat 
would  otherwise  be  utterly  valueless.  The  buyer  must,  however,  always  jlld(r^. 
for  Iiimself  whetiier  the  fine  coatings  he  is  looking  over  in  the  shop  have  nut 
shoddy  in  them  also  ;  for  some  manufacturers  think  a  certain  percentage  of  it  m 
their  cassimeres  does  no  harm,  but  too  often  I'ley  outstep  the  bounds  of  safety 
in  the  proportion  used.  Shoddy  costs  usually  about  ten  cents  a  jjound,  and 
wool  fifty.     The  temptation  to  use  the  former  is,  therefore,  strong. 

Woollen-rags  are  reduced  to  shoddy  by  a  cylinder  three  feet  in  diame- 
ter, the  surface  of  which  is  studded,  like  the  club  of  a  giant  of  fable,  with  steel 
t  th  an  inch  long,  and  half  an  inch  apart.  The  cylinder  makes  about  five 
hundred  revolutions  a  minute.  The  rags  fed  down  upon  it  are  torn  apart  by 
the  speed  of  the  teeth  ;  all  rags  which  are  not  reduced  to  fibre  falling  bade 
by  their  own  weight,  to  be  caught  and  buffeted  again. 

During  the  war,  and  up  to  1S6S,  shoddy  was  imported  at  the  rate  of  from 
five  million  to  eight  million  pounds  a  year.  The  importation  is  now  a  few 
hundred  thousand  pounds  only.  The  consumption  in  the  United  States  has 
been  as  high  as  twenty-five  million  pounds  a  year. 

CLOTHING. 

The  manufacture  of  clothing  grew  up  from  the  very  humble  beginning  ol 
shops  in  the  cities  stnmg  along  the  AUantic  seaboard  for  j)roviding  sailors  witii 
*'  Slop-  their  outfit  for  voyages.     They  were  called  "  slop-shops."     They 

■hopt."  ^ere  part  of  a  very  bad  system  for  plundering  the  tar  of  the 
earnings  o*"  his  voyage  while  he  was  on  shore,  still  practised  to  a  very  great 
extent  in  commercial  cities  by  the  sailor  boarding-house  keepers.  The  idea 
was  and  is  to  lay  hold  of  Jack  the  moment  he  comes  ashore,  board  him, 
lead  him  into  extravagances,  supply  him  with  an  outfit  for  the  new  voy 
age,  get  from  the  ship-master  an  advance  of  a  month's  wages,  and,  if  the 
tar  is  not  enough  in  the  landlord's  debt  to  consume  all  the  money,  then 
to  get  him  drunk,  and  put   him  aboard   the  ship,  with  enough  "  slops,"  or 


.\.* 


OF    THE    UMTKD    STATES, 


399 


ready  niade  clotliing,  charged  for  at  enormous  rates,  to  wipe  olT  the  balance. 
Of  (uiiisf,  ready -matlc  clotliing  had  to  be  kept  on  hand  in  order  to  carry  out 
the  system.  From  this  humble  origin  has  sprung  a  trade  in  ready-made 
clothing  which  has  led  to  the  erection  of  such  palaces  of  industry  and 
libiiiiiii  as  may  be  seen  now  in  every  large  city  in  the  country,  inland  and 
(oinincrcial,  for  supplying  the  masses  of  the  people  with  the  woollen  clothing 
they  wear  during  the  varying  seasons  and  upon  all  the  different  sorts  of  social 
occasions. 

The  second  step  in  the  clothing-business  was  taken  by  the  Jews  of  New. 
York  City.  These  industrious  people,  who  possess  in  a  remarkable  tlegree  the 
insiiiu  t  and  faculty  of  trade,  congregated  on  that  (pieer,  crooked,  ciothe»- 
aiK  iciit  street  which  runs  down  hill  northward  from  City-hall  cleansing  by 
r.irk,  and  then  up  hill  again  to  the  liowery.  whicii  is  known  the  ^'^*' 
cdimti'v  over  as  Chatham  Street  and  the  resort  of  old  clothes-dealers  and 
[lawn-sliop  keejiers.  'I'hese  peojjle  bought  clothing  partly  worn,  and  cleaned 
and  renovated  it,  and  sold  it  as  new  ;  and  afterwards  added  to  their  business 
that  of  fabricating  new  clothing  from  half-spoiled  goods,  such  as  those  rescued 
ill  a  wet  and  heated  condition  from  burning  buildings,  &c.  The  customers  of 
the  t'liatham-street  stores  were  poor  jieople.  The  well-to-do  had  their  clothes 
made  cither  at  home  by  their  own  families  or  by  employed  seamstresses,  or 
had  tlK'iii  cut  and  made  to  order  at  tailor-slio])s  established  solely  to  secure 
the  i)atr<)iiage  of  prosperous  people.  Farmers  generally  lia<l  their  clothing 
made  at  iKJine,  often  from  the  strong  though  rough  goods  spun  and  woven  by 
the  girls  and  women  of  the  family.  In  the  cities,  large  and  small,  cutting  and 
inakiiij,'  were  generally  done  at  the  tailor-shops.  Coats  were  made  of  blue  or 
black  goods,  waistcoats  of  llaming  red,  of  buff,  an<l  of  white  or  black,  and 
trousers  of  black  generally,  though  grays  and  browns  were  liked.  In  1834 
and  iiS^5  the  wholesale  manufacture  of  ready-made  clothing  for  well-to-do 
and  fashionable  people  began  in  New  York  on  a  small  scale  ;  and  since  then 
the  business  has  extended  step  by  step,  the  manufacturers  catering  to  every 
class  of  society,  until  now  the  home-manufacture  of  men's  garments  has 
virtually  ceased,  and  every  one,  from  ploughman  to  railroad-president,  goes  to 
the  store  for  his  goods,  and  can  be  suited,  if  he  chooses,  from  the  shelves  of 
the  store  at  once.  For  a  long  time  there  was  a  prejudice  among  the  more 
lasliioiiable  buyers  against  ready-made  goods.  They  did  not  always  fit ;  and 
tailors  did  much  to  deepen  the  i)rejudice  by  their  tricks  in  trying  to  sell  to 
iiulisc  riininating  customers  garments  which  did  not  become  them,  in  order  not 
to  lose  a  bargain.  How  often  has  not  the  tailor  drawn  up  before  the  mirror  a 
mail  whose  mind  runs  ordinarily  on  better  themes  than  his  clothes,  —  and  who, 
therefore,  is  not  a  judge  of  a  fit,  —  and  shown  him  with  one  hand  how  beautifully 
a  coat  fitted  across  the  chest,  while  with  the  other  hand  he  took  a  large  reef  in 
the  bagging  back  so  as  to  pro(',uce  the  jjarticular  phenomenon  to  which  he 
drew  attention  !     It  used  to  be  said  of  an  un[)opular  man,  as  a  parting  shot, 


lUJi4 


400 


INDl'STKIAL    HISTORY 


m^  \M 


irfi^'^f 


after  the  vocalnilary  of  vituperation  had  been  exhausted,  "  and  his  ( lo(i,c, 
do'i't  fit."  For  fear  that  his  own  dotlies  wouldn't  fit,  tveryl)ody  clmij;  id  the 
habit  of  having  his  suits  made  to  order.  Hut  eitiier  tailors  have  urowii  more 
honest  with  the  civili/ing  influences  of  the  age,  or  their  assortment  of  ^ockK  is 
now  made  in  greater  variety  ;  for  every  one  can  secure  an  excellent  lit  at 
any  ready-made  dothing-store  ;  and  the  majority  of  mankind  clepend  luiou 
the  shelf  and  the  counter  for  their  suits  and  overcoats,  rather  than  ii|j()ii  il„. 
measuring-tape  and  shears.  \  good  fit  can  be  obtained  even  for  dress  suits. 
The  manufacturers  have  found  it  to  their  advantage  to  increase  the  resonn  cs 
of  their  establishments ;  and  great  fortunes  have  been  made  from  ready  made 
clothing  within  the  last  twenty  years  in  lioston,  New  York,  i'hiladi  l|pliia. 
I'hicago,  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati.  IJaltimore.  ami  elsewhere.  The  slopsii(i|i,  still 
exist  :  Chatham  Street  still  i)reserves  its  distinctive  reputation,  livery  ( ilv  nf 
any  si/e  has  its  second-hand  clothing-stores.  Miit  the  business  has  grown  so 
far  l)eyt)nd  those  pioneer  institutions,  that  one  wonders,  with  the  amij^Mul 
turkey-gobbler  of  mature  years,  how  it  could  ever  have  been  hatched  Irdiu  so 
insignificant  a  shell. 

The  census  of  1.S70  showed  tliat  the  establishments  for  manuta<-turing  the 
clothing  of  men  and  l)oys  had  increased  to  7,^58:  they  einplDyed  loS.ijS 
Magnitude  hands,  consumed  ;S.S6, 794.000  ••vorth  of  mateii.iU,  paid  oui 
of  businesi.  5^0,745.000  for  wages,  and  created  clothing  worth,  at  market 
l)ri<  es,  the  large  sum  of  Si4S.6f)(i,<)n().  The  invention  of  the  sewing  ni:i(liiiu- 
about  1S50,  ami  its  sultsequent  sale  by  the  lens  of  thousands,  gave  a  great 
impulse  to  this  business  l)y  (  heapeniiig  the  goods  and  imparting  r.ipidity  to  the 
manufacture.  The  <  lothing-establishinents  and  tiieir  operatives  have  linn  tin- 
best  customers  of  the  sewing-mac  hine  factorie  The  war,  also,  gave  an  iinpuNe 
to  the  business.  The  uniforms  for  the  troo^  .tcre  bought  from  the  readv- 
made  c  lothiers  chiefly.  They,  having  the  f.icilities  and  ex|)erieiu  e  needeil  for 
the  i)roduction  of  large  (luantilies  of  clothing,  obtained  most  of  the  contracts 
for  the  i)urpose. 

HOSIF.RY. 

This  term  includes  not  only  stockings,  but  knit  goods  for  underwear.  I'iiis 
is  one  of  the  classes  of  goods  consumed  by  the  great  masses  of  the  people.— 
consumed,  in  fact,  by  all.  —  for  whic  h  the  coimtry  was  fcirinerly 
almost  entirely  deirt.'n(lent  ujKJn  Kngland,  but  in  regard  to  \vhi(  h  it 
is  now  independent  of  all  foreign  countries.  Parliament  forbade  the  e^porta 
tion  of  knitting-frames  to  the  colonies  of  America  in  order  to  secnre  tiii 
exportation  of  the  manufactured  goods.  Nearly  all  the  knit  ca])s,  hose, 
doublets,  &c.,  which  were  sold  in  the  general  market  in  that  era,  were  const- 
quently  imported.  The  ladies  knit  for  their  own  fomilies  ;  but  few  could  knit 
for  the  general  market,  'the  cnterjjrising  State  of  Virginia  offered  a  premium 
of  ten  pounds  of  tobacco  in  1662  for  every  dozen  pairs  of  v.oollen  or  worsted 


Knit  goods. 


Ol-    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


401 


storkinps  ;  hut  this  dcvi<  e  (hd  httlc  toward  supplying  the  general  market  with 
Amu  I  i(. Ill  made  goods.     Little  was  achieved  in  tiiat  particular  <hre(  tion  until 
the  -,11)1  king  loom  was  imported,  which  was  linally  actouipIisi»ed  in  spite  of  the 
CcriitTUS  of  the  Itritish  custom-house. 
Aliitiit   1723  stockings  were  wosi'u  in 
(■|K'4cr  County,  Pennsylvania,  by  John 
t'aiiiiii.and  they  obtained  some  repute. 
The  loom  itself  made  little  prt)gres3, 
lumever,  until  the  Revolution,  when  a 
l.iruir  supply  of  hose  was  needed,  and 
wluii  direct  em ouragement  was  given, 
ill  tlu'  shape  of  premiums  and  grants, 
for  llie  estahlishment  of  stocking-fac- 
tories 111  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  New 
York.      I'lien    several    stocKiiig-loonis 
were   started  here   and  there.      After 
the    Revolution,   weaving   continued  ; 
iiiit  it  was  a  hand  process,  and  there- 
fore  slow,   antl    the    imported    goods 
were  ( lieapiT.     The  business,  though 
filtered  in  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  and 
Connecticut,  where  it  was  print  ipally 
tarrieil  on,  tliil    not    expand    rai)idly 
until   kSji,  when  Timothy  IJailey  of 
Alluiiy  applied    power  to  the   lianil- 
looiii,    and    made    it   a    power-loom. 
Tlieii    .American    hosiery    became    a 
factory  rather  than  a  household   product,  and  began  to  hold  its  own  in  the 
market.     Up  to  this  time,  all  the  knitting  by  machinery  resulted  in  the  pro- 
tliu  lion  of  a  flat  web  only.      The  stocking  was  made  from  the  web  by  lieing 
cut  out  in  the  riglit    pattern  and   sewed  together.     .About  twenty  years  ago 
the  maciiiiie  to  knit  a  circular  and  seamless  webb  was  invented,  by  whom  is 
not.  known.      This  gave  a  new  imiietus  to   American   hosiery,  and   resulted 
in  tiie  entire  defeat  of  foreign    hosiery,   and   the    stojijiage  of  importations 
exce|)t  for  the  consumption  of  |)cople  who  have  tiie  silly  idea  that  foreign 
goods  are  necessarily  more  beautiful,  aristocratic,  and  exclusive  than  tnose 
made  by  their  own  more  intelligent  anil  enterprising  countrymen,     but  the 
iiiijiortations  have  become  very  small. 

On  hosiery  and  knit  goods  there  are  engaged  now  about  a  hundred  and 
fifty  mills,  almost  wholly  su])plying  the  market.     Some  of  the  de-   Progress  in 
parl'nents  of  manufacture  are  new  since  1867,  and  a  large  share  business, 
are  since    1S64.      The    progress   made    in   this    branch    of   manufacture    is 
astonishing,  as  the   United   States   now   make   almost   all   the   under-goods, 


LAMII   KNITTING-MACIIINB. 


%:  r. 


■)'■■■'  '        t 


U<  -*ft  ^-^ 


W^rTfrf^f 


402 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


mu 


:a 


stockings,  hosiery,  scarfs,  neck-comforts,  opera-hoods,  &c.,  which  they  consume 

amounting    to    about    forty    million 
*W^^^  dollars  annually.     Not  only  arc  the 

^^5J|iP|^^  goods  woven    circular,    but    wiihi„ 

Sf^^^       1^^  ten   or   fifteen    years   the  niamilk;- 

turers  have  succeeded  in  making 
goods  which  are  fitted  to  the  ton," 
and  in  making  them,  not  by  iiaml, 
but  by  macliinery,  and  surinissing 
in  (luality  the  goods  made  abruad. 
American  wool,  with  its  long,  -flossy 
staple,  is  well  fitte<l  to  the  produc- 
tion of  this  class  of  fabrics;  and 
American  competition  has  not  only 
succeeded  in  taking  possession  of 
the  home-market  for  American  ])iod-. 
ucts,  but  in  cutting  down  prices 
from  ten  dollars  to  six  dollars  a. 
dozen.  Thus  they  are  put  within 
the  reach  of  persons  having  only 
very  small  means ;  l)ut,  alas  lor 
our  grandmothers  !  their  occupation 
has  i)een  sadly  interni])led.  'i'hcy 
ought  to  get  consolation  in  thinking 
that  their  loss  is  the  people's  gain  ;  but  it  is  to  be  feared  that  many  of  tlicm 
are  too  unreasoning  to  consider  the  subject  in  this  comfortable  light.  !''cw, 
who  can  afford  better,  will  prefer  the  unevenly  stitched  grandmother  stoc  king 
to  the  i^recisely  made  fal)ric  of  the  machine  :  so  that,  comi)lain  as  l)ittcrly 
as  the  grandmothers  may,  the  day  of  home-made  stockings  is  rapidly  going 
by.  The  i)rincipal  centres  of  the  industry  are  Philadelphia,  Penn.,  and 
Cohoes,  N.Y. 


mCKFORl)  KNITTING-MACHINE. 


OF    THE     UNITED    STATES. 


403 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE    MANUFACTURE   OF   COTTON. 


TT  is  not  known  when  totton  spinning  and  weaving  began  in  the  world ;  but 
I  the  rcronl  of  it  ,l;oi's  hack  to  the  earliest  ages  of  which  we  have  any  knowl- 
edge,    i'rohalil)    no   l)etter  illustration   of    the   anticjuity  of   th.*   ^      ^j^ 
industry  can  be  given  than  the  interesting  legend  of  the  voyage  of  cotton  spin- 
lason  and  the  Argonauts  in  search  of  the  (lolden   Meece*     Like   "'"e»"'' 

weaving. 

all  liiose  ancient  fables,  the  story  about  the  voyage  of  Jason  rests 

upun  a  basis  of  f k  t  ;  I)ut  this  fable  differs  from  some  of  the  others  in  the  cir- 
cumstance that  we  know  what  tiie  basis  of  fact  probably  is.  Jason's  expedition 
w;^  siinjily  an  attempt  to  rea<  h  India,  by  way  of  the  Black  Sea  and  some 
overland  route  thence,  to  ol)tain  a  (juantity  of  cotton,  —  a  beautiful  fleece  grow- 
ing on  a  tree,  whi(  h  it  was  reported  that  India  was  cultivating,  and  which 
pruduccd  garments  far  superior  in  softness  and  beauty  to  those  of  wool  then 
cxdusively  worn  in  tiie  West.  The  (".reeks  of  that  age,  with  all  their  intelli- 
gfiice,  were  more  than  half  |)irates  ;  and  Jason's  voyage  was  sim]>ly  a  search 
for  jdunder.  The  cotton -manufacture  attained  perfection  in  India  at  a  very 
early  date.  The  cotton  was  spun  by  hand,  and  woven  by  hand :  but  the 
in'ojile  were  inventive,  and  the  mild  and  moist  climate  of  the  region  was 
favorable  to  the  jjroduction  of  delicate  fabrics  ;  and.  when  Kuropeans  began 
to  trade  with  Imlia  actively,  the  natives  were  already  making  textures  so  fairy- 
like, that  they  resembled  cobwebs  when  spread  upon  the  grass,  and  were 
invisible  when  wet  with  the  dew. 

From  India  the  cotton-manufacture  spread  in  both  d'rections  around  the 
wodd.  Thick  cotton-cloths  began  to  be  used  for  tents  and  awnings  in 
Southern  Europe  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era.  The  spread  of 
cotton-plant  spread  slowly  along  through  the  coinHries  in  the  cotton-man- 
south  of  Asia  until  it  finally  reached  l\gyi)t.  The  filire  was  "'"«=*""• 
inil)orted  to  Italy  in  the  middle  ages,  and  shipments  of  it  re.acheil  England 
about  1640.  'i'he  fibre  was  greatly  a  Imired  in  luirope,  and  all  the  industrial 
nations  of  that  part  of  the  wodd  fell  to  manufacturing  it  upon  as  large  a  scale 
as  wxs  consistent  with  the  small  supi)ly  of  the  raw  material.     The  process  of 


404 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


manufacture  was  greatly  improved  by  the  invention  of  a  large  number  of 
machines.  From  Europe  the  manufticture  extended  west  to  America.  The 
plant,  however,  was  found  growing  wild  here  when  the  Europeans  landed. 
They  did  not  bring  the  plant,  but  only  the  processes  of  manufacture.  I'he 
Indians  were  already  working  it  up  into  rude  cloths,  and  pieces  of  armor 
before  they  came.  In  America  the  manufacture  reached  a  perfection  never 
before  attained,  as  far  as  tlie  production  of  the  classes  of  goods  consumed  in 
large  quantities  by  the  population  of  tho  continent  is  concerned.  In  the  ,ear 
of  our  Lord  1878  we  find  the  art,  which  has  come  down  to  us  from  at  leist 
thirty  centuries  ago,  practised  on  this  continent  —  the  farthest  i)oint  westwanl 
it  can  go  —  upon  a  scale  of  which  the  ancients  of  the  land  of  its  birth  never 
dreamed  in  their  most  exalted  moments.  A  thousand  great  factories  are 
engaged  in  the  business,  many  of  them  employing  600  operatives,  and  all 
of  them  performing  all  the  processes  of  spinning,  weaving,  finishing,  d\eini,', 
and  decorating,  by  the  aid  of  ingenious  machines  which  are  driven  by  the 
forces  of  nature,  and  which  work  so  fast,  that,  whereas  there  are  only  about 
136,000  operatives  employed  in  those  thousand  factories,  the  product  of 
cloth  and  hosiery  every  year  is  eiiual  to  the  ])roduct  of  the  labor  of  40,- 
000,000  people  working  with  the  simple  appliances  of  the  birthplace  of  the 
cotton-industry.  Such  is  the  development  which  the  manufacture  has  rcachcci 
in  its  journey  westward  round  the  world ;  and  it  seems  destined  to  reach  a 
yet  greater  development. 

The  industry  started  upon  the  journey  eastward  around  the  world  at  an 
earlier  date.  It  was  introduced  to  China,  by  a  ruler  who  presiiled  over  both 
China  and  India,  before  the  Christian  era.  A  native  of  India  reached  Japan, 
the  utmost  limit  of  its  progress  in  that  direction,  as  early  as  759  A.I).  The 
manufacture  egan  actively  in  Japan  as  early  as  1558  .'\.l).,  —  at  east  a  century 
earlier  than  it  did  in  England.  It  is  striking  to  notice  the  differences  of  its 
subsequent  development  in  the  two  quarters  of  the  earth,  —  the  East  and  the 
West.  In  1878  Japan  has  few  if  any  native  cotton-factories  which  employ 
more  than  thirty  or  forty  workmen.  There  has  been  no  invention  of  ma- 
chinery, and  no  progress.  The  fibre  is  spim  by  hand,  and  woven  by  hand.  It 
is  ginned,  one  pod  at  a  time,  by  passing  it  between  a  pair  of  wooden  rollers 
an  inch  in  diameter.  It  is  prepared  for  spinning,  not  by  carding,  but  by 
gathering  it  before  the  workman,  and  applying  to  it  the  twanging-string  of  a 
large  bow,  which  causes  the  fibres  to  fly  up,  antl  arrange  themselves  in  falling 
in  a  lap.  The  whole  industry  stands  just  where  it  did  a  thousand  year,  ago ; 
and  the  only  symptoms  of  a  new  order  of  things  in  that  ancient  realm  are  pre- 
sented l)y  the  erection  of  a  very  few  Anieri(uin  and  lOuropean  cotton-fictorios, 
with  machinery  and  power,  within  the  past  few  years.  The  older  nation 
borrows  from  the  younger  ones  the  ideas  which  are  necessary  to  her  progress 
and  regeneration.  Couh'  there  be  a*  more  interesting  illustration  of  how 
much  farther  the  sons  of  Japhet  have  run  in  the  race  of  civilization  than  the 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


405 


sons  of  Shem  since  they  parted  company  on  the  plains  of  Asia  Minor  in  the 
(lauii  of  history? 

Ancient  as  is  the  origin  of  the  manufacture  of  cotton,  the  active  develop- 
ment of  the  industry  in  Europe  and  America  is  of  very  recent  date.     In  1770 
tiiu  consumption  of  raw  cotton  in  France  was  only  sixteen  hundred  ^^jj^g  j 
tons  a  year:   in  England  it  was  only  twenty-five  hundred  tons  a  vciopmentof 

vcar.     In  that  year  America  sent  to  Europe  her  first  venture  in   »"'*"»*»'y°' 
.  -'  '  recent  date. 

(•()iti)n :  it  was  only  a  ton.  In  1 784  eight  bales  shipped  from 
(.'h.iilcston,  S.C.,  were  seized  in  England  by  the  custom-house  authorities  on 
the  ground  that  so  large  a  cjuantity  of  cotton  could  not  have  been  produced 
in  tlie  United  States.  It  is  since  1770  that  this  industry,  now  of  such  mag- 
nitk'cnt  proportions,  cmi)loying  so  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  human^ 
beings,  has  attained  its  stature. 

The  cotton-plant  being  native  to  the  soil  of  this  continent,  and  the  fleece 
being  desirable  for  spinning,  the  plant  was  cultivated  somewhat  in  the  Southern 
States  during  the  few  years  immetliately  preceding  the  Revolutionary  war.  It 
was  raised  as  a  door-yard  plant  at  first.  A  great  deal  of  attention  was  paid  to 
tiie  capabilities  of  cotton  on  account  of  the  scarcity  of  wool,  of  which  there 
was  a  very  inadecpiate  supply  in  this  country ;  and  the  fibre  was  spun  to  a 
very  considerable  extent  by  the  maids  and  matrons  of  the  Revolutionary 
period  North  and  South.  In  1787  a  first  timid  venture  at  a  regular  manufac- 
ture was  made  in  New  England  at  the  village  of  Beverly,  Mass., 
where  a  small  concern  v.-as  started  to  weave  corduroys  and  bed- 
ticks.  Tlie  machinery  was  of  a  very  rude  description.  The  fac- 
tory had  ^9,000  capital,  and  it  received  a  grant  of  ^1,000  from 
the  State  of  Massachusetts.  It  managed  to  thrive  for  fifteen  years, 
when  it  suddenly  failed,  owing  to  the  building  of  better  mills,  with  which 
it  could  not  compete  on  account  of  their  better  machinery.  Another  small 
factory  was  started  about  the  same  time  at  East  Bridgewater,  Mass.,  the  State 
making  a  grant  of  ;^20o  pounds  to  help  it  along.  In  1 78S  Brown  &  Almy 
starteil  n  small  factory  at  Providence  for  making  homespun  cloth.  In  1790 
a  venture  was  m.ide  by  Samuel  Slater,  an  luiglishman  who  hail  samuei 
come  to  the  United  States  for  the  sake  of  finding  a  field  wherein  siater. 
to  practise  his  chosen  cmi)loyiTient  of  spinning  and  weaving  to  better  advan- 
tage than  in  ICngland.  Slater  was  an  apprentice  of  Strutt,  the  partner  of  Ark- 
wriglit,  who  in  1 769  had  invented  the  drawing-frame  for  drawing  out  the  rolls 
or  slivers  of  cotton  in  order  to  lay  the  fibres  parallel.  That  quarter  of  a 
century  was  a  time  of  great  excitement  in  the  cottcn-trade  in  England,  owing 
to  the  rapid  succession  of  important  inventions  for  spinning  and  weaving  which 
were  coming  into  use.  In  1767  James  Hargreaves  had  improved  jamea 
the  spinning-wheel  employed  in  his  own  house  by  making  one  "•'■^"•vea. 
wheel  drive  eight  spindles  instead  of  one.  In  1769  Arkwright  had  invented 
the  drawing-frame.     In  1 784  Crompton  had  invented  the  mule-spinner,  in 


First  manu- 
facture of 
cotton  in 
New  Eng- 
land. 


4o6 


IND  US  TRIA  L    HIS  TOK  Y 


which  the  spindles  were  mounted  upon  a  movable  frame,  which  would  run  out 
five  or  six  feet  and  strctcli  the  thread  as  it  was  twisting,  and  would  nm  ji^ 
again  in  order  to  permit  the  thread  to  lie  wound  u|)on  the  siiindles.  'I'lie 
mule-spinner  was  able  to  carry  a  iunidred  and  thirty  spindles  instead  of  tiylu; 
and  in  1790,  when  water-power  was  applied  to  it,  it  carried  four  iiundred  ^u\\\. 
illes.     Improvements  were  made  in  cardinti  in  that  era  aKd    nul 

Cartwright.  ,,..-,•  ,     ,  ' 

m  1785  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cartwngiit  mvented  tiie  power-loom.  Ii  u.i.s 
just  at  this  time  that  the  steam-engine  was  being  invented.  Mnglaiid  was 
greatly  agitated  by  this  remarkal)le  machine,  and  tlic  business  tjf  tlu' cotton- 
manufacture  at  once  assumed  a  vast  importance  in  the  eyes  of  lOnglish  st.itcs- 
men.  The  various  discneries  were  kept  as  secret  as  possible.  ■  None  of  thu 
new  machines  were  allowed  to  go  out  of  the  country,  especially  to  .AuKriia; 
ami  England  tried  in  every  way  to  maintain  a  mono])oIy  of  her  discoveries. 
It  is  due  to  that  fact  that  the  Heverly  mill,  started  in  Massacliusetts  in  17X7, 
contained  none  of  the  improved  machinery  in  use  in  I-'.ngland.  Samuel  Slater 
was  the  first  man  that  brougiit  to  .America  a  knowledge  of  tiiat  machinerv  anil 
its  use.  In  partnership  with  .Almy  &  llrown.  Slater  put  \\\t  at  i'rovideme,  in 
1790,  the  whole  set  of  new  ma<'hines  used  and  inverted  by  .Arkwright  for  the 
spinning  of  cotton,  which  lie  made  from  recollection  with  liis  own  hands.  This 
was  the  real  beginning  of  tlie  cotton-manufacture  in  the  L  nited  Slates.  In 
1 793  the  three  men  built  a  new  mill  at  I'awtucket.  Neither  of  the  two  mills 
had  more  than  seventy-two  si)indies. 

The  beginnings  of  an  attempt  to  practise  so  im])ortant  an  indnstrv  in 
regular  factories  could  not  fail  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  when  that  body  organized  under  die  Constitution.  In  order 
that  Congress  migiit  be  fully  informed  in  regard  to  this  subject,  .Alexander 
Hamilton  obtained  the  facts  of  the  situation  as  it  tiien  existed,  and  in  Decem- 
ber, 1 791,  made  the  following  mention  of  the  industry  in  his  famous  report  to 
Congress  on  manufactures  :  — 

"  Manufactories  of  cotton-goods  not  long  since  estal)lishecl  at  Revedy, 
Mass.,  and  at  Providence  in  the  Slate  of  Riiode  Island,  and  conducted  with  a 
perseverance  corresponding  with  tiie  patriotic  ir.otives  which  began  them,  seem 
Early  goods  to  have  Overcome  the  first  obstacles  to  success,  producing  (ordu- 
produced.  xo'^'o,  vtlvercts,  fustians,  jeans,  and  other  similar  articles,  of  aijiiality 
which  will  bear  a  comparison  with  the  like  articles  brought  from  Mam  hester. 
The  one  at  Providence  has  the  merit  of  being  the  first  in  introducing  into  the 
United  States  the  celebrated  cotton-mill  [meaning  die  s|)inning-inule],  which 
not  only  fiirnishes  materials  for  that  manufactory  itself,  but  for  the  sui)i)iy  of 
private  families  for  household  manufacture.  Other  manufactories  of  the  same 
material,  as  regular  businesses,  have  also  been  begun  at  different  ])laces  in  the 
State  of  Connecticut,  but  all  upon  a  smaller  scale  tiian  tiiose  abo-  ^leiitioned. 
Some  essays  are  also  making  in  the  printing  and  staining  of  cotton-goods, 
There  are  several  small  establishments  of  this  kind  already  on  foot." 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


407 


In  anotlicr  part  of  the  report  Hamilton  says, — 

••'Ihcrc  is  something  in  the  texture  of  this  material  [cotton]  which  adapts 
it  in  :i  peculiar  degree  to  the  application  of  maciiines.  .  .  .  Tiiis  very  im- 
nDiiaiil  circumstance  recommends  the  fabrics  of  cotton  in  a  more 

I"'  Hamilton's 

jKiriii  iilar  manner  to  a  country  in  \vhicii  a  defect  of  hands  con-   report  on 
siiiulcs  the  greatest  obstacle  to  success.     The  variety  and  extent   cotton-man- 

111  •  r     1  ■  ufacture. 

ol  the  uses  to  which  tiie  manutactures  of  this  article  are  applica- 
lilc  is  another  i)owerful  argument  in  its  favor.  And  the  faculty  of  the  United 
St.iirs  to  produce  the  taw  material  in  abundance,  and  of  a  (luality,  which, 
tlu>iii;li  alleged  to  be  inferior  to  some  that  is  produced  in  other  ijuartcrs,  is, 
ncvcitlieless,  capable  of  being  used  with  advantage  in  many  fiibrics,  and  is 
prcii'.ibly  susceptible  of  being  carried,  by  a  more  experienced  culture,  to  a 
niiu  h  greater  perleciion.  suggests  an  additional  and  a  very  cogent  induce- 
iiKiit  to  tile  vigorous  pursuit  of  the  cotton  brain  ii  in  its  several  subdivisions. 
How  nuu  li  has  been  already  done  has  been  stated  in  a  preceding  part  of  this 
a'lmrt.  In  addition  to  this,  it  may  lie  announced  that  a  sex  iety  is  torming 
with  a  ( apital  which  is  expected  to  be  extended  to  at  least  half  a  million  of 
di)liars  ;  on  behalf  of  which  measures  arc  already  in  train  for  prosecuting,  on 
a  Lu'^e  scale,  the  making  and  i)rinting  of  cotton-goods." 

Hamilton  advocated   protection  for  the  new   industry.     lie  thought  the 
duty  of  three  cents  a  jjound  on  the  raw  material  should  be  re]icalcd,  because 
very  little   cotton  was  being   raised    in    this   country.     Hamilton   Hamilton's 
beheved,  evidently,  that   very  little  would    ever   be    raised    here,   advocacy  of 
He  thought  hemp-raising  should  bo  protected,  but  said,  "Cotton   p''°"='^*'°"- 
has  not  the  same  pretensions  with  hemp  to  form  an  exception  to  the  general 
rule.     Not  being,  like  hemp,  a  universal  production  of  the  country,  it  affords 
less  assurance  of  an  adecpiate  internal  supply ;  but  the  chief  objection  arises 
from  the  doubts  which  are  entertained  concerning  the  quality  of  the  national 
cotton."     Hamilton  advised  a  bounty  of  one  cent  a  pound  on  cloth  exported, 
anil  one  cent  more  if  the  cotton  used  was  Americ  an  grown.     The  suggestions 
of  the  secretary  were  not,  however,  carried  out.     The  duty  on  raw  cotton  was 
retained,  as   also   a   duty  of  seven    per  cent  and   a   half  on   manufactures, 
enacted  in  1 790.     The  American  cotton  was  a  great  deal  better  than  Ham'lton 
was  aware  of,  and  there  was  no  need  of  following  his  suggestions. 

It  will  have  been  ol)ser\'ed  that  Slater's  original  enterprise  was  for  the 
spinning  of  cotton  merely.  The  Beverly  mill  wove  ;  but  Slater's  did  not. 
The  weaving  of  that  day  was  done  with  sufTicieiit  speed  and  character  of 
economy  in  private  families.  The  household  was  the  factory  Slater's 
of  1790.  No  public  need  really  existed  for  setting  up  factories  *"'^'P'"' 
for  performing  what  could  as  well  be  done  by  the  family  fireside  ;  and  the 
only  thing  for  which  there  existed  a  positive  want  was  the  means  for  jjro- 
ducing,  on  a  large  scale,  a  cheap  and  abundant  sujiply  of  yarn.  Slater's 
venture  went  no  farther,  therefore,  at  first,  than  the  spinning  of  cotton-yarn 


IH 


■lii       «,  >; 


iifc  ?lt^ 


^yii< 


Yii  3 


408 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


for  distribution  to  the  families  of  the  neigliborhood,  to  be  woven  by  tlicm  into 
the  clotli  they  iieeilecl  for  themselves,  or  which  they  desired  to  sell. 

Within  four  years  from  the  tine  of  building  Samuel  Slater's  liitl,  old 
wooden  mill,  however,  tlie  cotton-business  took  a  tremendous  start.  Mni;l,in{l 
had  done  mucii  for  the  business  by  originating  machines  for  working  u|)  the 
fleece  of  the  cotton-plant  into  yarn  and  cloth.  The  United  States  were  ikiw  to 
do  move  for  the  cotton-manufacture  than  Arkwright  or  C'rompton  ever  dieaincil 
Whitney's  o'",  and  all  bv  one  simple  invention.  In  ijyi  Mli  Whitney  of 
cotton-gin.  Massachusetts,  wlio  liad  gone  to  Cieorgia  as  a  private  tutor,  was 
one  day  a  guest  in  the  family  of  Mrs.  (len.  (Ireene.  During  the  day  nu:itiiiii 
was  made  of  the  desirableness  of  the  creation  of  some  machine  for  ^rjia- 
rating  from  the  tleece  of  the  cotton-plant  the  seed  which  filled  it.  W  liitnt;y 
was  an  inventive  fellow  ;  and,  with  true  Yankee  zeal,  he  un;lertook  privati'lv 
to  solve  the  problem  of  ginning  cotton.  He  obtained  some  cotton  lium 
Savannah,  and  had  soon  invented  his  famous  saw-gin.  The  lu'st  gin  was  a 
cylinder  studded  with  rows  of  stout  wire  teeth,  whi(  h  caught  the  cotton  ami 
drew  it  through  a  wire  grating.  The  lint  passed  through  the  grating  :  but  ilu,' 
seeds,  being  too  large  to  go  through,  were  torn  off,  and  se|).".rated  from  tlic 
fibre.  Whitney  soon  alV'rwards  em])!')yc.i  circular  saws  instead  of  wire  teeth, 
as  being  stronger  and  more  serviceable,  l^ven  his  first  imperfect  gin  did  j^ood 
service,  and  satisfied  the  planters  of  (leorgia,  who  were  invited  in  to  see  it 
work  ;  and  his  later  one  brought  with  it  the  assurance  that  cotton-planting  niiL;ht 
now  become  one  of  the  most  profitable  branches  of  agriculture  into  whic  h  the 
planters  of  the  South  could  go.  Whitney  took  out  his  jjatent  in  179;,,  and 
began  the  manufKture  of  gins  with  a  i)artner  by  the  name  of  Miller,  lie  had 
bad  luck,  however.  He  wa'i  taken  ill  in  1794,  and  in  1795  his  sho])  was 
destroyed  by  fin',  l-'urthermorc,  Ivs  gin  was  too  imjjortant  to  the  piihlii  to 
permit  the  latter  to  wait  for  the  inventor  to  build  on  a  scale  large  enough  to 
sup]5ly  the  general  market  ;  and,  almost  from  the  beginning,  a  large  number  ot' 
mechanics  in  New  luigland  and  elsewhere  made  the  gins  in  large  nunileis, 
and  sold  them  in  competition  with  the  patentee.  Whitney  luul  great  tioiihle 
in  the  courts  with  these  infringers  upon  Iiis  rights,  and  about  all  he  got  Ibr  his 
invention  was  a  grant  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  from  the  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina as  a  reward  for  his  discovery.  Hut  if  Whitney  gained  only  the  eiii|iiy 
fame  of  his  invention,  without  the  substantial  rewards  to  which  he  was  cntiiK.I, 
the  United  States  at  any  rate  profited  by  it  exceedingly.  .\  fiiivir  of  cottvni 
planting  took  place  ;  and  so  great  was  the  increase  of  i)roduction  resiiltiiiL; 
from  the  introduction  of  the  gin,  that,  whereas  only  138,328  pounds  of  c(jtioii 
were  exported  from  the  United  States  in  1792,  the  amotint  exported  in  1795 
was  more  than  6.000,000  pounds.  .A  proportionate  increase  took  place  in  the 
quantity  of  cotton  .sent  to  the  Northern  States  for  manufacture. 

Samuel  Salter's  good  luck,  and  the  cheapening  of  cotton  by  the  invention 
of  the  gin,  led  to  a  great  extension  of  factory-spinning  in  the  Northern  States 


OF    TIIK    UNITED    STATES. 


409 


1'     '  '>»  ' 


5    wir' 

'^m! 

IM) 

i.iffi 

H^ 

ii 


ix' 


■U:. 


m 


» 


1* 


'^titi„.,j; 


<!#■ 


4J0 


INDUSTRIAr.    IT r STORY 


immediately.     Factories  were  IxiiU  on  the  large  and  powerful  mill-streams  of 
Kaslern   Connecticut,   at  dilTereni  i)laces   in    Massac  IuislU>,  aiul 


elsewhen;  in  New  I'lngland  and  the  Middle  States,     'j'lu 


Rapid  exten- 
sion of  cot-       >-"i>«i-'wiicii;    111    iM;w    1  .,iij;kiiiii   aiiii    luc    ;»iRiunj    oiaics.        1  lu\    were 

ton-manu-      fur  tile   spinninj,^  of  cotton-yarn,   and  were  neigiiliorhood  aiV.uis 
'^'^'"'^°^'"       desiLHied  to   sunplv  the   farmers  and   citizens  of  their  rL^iimivo 

the  North.  "  ''    •  '^-^i^-iuM. 

counties  witii  tiieir  material  for  tiie  weaving  of  cloth.  The  "iil^ 
and  young  men  who  found  employment  in  these  factories  were  of  the  hesi  hlood 
of  New  iMigland.  From  n  rejiort  maile  hy  Mr.  .Mbert  Ciallatin,  Seerel.uy  di  the 
Treasury  in  iSio,  it  appears,  liiat,  at  the  close  of  iSoy,  tiiere  iiad  lieen  en<  ird 
Condition  of  '"  *'i^'  '-^'I'l^^^'  States  eigiity-seven  cotton-factories,  sixty-tuu  of 
industry  in  wlucli  Were  in  operation,  and  twenty-five  of  which  would  prnluLlv 
'  '°"  be  completed  and  reaily  to  go  to  work  in  iSio.     Of  the  sixtv-tuo, 

forty-eight  were  driven  by  the  power  of  waterfalls,  and  fourteen  by  iu)rse-|HWir. 
They  employed  thirty-one  thousand  spindles  :  the  whole  eighl\-.se\en  un'ikl 
employ  eighty  thousand  spindles. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact,  as  we  iiave  seen,  that,  before  the  cotton-giu  w.is 
invented,  hemp  was  considereil  in  the  United  States  a  more  imjiortant  |ilant 
than  cotton.  Hemp  was  absolutely  necessary  for  the  supply  of  tiie  slii|i|imi^ 
with  cordage ;  and  so  great  was  the  interest  felt  in  it,  that  the  protection 
accorded  to  textile  agriculture  by  C'ongress  was  extended  more  to  hemp  than 
to  cotton.  By  1790  the  superior  importance  of  c;olton  was  realized,  and 
Congress  gave  to  that  plant  and  its  manufactures  new  and  zealous  attention. 
'I'here  was  little  need  of  recognizing  raw  cotton  itself  in  the  tariff,  as  none 
Congres-  °^  ^^^  '"''^^  material  was  at  all  likely  to  be  imi)orted,  notwith- 
sionai  legis-  standing  Hamilton's  alarm  :  yet  Congress  gave  it  a  protection  of 
""""■  three  cents  a  pound,  which  was  increased  to  six  cents  in   1.S12; 

and,  in  order  to  secure  the  largest-iiome  market  for  it  possible,  tiie  manulai- 
ture  of  the  fleece  was  encouraged  by  a  duty  of  twelve  and  a  half  jier  cent  in 
1794,  which  was  increased  to  seventeen  and  a  half  in  1804.  and  to  thirtyfivo 
per  cent  in  18 12.  This  higii  duty  on  the  manufactured  cloth  was  needed, 
because  England  was  now  sending  to  the  United  States  large  cpiantities  of  the 
cotton-cloth  made  from  oirr  own  fleeces  iiy  steam-power  ;  and  it  was  held,  that, 
if  cotton-cloth  was  to  be  consumed  in  large  cjuantity  in  the  United  States,  it 
wouki  be  better  to  encourage  its  manufacture  here,  in  order  that  our  own 
people  might  derive  the  profits  of  manufacture,  and  save  the  transportation- 
charges  to  and  from  Europe.  If  the  tari'f  increased  the  selling-prices  of 
cotton  and  cotton-goods  in  the  United  St,  les,  it  probably  did  not  do  so  to 
any  greater  extent  than  those  prices  would  le  enhanced  under  a  lower  tarif 
by  transportation-charges  to  and  from  Europe ;  and  the  tariff,  at  any  rate 
secured  the  profits  of  a  large  jiortion  of  the  manufacture  lo  our  own 
countrymen. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  war  of  1812  there  had  been  no  foctoii  s  in  the 
United    States   for  weaving  cotton-c    th,   except  the  pioneer  enterprise  at 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


411 


Hevcrly,  Mass.,  then  defunct.  TIic  fiictorics  were  all  for  spinning  yarn.  Mr, 
[•'ramis  C.  Lowell  of  lioston  now  conceived  tlie  plan  of  starting  Francis c. 
a  factory  for  weaving,  in  wliicli  tlie  work  slioiild  not  lie  done  Lowell. 
jlovvly  and  laboriously  hy  hand  as  in  tlie  iiousehold  manufacture,  hut  l)y 
watLi  jiouer.  Mr.  Lowell  got  back  to  the  United  Stales  from  a  visit  to  1mi- 
ropc  —  wiiii  h  he  ha<l  spent  largely  in  inspecting  tiie  cotton  factories  —  just 
as  thi»  I  ountry  was  going  to  war  with  I'aigland  for  the  protection  of  the 
ircniiiMi  of  our  commerce  and  of  the  rights  of  nationality.  Mr.  Lowell  had 
iKithci'  models  nor  mac  liines  to  start  his  factory  with,  —  nothing,  in  fact, 
exixpl  his  recollection  and  Yankee  wit.  He  formed  a  partnership  with 
TaUK  k  .'^.  Jackson,  his  brother-in  law  ;  and  the  two  men  went  to  work  to  devise 
a  iHiwcr  loom.  'I'hey  made  a  numlier  of  e.xpi-riments,  and  finally  hit  upon  a 
iiKuhiiu'  uliicli  they  tiiought  would  work.  I'aul  Moody,  an  expert  mechanic 
whom  ihey  took  into  tiieir  employ,  built  a  loom  for  them  from  their  plans  ;  and 
ill  181.;  the  llrni  put  up  a  little  mill  at  Wallham,  Mass.,  and  began  inanufactur- 
iiii;.  They  had  \i  lull  set  «;f  mat  liinery  for  spinning  and  weaving.  The 
nmiihcr  of  spindles  was  1,700.  'I'his  ill  is  claimed  and  believed  to  have 
Ulii  tlic  first  ( otton-factory  in  liie  wo  which  perlbrmed  all  the  operations 
of  miwerting  the  cottondint  into  cloth  under  the  same  roof.  Hitherto,  both 
ill  luii^land  and  America,  spinning  and  weaving  hail  been  carried  on  in  sejia- 
rate  Lst  iMishments.  Mr.  Lowell  had  a  great  deal  of  trouiile  at  fust  with  liis 
kioiii>.  They  were  right  in  princii)le,  but  crude  in  detail ;  and  it  was  several 
years  belbre  .Moody,  Jackson,  and  iiimself  could  devise  and  find  out  the 
v.irious  I onirivances  needetl  to  perfect  their  plan  of  manufacturing,  and  make 
itasudos.  'I'lieir  perseverance  overcame  all  obstacles,  however ;  and  they 
imis|icred  in  their  enterprise.  The  concern  enlanged  its  business  in  182.:  l;y 
Iniyiiii;  tlie  whole  power  of  the  Merrimack  River  at  the  ])lace  where  the  city  of 
Lowell  now  stands,  and  by  building  there  a  large  mill,  for  which  a  joint-stock 
company  was  formed  among  the  capitalists  of  the  State.  This  act  gave  birth 
both  to  the  city  of  Lowell  and  to  the  magnificent  development  of  the  cotton- 
manufacture  by  power  to  which  this  country  has  since  attained.  The  building 
of  cotton-factories  became  one  of  the  passions  of  the  age.  'I'here  was  a  great 
deal  of  idle  capital  in  the  country:  and  the  success  of  Slater,  Lowell,  and 
others,  stimulated  its  investment  in  this  industry.  An  immense  impetus  was 
given  to  the  manufacture ;  and,  in  twenty  years  from  the  beginning  of  the  war 
of  1S12,  the  cotton-industry  had  grown  to  four  times  its  previous  stature. 

Nine-tenths  of  the  new  factories  built  were  put  up  in  New  England,  New 
Vork,  and  IVnnsylvania.      That  was  not  the  par*,  of  the   United   Factories 
States  ill  which  the  manufacture  couki  have  been  carried  on  to  the  •'"'i* '"  New 

I  I  '■■■  ,'  1  1,1  ',-  1  England, 

liest  advantage.      Hie  climate  was  dry  and  cold,  entailing  a  large   New  York, 
tx])eiise  in  warming  and  steaming  the  air  of  tiie   mills.     Wages   «nd  Penn- 
were  high  in  that  part  of  the  country.     The  factories  were  situated   '^  ^°"  "" 
many  hundreds  of  miles  away  from  the  cotton-growing  regions,  entailing  anothef 


ff^fy'fi 


WW' 


i:i   i; 


4" 


/JVD  US  TKIA  L    HIS  TON  Y 


WM. 


large  expense  for  baling,  pressing,  hooping,  and  transporting  tlie  cotton  to 
tiie  mill,  and  for  unpacking  it,  freeing  it  from  its  hoops  and  ba[;;,'iii,!,',  and 
jiicking  it  lip  loose  again,  after  it  had  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  mill. 
The  distance  of  the  factories  from  the  cotton-fields  also  hroiinht  loss  of 
interest,  and  waste  of  the  cotton  in  transportation  am!  handling.  'I'Ik'  liiitcr 
l»lace  for  the  factories  woiikl  have  been  in  the  Southern  States  themselves. 
There  the  climate  was  mild,  the  wages  of  free  labor  were  low,  baliii:;,  ]ioo|i- 
ing,  and  pressing  would  have  been  almost  entirely  avoided,  and  tnmsporla 
tion  would  have  been  only  a  nominal  charge.  'I'he  water-power  of  the  !■'  niih 
was  as   abundant   and   cheap,  too,  as   that   of  the    North.     In   the   Norih, 


c     *". 


"i     >;  I 


CARDINC-.MACIIINIi.      MASON    MACHINE-WOKKS. 


however,  the  population  was  denser,  the  climate  was  more  invigorating, 
and  the  spirit  of  industry  had  taken  possession  of  the  people.  The  States 
of  the  North  were  under  the  necessity  of  undertaking  to  carry  on  manufac- 
tures, because  agriculture  was  less  remunerative  with  them  than  in  the  South, 
and  the  genius  of  the  people  was  favorable  to  emi)Ioyments  which  called 
for  the  exercise  of  great  ingenuity,  technical  skill,  and  executive  ability.  The 
South  preferred  the  charms  and  independence  of  the  agreeable  agricultural 
life.  Accordingly,  in  1831,  of  the  795  cotton-mills  which  had  then  been  built 
in  the  United  Stales,  and  were  in  active  and  profitable  operation,  508  were  in 
New  England  alone,  and  738  of  the  whole  number  were  in  New  iMigland  and 
the  Middle  States.     The  situation  in  1831  was  as  follows  :  — 


Maine  . 
''    New  H.-iinpshirc 
Massacliusctts 


NO.  or  FACTOUIES. 

8 
.      40 

•     250 


OF    THE  UNITED    STATES.  413 

Rliodc  Island 116 

Cuniiccticut 94 

New  Vork 112 

IViinsylvania 67 

New  Jersey 51 

MnrylatuI 23 

Delaware 10 

Virj;inia 7 

Other  States         17 

Total 795 

The  largest  actual  development  of  the  industry  since  1831  has  still  been 
in  the  Northern  and  Eastern  States.  The  largest  proportionate  building  of 
factories,  however,  has  been  in  the  South,  whose  future  as  a  great  „ 

'  "  Develop- 

cottdii-manufacturing  district  is  now  well  assured.  ment  o( 

The  growth  of  the  cotton-factories  in  number,  after  the  war  '"''"»»''y 

since  1831. 

of  181 2,  would  be  one  of  the  most  marvellous  incidents  in  his- 
tory, were  it  not  lor  the  iAci  that  their  multiplication  did  not  really  rcjiresent 
an  actual  grcwth  in  cotton  spinning  and  weaving  in  this  coimtry.     It  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  the  cotton-manuflicture  was  being  carried  on  upon  a 
(onsitlerable  scale  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land   „    ., 

"  °  Continuation 

in  the  iiomes  of  the  people  when  factory-weaving  was  introduced   of  domestic 
10  the  country  by  Mr.  Lowell.     It  was  estimated  by  Mr.  (lallatin,  "'•""'■'=• 
that,  in  iSio,  at  least  two-thirds  of  the  clothing  and  of  the  house 
and  table  cloths  consumed  in   the  United  States  were  still  the  product  of 
family  manufactures,  which  were   then   in   a   flourishing   state.     During  the 
next  twenty  years  the  principal  part  of  this  fixmily  weaving  and  s])inning  was 
transferred  to  the  factories,  and  this  transfer  was  of  itself  suflicient  to  create  a 
great  factory-industry.     The  growth  from  1 810  to  1831  was  chiefly  due  to  the 
factory  and  the  power-loom  taking  the  place  of  the  home-manufac*'"'e  and 
the  haiul-loom.     The  growth  after  1831   was  the  legitimate  product  of  the 
increase  of  population  in  the  United  States  in  numbers  and  wealtii,  and  the 
larger  consumption  of  cotton-goods  which  followed  their  reduction  in  price. 
The  following  arc  the  statistics  of  growth  :  — 


1S09 

iSio 
iS:o 
1S3, 
1S40 
1S50 
1S60 
1870 


NUMDERS. 

62 

168 

795 

1,240 

1,074 

1,091 

956 

31,000 

90,800 

250.572 
1, 246, 503 
2,284,631 

4,052,1X30 

.235.727 

7.i32>4'5 


Ol'EXATlVES. 


4,000 


57,466 
72,119 

97.956 
122,028 

135.369 


COTTON   fSF.D, 
IN   TOU.NUS. 


3,600,000 
9,945,609 

77.757.3'6 

132,835,856 
276,07.1,100 
437.905.036 

409,900,806 


YDS.  CLOTH    MADE. 


230,461,990 

398.507. 56S 

828,222,300 

1,148,252,406 

i.i37.5'S,330 


$40,614,984 

5'. '02,359 

76,032,578 

98,585,269 

140,706,291 


ti  m 


414 


/Xr>f  S  TK/A I     Ills  TOR  V 


^fl. 


Of  toiirse  it  is  iiiulcrslooti,  lliat,  like  all  statistics  wliicli  cover  mi  vast  a 
field  as  liiis,  tlic'sc  liyiircs,  tiioiij^ii  ( (iii\|iik'ii  by  tin.'  govfrnuu'nt,  do  not  a^ipiro 
ti)  aliMilutr  act  iirat  y.  'I'licy  arc  simply  rcmarkalily  t:l(»sc  ai)|)roxiiiii'iuns  to 
the  Iriitli,  ami  arc  to  be  taken  as  valuable  iiidiialioiis  ot'  it.  'I'iic  iiiiiiuiu  lure 
is  doubtless,  in  ca(  h  year  relerrcd  to,  somewhat  larger  than  above  set  (uwU, 

The  fall  in  lite  price  of  cotton-(  loth  alter  factory-vvcavinj,'  bcj,'au  wa-v  mmiu'- 
thing  remarkable.  In  1S15,  when  cotton-doth  was  still  woven  ( liully  U\- 
Decline  in  hand,  —  the  family  weaver  making  tuily  twenty-five  throw-,  ni"  tin- 
price  o(  shuttle  per  minute,  and  finishinj,'  only  four  yards  of  (loth  a  iLiy,- 

cotton*.  j|^^,  pii(  c  of  ordinary  cK)ih  for  sheetings  was  forty    ^nts  a  yard.     In 

1822  it  had  fillcii  to  twenty-two  (cnts,  and  in  iS.'y  to  eight  (cnts  and  .i  ImIi', 
In  1850,  when  the  fu  toiy-manufai  tiire  had  <oinplctcly  abolished  the  uldiiim. 
system,  when  the  power-loom  was  in  full  operation,  —  throwing  the  shuttle 
from  a  hundred  and  forty  to  two  hun<lred  times  a  minute,  and  one  piiMm, 
tending  tluie  or  four  looms,  would  weave  from  ninety  to  a  hundred  and  ^ixtv 
yards  of  cloth  a  tlay,  — -the  i)rice  of  (loth  for  sheetings  was  reduced  to  seven 
cents  a  jard  as  the  result  of  m.ichinc  labor,  'lliis  redui  tion  of  price  w,;s 
interrujjteil  by  the  war  and  the  inllation  of  the  currency  rexulling  fmin  the 
w.ir ;  but  market-values  have  again  fallen  to  where  they  were  before  the  w.ir. 
so  that  the  reduction  of  price  is  seen  to  be  permanent.  That  this  (  h.iii^c 
of  priie  is  due  (  hielly  to  the  empk)yment  of  machinery,  and  not  so  uhk  h  to 
a  fill  in  the  jjrice  of  cotton,  is  evident  by  a  comiiarison  of  the  price?  'f  ( otton 
and  of  cloth.     The  following  figures  will  illustrate  the  point :  — 


I'l     ^ 


i8t6 
1819 
1826 
1829 

1843 
184s 
1850 
185s 
i860 
1870 
1872 
1878 


I'KUI!  (IK  miAVV      I'UH  I',  ol-l  HINT-   |      I'l'U  1!  (IF  RAW 
SKI'.Kl  1S(.S  A  lill  I  A(.ltll|:S  A      conns  A  hllNU, 


VAKI>,  IN  CICNTS, 

VAKU,  INCilNTS. 

IN  lliNiS, 

3° 

,  , 

.)0 

21 

"i 

«3 

22 

■3,V 

8i 

'7 

•°f 

6J 

12 

7i 

7 

II 

(t 

/ 

9i 

>4 

7j 

.0] 

«f^,> 

•3} 

'oj 

•3 

Mi 

'3? 

'S 

•9 

7i 

6 

II 

'^Ui'i 


It  will  be  observed  that  the  prices  of  cloth  fell  faster  than  that  of  ( otton, 
and  that  at  the  present  time,  while  cloth  is  substantially  as  cheap  as  biforc  the 
war,  cotton  commands  a  slightly  better  price.  The  reduction  from  the  jmccs 
of  i>Si6  has  made  the  United  States  one  of  the  greatest  cotton-consuming 
countrien  in  the  world. 


t)h    III  I:   rxrii-.n  sr.i  ri-.s. 


415 


H\  iSoothi"  cotton  inaniifactiirc  liad  reached  an  interesting  ami  satisfactory 
siaui'  111  di'Vi'lo|iiniMit.      NiMily  all  tlir  hr.iiK  lies  of  maniifai  lure  wire  practised 
hcri'. .111(1  six  sevciillis  of  the  i  loth  ami  ( i)tton-n<)<«ls  hou^iil  by  our    Production 
|it()|iK' were  luadi'   in  our  own  mills.     'I'lu'    prodm  tior  was  Si  15,-    '" '*^' 
oo(),(»io  worth   of  goods   yearly.     'I'lu'   importation   was   ahotii    ;^25,ooo,ooo. 
■llir  latter  consisted  almost  iiuinly  of  the  liiu'r  1  lapses  of  sheetings,  calicoes, 


1.1N(,IIAM-1.00M. 


lawns,  v\:c.  The  American  <  loths,  of  such  kinds  as  were  made,  excelled  those 
liruduced  by  English  mills  on  accoiuU  of  their  heavier  (luality  and  tlieir  freedom 
friiiii  starch.  They  contained  more  honest  cotton  tt)  the  ])oimd  of  cloth  than 
the  laiglish  goods.  They  were,  for  this  reason,  in  great  demand  in  China, 
India,  and  Japan  ;  and  there  was  an  exportation  of  them  amounting  to  v^6,ooo,- 
000  and  j!7,ooo,ooo  yx-arly.     There  was  every  pros[)ect  that  the  American 


1=^^"    :"     I 


y      *    f-.pi 


St,i: 


vi:^^m 


'-*•■■■     ■* 


4i6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


mills  would  soon  be  able  completely  to  supply  the  home-market  with  oiir  own 
manufa('tures  of  cotton,  and  in  a  few  years  more  would  be  ready  to  undertake 
to  work  up  for  the  world  at  large  the  enormous  ciuantities  of  cottim  which 
were  sent  al)road  yearly  in  a  law  stale,  ainounting  to  five-sixths  of  tlic  whole 
<Top. 

The  war  which  broke  out  in  iS6i  affected  the  cotton-interests  of  the 
country  in  an  extraordinary  manner.  The  cotton-growing  region  and  the 
Effect  ot  cotton-manufiicturing  region  were  sejiarated  from  eacii  oiIkt,  and 
war  upon  tile  former  of  the  two  was  also  substantially  cut  off  from  the  world 
ustry.  at  large.  The  South  could  with  difticulty  dispose  of  its  cotton: 
it  could  send  little  North,  and  scarce  any  abroad.  The  result  was,  that  the 
acreage  of  ci'-ton  planted  in  the  South  fell  off  enormously.  Tiie  jjlantcrs 
began  to  raiic  food-crops  instead.  The  cotton-manufactures  of  the  South 
increased  somewhat;  but  the  factories  were  by  no  means  able  to  s'r  the 
<lecline  of  cotton-planting.  Tiie  North,  on  the  otiier  hand,  deprived  of  its 
supply  of  fibre,  was  at  its  wits'  ends  to  know  what  to  do  for  raw  materi;,!.  .\ 
cotton-famine  set  in.  dining  which  the  price  of  the  raw  material  rcy;^  from 
eleven  cents  to  a  dollar  and  seventy-six  cents  a  pound.  A  large  projioriion  of 
the  mills  were  obliged  to  discontinue  operations  :  the  remainder  were  olihged 
to  resort  to  the  unprecedented  measure  of  imiK)rting  raw  cotton  from  f  )rcign 
countries;  and  they  did,  for  four  years,  import  an  average  of  25,000,000 
pounds  a  year  from  India,  Kgypt,  and  Brazil.  This  raw  material  they  made  tc 
go  as  [\x  as  ])ossible  by  mixing  in  with  it  flax  and  other  vegetable  fdires,  and 
by  producing  to  a  larger  extent  than  before  goods  whereof  part  of  the  material 
entering  into  them  was  wool.  A  great  many  of  the  Victories  transferred  their 
attention  entirely  from  cotton-goods  to  woollen-goods.  Were  it  r.:)t  for  the  fact 
that  the  South,  which  had  been  one  of  the  largest  markets  in  this  country  for 
imported  cotton-goods,  was  cut  off  from  receiving  regular  importations  durin;.' 
this  period,  the  cotton-famine  in  th.e  Nuith  would  have  led  to  the  importation 
of  at  least  ,^50,000,000  worth  of  ( otton-goods  a  year  while  the  war  was  pendin::. 
What  the  importations  into  the  South  actually  were  cannot  be  stated  ;  bnt  into 
the  North  they  were  only  S6o,ooo,o()o  during  the  whole  four  yi  ,ir^  of  the  wai. 
Besides  the  embarrassment  ami  loss  whii  !i  liic  war  inflicted  upon  the  factories 
of  the  North,  it  brought  a  still  greater  disaster,  with  reference  to  f;otton,  npon 
the  South.  It  iKJt  only  cut  off  the  sale  of  $190,000,000  of  raw  cotton  ) early 
to  the  countries  of  l"airoi)e,  and  of  $40,000,000  to  the  North,  but  it  developed 
the  cotton-growing  of  rival  regions  of  the  earth.  India,  l''gypt,  and  I'.ra/il 
reaped  a  rich  harvest  from  the  failin-e  of  the  .Ameri'an  cotton-crops  from  iSoi 
to  1865.  .At  the  end  of  the  war  the  South  found  itself  both  with  liltic  cotton 
to  sell,  and  with  a  powerfid  competition  on  its  hands  with  the  other  cotton- 
countries.  The  cotton-interests  of  the  South  have  recuperated  since  the  war, 
however,  in  the  most  marvellous  ami  miexpecteil  manner,  considering  the  nttcr 
prostration  and   ruin  which  had  overuiken  them.     The  crop  of  iS65-66was 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


417 


alaadv  lialf  a  crop  ;  and  so  much  progress  was  made  in  rejjlanting,  -that,  in 
iS7!^-76,  the  crop  was  as  large  as  it  ever  had  been  in  the  most  favorable  year 
lu'lorc  llie  war.     'The  competition  of  lirazil,  lOgypt,  aiid  India,  vanished   like 
the  (lew  before  the  sim  ;  and  ten  years  have  placed  the  i)lante.-s  of  the  South  in 
exactly  the  same  position  in  reference  to  the  world'.;  supi)ly  that  they  occupied 
before  the  war.     Part  of  tliis  result  was  doubtless  due  to  the  ready  demands  of 
the  Xoithern  mills,  which  were  the  first  to  extend  to  the  South  the  helping  hand 
whii  li  lifteil  liiat  section  to  its  feet  again.     'I'iie  North   itself  has  also  regained 
all  it  lo>t  (luring  the  war  :   it  has  more  than  regained  it.     I'.y  1870   Production 
it>  ]ii(idu(t  of  cotton-manufactures   was  larger  than  ever  before   '"  ''^o. 
known  ill  history.     It  was  manufu  luring  more  (("ttoii-goods  than  were  pro- 
duced  in   the  whole  country  in  1S60;   that   is  to  say.  ;?  160,000,000  worth  as 
against  5i  15,000,000 
worth    in    the    whole 
Initcd  States  in  1S60. 
It  had  again  exported 
$6,000,000   worUn   of 
ijdod^  in  a  year.      It 
was  making    a    large 
\ariet\   of  line  goods 
Hhi(  h  had  never  been 
attein]ite(l  before  the 
war ;  an<l.  while  it  had 
rediKcd    the     impor- 
tations to  only  SiX,- 
000,000  a  \'ear,  it  was 
doint,'  so  well,  that  it 
had   almost    reached 
the    point    of    being 
ahle    to     repay     the 
favors  of  I'.ngland  by 
sending    American 
(otton  goods   to   lier. 
This  extraordinary  re- 
cuperation  is  one  of 

the  marvels  of  the  age.  It  is  an  indication  of  the  inherent  vigor  and 
vitality  of  the  American  people,  which  promises  well  for  the  future  of  our 
nationality. 

The  extent  and  distril)ution  of  the  cotton-manufacture  in  1870  are  described 
in  the  following  table,  taken  from  the  census-report  of  that  year.    Extent  and 
Massac  husetts  was  far  aheail  of  every  other  State.     Rhode  Island   distribution. 
came  next ;  yet  only  two-fifths  as  many  spindlos  were  in  operation  in  the  latter 
State  as  in  the  former. 


MASllN   MACHINK-WOKKS. 


ii 


i.Ni 


4i8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


t 

NUMRKR  OF 

SPINDLES. 

OPEKATIVES. 

VAI.I'H  OF 

■1  « 

FACTOKIES. 

I'ROIJICTS. 

Alabama 

>3 

28,046 

1,032 

$1,088,767 

Arkansas . 

2 

I,.2S 

17 

--'.562 

Connecticut 

III 

597- '42 

12,086 

14,026,334 

Delaware 

6 

29.534 

726 

1,060,898 

(leorgia    . 

34 

85,602 

2,846 

3.'4S.973 

Illinois 

•       5 

1.856 

98 

279,000 

Indiana    . 

4 

17.360 

503 

77''<,C47 

Iowa 

I 

6 

7,000 

Kentucky 

5 

7.734 

269 

49'^,96o 

Louisiana 

4 

13,084 

246 

2S'.550 

Maine 

23 

459.772 

9.439 

1 1,^44.1  Si 

Maryland . 

22 

89,112 

2,860 

4.S52,8o8 

Massaciiusetts 

191 

2,619,541 

43.S'2 

59-4<)3>i53 

Mississippi 

5 

3.526 

26s 

234.445 

Missouri  . 

3 

16,715 

361 

798.050 

New  Ilampshir 

e 

36 

749.S43 

12,542 

16,999,672 

New  Jersey 

27 

200,580 

3. '54 

4.015,768 

New  York 

81 

492.573 

9. '44 

11,178.211 

North  Carolina 

12, 

39.«77 

'.453 

1,345.052 

(Jhio 

7 

23.240 

462 

681,835 

Pennsylvania 

'38 

434,246 

12,730 

17,490.080 

Khode  Island 

•39 

1,043,242 

16,745 

22,049,203 

South  Carolina 

12 

34,940 

•  .'23 

'.5^9.937 

Tennessee 

28 

27,923 

890 

941.542 

Texas 

4 

8,878 

291 

374.59S 

Utah 

3 

1,020 

16 

16,803 

Vermont  . 

8 

28.768 

45' 

546,510 

Virginia    . 

II 

77,116 

1.74' 

1,435,800 

Totals 

956 

7.'32.4iS 

'35.369 

^^'77,489.739 

The  relation   of  wages  and  materials   to  product,  &c.,  in   1870,  was  as 
follows :  — 


Raw  materials 
Mill-supplies  . 


$100,826,264 
10,910,6/2 


*"  1,736,936 

Wages 39,044,132 

Product 177,489,739 

Capital  invested 140,706,291 

The  characteristic  stap'i  products  of  the  American  mills  are  now  heavy 

sheetings,   nne   sheetings,   serviceal)le    drillings,   shirtings    (csi)e- 

productof       cially  the  blue-striped  kind),  and  domestic  flannels.    Jeans  were 

American       among  the  earliest  goods  made.     The  strong  drillings  are  said  to 

have  been  introduced  in  1827,  and  the  substantial  and  blue-striped 

shirtings  in  1828.     The  drillings  have  not  varied  a  thread  since  they  were 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


419 


first  introduced.  All  these  heavy  cottons  were  soon  made  in  superior  style, 
and  were  heavily  exported.  One  of  the  native  cloths  of  the  United  States  was 
invented  in  1835  by  Mr.  James  Johnson,  and  took  the  name  of  the  domett 
flannel.  Mr.  Johnson  was  under  the  necessity  of  using  up  a  lot  of  cotton 
rtarji  which  had  been  made  for  a  satinet-mill  which  had  proved  unremunera- 
live.  He  produced  a  cloth  from  this  warp,  by  using  a  filling  of  wool,  which 
iiii't  with  favor ;  and  its  manufiicture  ha.s  since  been  carried  on  upon  a  very 
large  scale.  Calicoes  are  also  a  characteristic  ^Xmerican  procUict,  and  were  one 
(if  till.'  earliest  attempted  :  they  were  being  made  in  1824  at  the  rate  of  sixty 
tiioiisand  yards  a  week.  Sail-duck  was  also  made  at  a  very  early  date.  Recent 
jirogress  had  added  to  the  list  a  large  number  of  the  finer  goods  and  fabrics, 
such  as  delaines,  alpacas,  the  finer  prints  and  ginghams,  cambrics,  &c.  The 
weights  of  some  of  the  standard  fabrics  are  as  follows ;  coarse  shirting  and 
siieeting,  two  yards  and  eight-tenths  to  the  pound  ;  fine  bleached  shirting  and 
sheeting,  three  yards  and  four-tenths  to  six  yards  to  the  ])ound  ;  standard  drill- 
ings, two  yards  and  three-fourths  to  the  pound  ;  fine  drillings,  three  yards  and 
four-tenths  to  six  yards  to  the  pound  ;  print-cloths,  seven  yards  to  the  pound ; 
flannels  (yard  wide),  four  to  seven  yards  to  the  pound  ;  antl  ginghams  (thirty- 
two  inthcs  wide),  three  to  six  yards  to  the  pound.  Cottonades  weigh  from 
four  to  twelve  ounces  to  tlie  yard  ;  cassimeres,  from  six  to  fourteen  ounces  to 
the  vard  ;  and  jeans,  from  three  to  six  ounces.  Every  mill  makes  many 
(hfferent  styles  of  its  goods :  sometimes  the  number  ranges  as  high  as  two 
hundred  and  three  hundred. 

In  regard  to  the  machinery  in  use  in  the  American  cotton-factories,  and 
the  processes  of  spinning  and  weaving,  it  may  be  said  that  the  mills  in  the 
(ihler  St.itcs  are  organized  ui)on  the  most  approved  principles  of  y^^^  ^, 
the  art,  and  are  supplied  with  the  be.it  niaciiinery  in  the  world,  machinery 
Spinning  machines  and  looms  are  frecjuently  of  iMigliih  pattern,  ""''  °*"  ' 
and  sometimes  of  Knglish  make.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  machinery  is 
generally  of  American  patterns  and  make.  The  manufacturers  have  found  it 
desirable  to  buy  .American  looms  and  mules,  because  of  the  fact  that  they  were 
lightly  built.  .American  iron  is  better  than  the  Knglish,  and  tougher,  'ihe 
Croinpton,  Knowles,  and  other  looms  made  in  this  country,  are  so  much 
lighter,  in  consecjuence  of  the  cjuality  of  the  iron,  that  they  are  freciuently  run 
at  a  saving  of  fifty  per  cent  of  the  power,  —  an  important  consideration,  whether 
the  jiower  be  water  or  steam.  In  the  spinning-frames  there  have  been  many 
important  American  improvements.  One  of  them,  the  ring-spindle,  was 
invented  by  a  pupil  of  Slater  named  Jenks,  and  has  now  nearly  superseded  all 
"ther  kinds  of  spindles  in  this  country.  'I'he  use  of  it  has  increased  the 
(apacity  of  the  mills,  and  led  to  the  production  of  better  yarn.  The  Excelsior 
spindle,  invented  by  Mr.  Sawyer  at  Ix)well,  is  an  improvement  upon  Jenks's. 
It  is  used  with  a  ring  ;  but  it  is  lighter,  saves  a  great  deal  of  power,  and  works 
at  a  remarkable  velocity.    The  machinery  of  the  American  mills,  in  fact,  is 


'li! 


420 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


considered,  on  the  whole,  to  be  better  now  than  that  of  tlie  Englisli  mills.  All 
the  imp  ovenients  an;  American,  showing  the  intelligence  of"  our  woikmon 
and  possibly,  also,  the  beneficial  effect  of  our  pate. it-law  system. 

Raw  cotton  is  diviiled  into  three  classes.  'I'he  long-staple  (or  Si.a- 
Island)  cotton  is  remarkable  for  the  length  and  beauty  of  its  fibre,  and  ilic 
ciassifica-  delicacy  of  the  thread  which  can  be  spun  from  it.  'I'his  lonir 
tionof  staple  is  generally  used  for  the  warp  of  the  cloth  ;  that  is.  for  thu 

threads  which  run  lengthwise  of  it.  TIk-  medium  staple,  uiiiih 
comprises  the  vast  bulk  of  the  cotton  raised  in  the  I'nited  States,  is  shorter, 
but  softer  and  silkier.  It  is  used  for  the  weft,  or  threads  which  run  i  ross- 
wise  of  the  cloth,  because  it  fills  uj)  tiie  cloth  better.  'I'he  short  staple.  uhi(  h 
gem  rally  comes  from  India,  is  harder,  and  is  only  used  mixed  with  a  jiropor- 
tion  of  the  medium  staple,      i'nr  sewing-tiiread.  only  the  long  staple  is  used. 


KITSON  S   torroNlIC  KKK. 


When  a  bale  of  cotton  reaches  the  mill,  the  first  thing  done  with  it  is 
to  open  it,  and  <:lean  anti  loosen  the  fibres.  Machines  are  necessary  tor  this, 
Process  of  bccause  the  circumstance  that  the  cotton -factories  have  been  in 
cotton-man-  the  past  SO  far  from  the  cotton-fieUls  has  made  necessary  the 
ufacture.  ijaljng  and  packing  of  the  cotton  under  enormous  pressure  tor 
convenient  trans])ortation  ;  and  it  therefore  comes  to  the  mill  too  niaittil  to 
Cleaning,  go  at  oncc  to  the  carding-machine.  The  cotton  is  cleaned  and 
picking,  ac.  picked  up  loose  in  an  opener  and  a  spreader.  These  were  for- 
merly separate  machines  ;  but  the  tendency  is  now  to  have  the  two  i)ro(  esse^ 
l)crformed  in  one  operation.  Tiie  cotton  is  either  ])ulled  apart  by  toothed 
cylinders,  or  be.aten  with  blunt  knives,  while  a  current  of  air  blows  throiif^h 
it,  and  it  comes  from  the  sj)reader  in  the  form  of  a  lap,  or  great,  tliic  k, 
fluffy  sheet  of 'fibre,  cleaned,  an>l  in  gooil  condition  for  carding.  'I'he  lap  is 
woimd  upon  a  large  roller  as  it  comes  slowly  forth  from  the  spreader,  and  i^ 
then  carried  to  the  cardinjj;-room. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


421 


The  card,  as  has  already  been  explained  n  the  chapter  on  "  Woollen 
Maniitactures,"  is  a  broad  cylinder,  every  inch  of  the  surface  of  which  is 
covtretl  with  wire  teeth,  and  which  revolves  in  contact  with  two 
smallt-T  cards.  The  lap,  being  delivered  to  the  card,  is  taken 
up  1)\  the  large  cylinder,  and  slowly  combed  out,  between  if  nd  the  small 
(vlindcrs,  into  a  gauzy  film,  which  is  then  combed  from  the  card  by  the 
action  of  the  dofier.  'I'he  cotton  leaves  the  card  in  a  roll,  and  flows  on 
to  a  jiair  of  rollers,  which  press  and  stretch  the  roll  slightly,  and  let  it  drop 
into  a  tin  can.  The  cotton  then  forms  what  is  called  a  "  sliver."  Sometimes 
the  ( otton  is  carded  twice.  There  is  more  or  less  variety  in  the  forms  of  the 
lardiiig-machines,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  product  of  the  riiill.  A 
tlircail-mill,  for  instance,  has  a  different  style  of  cartls  from  the  print-cloth 
mill.  The  cards  are  almost  exclusively  of  American  make,  and  are  lighter 
iniilt.  ( an  run  faster  and  cheaper,  and  do  better  work,  than  the  Knglish  cards. 

The  slivers,  when  they  come  from  the  cards,  are  takew  to  tiie  drawing- 
frames.  Two  or  three  of  them  are  fed  between  a  pair  of  rollers  together, 
and  pass  thence  on  to  a  second  and  a  third  pair,  and  sometimes 

,.,,.,  Drawing. 

1(1  a  fourth  pair,  each  pair  revolving  faster  than  its  j)redecessor. 
The  slivers  are.  by  this  process,  uniteil  and  stretched  out  into  a  new  sliver 
OIK'  third  or  one-fourth  the  size  of  the  united  three.  This  drawing-jjrocess 
.irraiincs  the  fibres  of  the  cotton,  and  lays  them  parallel  with  each  other.  The 
process  is  repeated  a  great  number  of  times,  the  certainty  of  a  perfect  thread 
or  yarn  increasing  with  each  doubling  and  drawing  of  tiie  slivers.  One  of 
ihc  original  slivers,  as  it  comes  from  the  cards,  is  frec]uently  elongated,  in 
(hawing,  to  \hirty-two  thousand  tim"s  its  length.  The  delicate  sliver  resulting 
iroin  this  continual  stretching  is  finally  taken  to  the  roving-frame,  and  drawn 
om  c  more,  and  given  a  slight  twist.  The  natural  interlocking  of  the  fibres 
uiiuld  not  be  sufficient  now  to  make  the  loose  yarn  hold  together  without 
a>>i>tan(  c  :  and  the  sliver  is  accordingly  slightly  spun,  and  then  forms  what 
i>  (allfd  a  "  roving."  The  roving,  being  wound  upon  a  bobbin,  is  then  spun 
into  \arn  for  weaving,  or  tliread  for  sewing. 

In  the  household  manufacture  of  our  forefathers  the  sj)inning-apparatus 
wi-.  a  wheel,  which  drove  a  single  horizontal  spindle  mounted  on  a  standard  at 
alioiit  the  height  of  the  elbow.  S.  cord.  i)assing  frcmi  around  the 
I  irdiinference  of  tlie  big  fly-wheel,  drove  the  spindle  at  a  great 
vcloi  ity.  The  end  of  the  roll  of  wool,  flax,  or  cotton,  was  attached  to  the 
-piiullu  by  simply  tying  it  around,  and  the  big  wheel  was  started.  Simulta- 
neously with  the  starting  of  the  wheel,  the  s])inner  l)rought  back  her  hand 
holding  the  roll  of  fibre,  so  as  to  stretch  it  at  the  same  time  that  the  spindle, 
on  its  longitudinal  axis,  was  giving  the  roll  the  twist ;  then,  without  stopping 
tlic  wheel,  the  spinner  suddenly  relaxed  the  strain  on  the  yarn,  and  let  her 
hand  ( ome  quickly  up  to  the  end  of  the  spindle,  by  which  means  the  yarn 
wound  itself  up  on  the  spindle  instantaneously,  instead  of  continuing  to  twist. 


Spinning. 


i 


k  ^'■^::; 


Ui  . .  -(    ■.  1 


m'':": 


Mi  ■ " 


422 


TNIiUSTHlAl.    nisroKY 


As  soon  as  this  process  had  been  repeated  enough  times  to  secure  a  iijindle- 
ful  of  yarn,  the  wheel  was  stopped,  and  the  yarn  reeled  off  upon  a  woodt-n 
reel  into  hanks,  for  knitting,  weaving,  or  sewing.  It  was  the  slowness  t)t'  this 
method  of  producing  yarn  which  led  the  early  manufacturers  to  think,  that,  if 
they  could  perform  this  process  by  machinery,  they  would  have  made  lor  a 
while  a  great  and  sufficient  advance.  Hargreaves,  who  invented  the  s])inninc. 
jenny  in  1767,  used  eight  spindles.  Invention  h;  '  now  gone  so  far,  that,  in 
the  /Vmerican  factories,  spinning  is  done  upon  frames  or  mules  vhi<  h  ( arrv 
three  hundred  and  sixty  spindles.  The  spindles  themselves  have  undcr^ronf 
a  change  also.  They  are  arranged  vertically,  instead  of  horizontally,  in  one  or 
more  rows.  The  yarn  is  no  longer  wound  on  the  spindle  itself,  l)iit  upon  a 
spool,  or  bobbin,  through  which  the  iron  spindle  i)asses,  and  whicii  has  a  play 
up  and  down  the  spindle  ecjual  to  its  own  length.  Several  forms  of  sDindles 
are  used.     One  style  has  a  little  steel  fly  at  the  top,  through  which  the  tliread 


SOirrHEKN   COTTON-MILL. 


passes  :  anotlier  has  a  little  steel  cai).  Jcnks's  spindle  carries  a  little  steel 
ring,  and  is  called  the  ring-spindle  in  conse(]uenct'.  The  latter  is  the  p(>pular 
spindle  in  .\merican  mills.  Sawyer,  who  made  it  lighter,  and  called  it  the 
Excelsior  si)indle,  secured  for  it  a  speed  of  ten  thousand  revolutions.  .\  self- 
oiling  bolster  allows  the  spindle  to  run  at  a  minimum  of  power.  It  carries  the 
bobbin  with  it  in  spinning;  and  the  bobbin  turns  indei)endently  in  winding  uj) 
the  thread  when  the  spindle-framc  or  mule  is  run  back  for  the  purpose.  One 
girl  will  tend  thirteen  hundred  spindles.  The  Sawyer  s])in<rie  saves  one-half 
of  the  power  consumed  in  s|)inning  by  previous  processes,  or  one-sixlii  of 
the  power  of  the  whole  mill. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


423 


Weaving. 


Tiiere  is  as  yet  no  machine  for  continuous  spinning ;  but  several  experi- 
ments are  in  progress  in  New  England  looking  to  the  perfection  of  Fome  such 
devici.'. 

Tlic  yarn,  when  spun,  is  reeled  off  from  the  bobbins  into  hanks  of  eight 
hundred  and  forty  yards.  The  yarn  is  numliered  according  to  the  number  of 
hanks  to  the  pound.  No.  2  is  very  coarse  :  No.  300  is  very  fine.  Wo.  600 
has  been  made,  however,  and  No.  350  woven.  The  yan  for  the  weft  of  the 
doth  is  wound  upon  bobbins  for  j)lacing  in  the  shutdes :  the  yarn  for  the 
warp  requires  treatment  before  it  goes  to  the  loom.  It  's  taken  to  the  proper 
(Icpartiiicnt  of  the  mill,  and  stiffened  with  sizing,  and  is  then  wound  ujjon 
beams  for  the  loom.  The  weaving  is  done  upon  American  looms  generally. 
All  the  fancy  weaving  is  done  upon  the  American  Crompton. 
The  jirint-looms  work  uj)  to  a  hunilred  and  eighty  and  two  hun- 
dred ■■  picks,"  or  throws  of  the  shuttle,  a  minute.  The  fancy  looms  run  on 
(jinghanis.  shawls,  tVc, 
with  the  six-shuttle  box, 
from  ;i  hundred  and 
!nirt\  live  to  a  hundred 
,ind  tbrty-five  picks  a 
mimite.  The  older 
liiDins  make  about  a 
himdreii  and  five  picks 
a  minute.  The  average 
of  production  per  loom 
i>  frDiii  thirty  yards  to 
forty- five  yards  a  day 
of  ten  hours  and  a  liaif. 
One  uirl  will  tend  three 
or  four  looms.  They 
arc  perfectly  automatic  . 
and  require  only  occa- 
Moiial  care.  In  the 
American  mills  tiie 
looms  are  run  slower 
than  in  England,  and 
one  person  attends  a 
i:reater  number  (if  them. 

For  calico-printing  tiie  cloth  is  taken  from  llic  loom  to  the  singeing-room. 
The  (loth  when   it  comes   from  the  loom  is  covered  with  a  fine  nap,  which 
would  interfere  with  the  perfection  of  the   ])rinting,  and  which  is   CaUco- 
aediniingiy  removed  by  nnining  the   (loth   rapidly  over  a  half  P"n»>"K- 
cylinder  of  copper  heated   red-hot.     The  cloth  is  sometimes,  though  rarely, 
passed   through  a  gas-flame.      Tlie    singeing   is  a   remarkable    process,   the 


p;nT.\i:v  (  lOTM-rHESS. 


.&-. 


424 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


wonder  being  why  the  clotli  does  not  burn  when  in  contact  with  ilu-  'i\^xs 
cyhnder.  It  does  not  burn,  however  :  it  flows  past  too  (juickly  ;  and  u  (  oincs 
from  the  ordeal  to  which  it  is  subjecteil  as  wiiite  as  though  it  liail  never 
smelled  the  fire.  The  cloth  is  now  carefully  bleached  by  boiling,  siLciiinj.  j,, 
alkali  solutions,  washing,  squeezing,  drying,  &c.,  until  it  is  perfccilv  white. 
Calico-printing  was  formerly  an  expensive  i)ro{ess.  Invented  in  India,  and 
carried  to  perfection  in  i'"rancc,  it  was  introduced  into  luigland  in  lOyo,  and 
into  the  Uniteil  States  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  Printing  first  tjok 
place  by  the  use  of  wooilen  blocks  applied  by  hand  or  by  machine.  (Min- 
der-printing was  then  inventeil,  in  wiiich  the  design  \>  :  engraved  on  a  i  upjier 
cylinder,  antl  tiie  pattern  impressed  upon  the  cloth  conlmuously.  It  was  very 
costly,  however,  to  use  these  cylimlers.     The  engraving  of  them  was  laiiurious 


BAG-LOOM,   MASON  MACHINE-WORKS. 

and  they  soon  wore  out.  Mr.  Perkins  of  Newburyport  gave  the  business  a 
vastly  improved  position  by  inventing  the  steel  die.  The  ivittem  is  engraved 
upon  a  steel  roller,  which  's  then  hardened  a.s  much  as  jiossible.  The  jiattom 
is  tiien  transferreil  to  a  soft  steel  roller  by  i)ressure,  and  thence  to  the  copijcr 
roller  by  the  same  means.  In  this  manner,  a  design  once  engraved  can  l)c 
multiplied  ujjon  copper  rollers  inex])ensively  to  any  extent.  Hefore  1845  only 
a  few  colors  were  employed  in  printing.  l'"our  was  the  usual  number.  Ma- 
chines are  now  in  use  which  apply  twenty  colors.  Kach  roller  prints  one 
color ;  and  the  cloth  passes  slowly  through  the  big  machine  in  which  they  are 
placed,  going  from  one  to  the  other  until  it  has  received  the  whole  of  the 
design.      The   printing   is   effected  at   tiie  rate  of   12,000  to   16,000  yards  a 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


¥% 


(lay.  The  colors  are  fixed  by  mordants.  Of  the  total  number  of  cotton- 
factories  in  operation  in  the  United  States  in  1870,  forty-two  were  print-works. 
TiicsL'  factories  had  240  printing-machines,  employed  8,894  hands,  and  pro- 
(lu(c(l  453,809,000  yards  of  calicoes  and  27,710,000  yards  of  delaines,  worth 
«;ej,,Soo,ooo.  'I'he  works  were  distributed  as  follows :  Iowa,  one ;  Maine, 
oiK' ;  Massachusetts,  eleven ;  New  Hampshire,  three ;  New  Jersey,  five ; 
New  York,  four;    Pennsylvania,  seven  ;    Rhoilc  Island,  nine ;   West  Virginia,- 

one. 

Ill  the  thread-mills,  i)articularly  in  the  great  concern  at  Willimantic,  Conn., 
the  long-staple  cotton  finils  its  most  cordial  customers.  So  much  are  the  long 
fibres  of  the  long  staple  valued  for  thread-making,  that  they  are  Thread- 
siilijei  ted  to  a  special  combing-proccss  in  the  thread-mills  to  free  ">■'«'<'«• 
them  from  the  shorter  staple,  of  which  there  is  always  a  certain  quantity  in  the 
llee(  e.  Cotton-thread  was  first  spun  in  i  794.  Previous  to  that  date,  sewing- 
thread  was  made  of  tlax.  It  is  said  that  Mrs.  S;imuel  Slater,  noticing  the  fine- 
ness and  evenness  of  some  yarn  which  she  was  spiiuiing  from  Sea- Island  cotton, 
su}ii;i'sted  the  idea  that  this  staple  would  tlo  for  sewing-thread.  The  idea  was 
taken  np  by  -Mr.  Slater,  and  the  first  cotton-thread  was  made  in  his  pioneer- 
mill  at  Pawtiukct.  In  thread-m.iking,  the  slivers  of  cotton  are  "drawn"  to 
several  billion  times  their  original  length. 

A  great  tleal  of  the  cotton-yarn  made  in  the  United  States  is  now  con- 
\eneil  into  hosiery  by  the  aitl  of  machinery.  There  are  now  in  the  United 
States  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  mills  devoted  to  the  fabrication  of  hosiery. 
Of  the  total  number,  sixty  arc  in  New  York,  seventy-five  in  Pennsylvania,  thirty 
in  Now  Hampshire,  thirty  five  in  Massachusetts,  and  fifteen  in  Connecticut. 
Their  product  is  in  cotton  and  woollen  hose  (plain  and  striped),  shirts,  drawers, 
JK  kets.  opera-hoods,  scarfs,  and  siiawls.  Tiiere  is  little  haml-knitting  in  the 
h^)^KTy-business  now,  c\(  e])t  in  Neu-  Hampshire.  The  Shakers  at  Knfield  knit 
the  legs  and  feet  of  their  hose  upon  circular  machines,  and  send  out  the  hose 
to  lia\e  the  heels  and  tois  knit  in  by  hand  with  stronger  and  more  .serviceable 
varn.  In  (a)nsc(iiiencc  of  the  extent  to  which  their  business  has  grown,  it  is 
said  that  there  is  more  hand-knitting  in  New  Hampshire  now  than  there  was 
lixt)  \ears  ago. 

In  the  United  States  it  is  usual  to  build  houses  for  the  working-people  of 
the  mills  in  the  vicinity  of  the  several  establishments,  which  are  turned  over  to 
ih-'ii  for  occui)ancy  at  a  low  rent.     'Ihis  circumstance  has  given    Homes  of 
Iiirth  to  a  vast  number  of  pretty  villages  in  New  Kngland  and  the   theopera- 
Nurtli.  tleriving  their  existence  solely  from  the    mills  of  the  place 
and  the  waterfalls  which  drive  them.     The  occupants  of  these  villages  were 
originally  people  from  the  farms  in  the  adjacent  townships,  —  intelligent,  cheer- 
ful, and  excellent  peojjle.     .\t  the  i)re«ent  time,  the  population  of  the  factory- 
villages  is  more  largely  composed  of  people  of  foreign  birth.     During  and  just 
ifter  the  late  war,  when  skilled  operatives  were  so  scarce  as  almost  to  be  worth 


% 


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Ur'  U 


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426 


/ND  US  V  A-/^  r.    I//S  JOKY 


their  weight  in  gold,  naniuar Hirers  who  put  up  new  mills  were  obliged  to  icnd 
to  Canada  or  Europe,  anc'  hruig  their  operatives  over  in  cargoes  or  train-loads  ■ 
and  thus  the  cluster  of  housej  ererte'l  near  vhe  mill  became  almost  a  lort'iL'n 
v'Uage  from  its  origin,  in  every  thing  except  location  and  ownership.  Tin; 
operatives  have  in  most  instances,  howc\  .r,  taken  kindly  to  American  ways 
and  American  ideas,  and  joined  heartily  i,i  the  sentiments  and  principles  of 
the  country  of  their  adoption.  They  are  stimulated  by  freedom  of  (i|)inion 
and  equality  of  j)oliticai  condition,  and  in  ainiost  every  instance  have  ptKei)- 
tibl/  brightened  up  mentally,  and  improved  their  condition  materially,  imdcr 
the  shadow  of  the  new  banner  beneath  which  they  have  ♦aken  up  thei;  resi- 
dence. The  villages  still  wear  the  contented,  orderly,  and  self-respcding 
apjiearance  of  yore. 


1:    .It,    ;h„ 


Jlfiiv'T  .i 


'-'r^^ 


OF    THE    Ui\lTF.D    STATES. 


4«7 


CHAFFER  VI. 

SILK-MANUFACTURE. 

SII.K  is  the  softest,  most  l)eautifiil,  and  strongest  of  all  textile  fibres.  While 
as  stout  as  steel,  it  is,  by  virtue  of  its  other  qualities  and  its  costliness, 
the  symbol  and  accompaniment  of  luxury.  It  was  first  used  by  Ancient  cui- 
thc  people  of  China  and  Northern  India :  gradually  it  extended  '"'»  "'  •'"'• 
into  Japan  and  Persia,  and  so  into  Europe.  Tradition  carries  the  date  of  its 
first  manufacture  back  twenty-five  hundred  years  l)efore  th(  time  of  Christ; 
lint  bi'ltcr  authenticated  history  lessens  the  distance  by  eight  centuries,  credit- 
int;  Hoang-ti,  contemporaneous  with  Joseph,  the  son  of  Jacol),  witli  being  the 
fir>t  Niik-culturist  of  the  Chinese  l'"mpire.  As  the  word  "silk  "occurs  but 
t\vi(C  in  tiie  nil)Ie,  and  in  those  cases  is  tliought  by  some  to  have  been  trans- 
LUc'd  wrongly,  it  is  very  d()nl)tful  whether  the  Jews  knew  what  the  substance 
was  prior  to  Christ's  time.  .Vristotle,  who  lived  nearly  four  hundred  years 
licfiiir  Christ,  says  that  those  who  accompanied  .Mexander  tlie  dreat  into 
India  saw  silkworms,  whi(  h  lie  describes  accurately  ;  yet  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  understood  iiow  they  produced  silk,  or  even  that  they  did  jirodure  it. 
Vet.  even  before  .Aristotle's  time,  there  had  been  a  heavy  importation  of  raw 
and  manufactured  silk  into  (Ireece,  by  way  of  Persia  :  and  this  continued  in 
the  (lays  of  the  Roman  republic  and  empire.  I'-ven  Pliny,  the  Roman 
historian,  who  lived  at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  described 
:  .IS  a  fine  woolly  substance  combed  from  the  leaves  of  trees.  Not  until 
.\.  555,  when  two  Nestorian  monks  who  were  particularly  grateful  to  the 
'  leror  Justinian,  and  who  had  travelled  in  China  at  the  peril  of  their  lives, 
lulit  a  quantity  of  silk-worm  eggs  in  th'>  hollow  of  their  staves  to  Byzan- 
tiii, ,  was  it  known  in  F-urope  t'.  at  the  highly-prized  fibre  was  excreted,  like 
the  web  of  a  spider,  by  a  worm,  which  fonned  therewith  a  chrysalis  like  a 
lateriiillar's.  .\t  the  same  time,  the  monks  gave  the  Roman  emperor  a  full 
liescriiJtion  of  the  processes  of  silk-culture,  and  imparted  the  fact  that  the 
principal  food  of  the  worms  is  the  leaf  of  the  mulberry-tree  ;  although  it  is 
known  that  these  insects  do  subsist  ujion  other  kinds  of  foliage,  but  yield,  in 
conseciuence,  an  inferior  (juality  of  silk. 


"n'T'T^rrrfr 


»,  / 


4i8 


INDUSTKIAI.    HISTORY 


(iradually  the  culture  and  manufacture  of  silk  extemled  tliroii;;!!  Asia 
Minor  and  Kurope,  althout;!!  conllned  for  numy  centuries  to  the  liy/iiuii)^. 
ProBreiio(  Kuiplre.  'I'he  products  of  Damascus  soon  became  famous.  '|'|,^; 
thainduitry.  imhistry  attained  prominenie  in  Northern  Italy  in  about  tin.'  thir- 
teenth century  of  the  Christian  era,  the  velvets  of  (lenoa  having  a  «i)ii,i. 
wide  reputation.  Silk  growing,  spinning,  and  weaving  obtained  a  very  little 
foothold  in  Frame  until  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  <  cntury.  It  is  now  tlic 
greatest  silk-manufacturing  country  of  the  civili/.etl  world,  its  produi  t>  lnjiw 
choicer,  if  not  more  copious,  than  those  of  China.  Japan,  and  India.  TIk'  raw 
silk  of  China,  however,  is  scarcely  surpassed  by  any  grown  in  Murope.  IrDin 
France,  within  the  past  two  or  three  centuries,  silk-culture  has  extended  into 
Kngland  and  (lernuiny  and  other  parts  of  liurope,  and  to  America. 


Ml  KWIIKM. 


Two  of  the  best-known  hobbies  of  James  Stuart,  the  first  of  that  S( ottish 
royal  family  who  sat  on  the  Knglish  throne,  were  his  intense  detestation  of 
Coioniaisiik-  tobacco.  and  his  desire  to  build  up  the  infant  silk-manufac  tuns  of 
culture.  Great  llritain.     .\ccordin)^ly,  no  sooner  was  the  first  coltmy  rstalv 

lished  in  Virginia  than  he  em])loyed  his  administration  to  promote  tin-  ml 
ture  of  silk  in  .America,  and  uproot  tiiat  of  the  Nicotian  weed.  He  did  no» 
care  to  develop  the  manufai  turing-industry  on  this  siile  of  the  .\llanti( .  luii 
merely  to  set  u re  a  supply  of  cocoons,  to  be  soaked,  reeled,  spun,  ami  woven 
by  llritish  industry.  .As  early  as  i6oS  he  sent  over  mulberry-trees  and  silk- 
worm  eggs,  and  re(|uire<l  of  the  London  ("om])any.  which  managed  the  alTairs 
of  the  colony,  that  it  force  the  planters  t(j  engage  in  this  new  enterprise.  .\ 
fine  of  a  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco  was  in  1623  exacted  of  every  jjlaiUcr  who 
did  not  cultivate  at  least  ten  mulberry-trees  to  every  hundred  acres  of  his 
estate.  Under  these  influences  some  headway  was  made.  Ihit  it  was  rather 
unprofitable  business,  and  not  to  be  compared  with  tobacco-raising  ;  and,  when 
Cromwell  succeeded  James  II.,  the  interest  of  Virginians  in  silk-culture  relaxed 
even  more.  In  1656  and  1657  the  industry  was  in  a  feeble  condition,  ami 
the  colonial  authorities  deemed  encouragement  desirable.  \  bounty  of  ten 
thousand  jjounds  of  tobacco  was  offered  any  one  who  would  export  two  hun- 
dred pounds'  worth  of  cocoons  in  a  single  year,  five  thousand  jiounds  of 
tobacco  to  the  producer  of  a  thousand  i)ounds  of  raw  silk,  and  four  thou- 
sand pounds  of  tobacco  to  any  jilanter  who  would  remain  in  the  colony  and 


OF    TIIR    UNITRD    STATES. 


4*9 


ili.vi.it  himself  exclusively  to  silk-growiiig.  It  does  not  appear  that  anyone 
iviiionk  advantage  of  these  profi'ers,  which  were  withdrawn  in  1666;  and 
thiiiiuli  the  industry  still  linj;ercd  along  fur  many  years,  —  and  it  is  even  said 
thai  Milk  was  sent  from  Virginia  to  I'ingland,  tri)m  which  Charles  I.  or  Charles 
II.  had  a  robe  made,  —  yet  by  degrees  the  business  died  out.  Waistcoats, 
li,>iiilkcr<  hiefs,  and  even  gowns,  of  native  silk,  were  known  in  the  colony  until 
near  the  time  of  the  Kcvoltition  ;  but  they  were  rare,  and,  whatever  sentiment 
ilicn  may  have  l)een  dinging  to  them,  of  inferior  (piality.  'I'hey  were  fuzzy 
ami  lustreless. 

(^)iiite  a  specialty  was  made  of  silk-culture  m  the  nnich  yotmger  ( olony  of 
(icorL^ia.  In  1  y^^s  the  loldnial  government  started  a  large  nursery  plantation 
of  mulberry-trees,  and  granted  land  to  settlers  on  ( ondition  that  a  hundred 
of  these  should  be  planted  to  every  ten  acres  cleared.  Trees,  seed,  and  eggs 
wvri.  Mint  over  by  the  colonial  trustees  ;  and  in  other  ways  the  industry  was  fos- 
uriii.  Tiie  liritish  Parliament,  in  1741;.  exempteil  raw  silk  from  (ieorgia  and 
Cirolina  from  duty,  and  a  bounty  was  offercil  for  its  production.  .An  Mpisio- 
|Kil  ( krgyman  versed  in  the  delicate  and  difticult  operation  of  reeling  the  silk 
from  ( ocoons,  and  a  native  of  Piedmont,  Italy,  was  sent  over  to  teach  the 
]nM)|ile  of  this  colony  how  to  perform  it;  an<l  Signor  Ortolengi,  an  Italian 
j;ciitlcman.  was  likewise  engaged  m  1749  to  te.u  h  the  (leorgians  silk  t  ult\ire. 
SiiliMquently  the  I,on<lon  Society  for  the  Kncouragement  of  .Arts.  Manufac- 
tiiR-:,  and  Commerce,  offered  a  premium  of  threepence  a  piece  on  cocoons 
(or  about  three  shillings  a  pound)  for  all  that  were  taken  to  ( )rtolengi's 
'•Nl.itiire"  at  Savannah.  .\s  early  as  1735  silk  was  exported  ;  the  amount  not 
cxdiding  eight  pounds,  however.  In  1759,  the  culminating  year  of  the 
Cii'orgia  silk-industry,  ten  thousand  pounds  were  exjjorted  ;  which  is  about  as 
miK  li  as  was  produced  in  this  whole  ( oimtry  in  iSjt)  and  11S60,  and  more  than 
two  and  a  half  times  as  nuu  h  as  the  product  of  1S70.  .\  I'lre  in  the  S;uannah 
filature  destroyed  eight  thousainl  ])ounds  in  175S.  The  production  and  expor- 
tation thereafter  decreased.  In  1790  the  only  shipment  substviucnt  to  the 
KtAolution  was  made,  and  this  amounted  to  only  two  hundred  pounds.  For 
tin.  iie\l  forty  years  very  little  silk  was  grown  in  that  State. 

Nearly  as  much  attention  was  given  to  this  industry  in  South  Carolina  as  in 
(Ieorgia  in  that  early  day.  The  (|uanlity  produced  was  much  less,  but  the 
ijiiality  ex(  client.  —  eipial  even  to  the  best  Italian  silk.  In  1755  a  distin- 
guished lady,  named  Mrs.  Pin(  kney.  took  with  her  from  this  colony  to  IJigland 
^ilk  which  she  had  manufactured  into  three  dresses,  one  of  which  was  pre- 
Hiited  to  the  mother  of  the  infant  King  (leorge  III.,  and  another  to  Lord 
(  lusterfield  :  she  reser\ed  to  herself  the  third.  The  Carolinian  silk-business 
licgan  to  decline  simultaneously  with  the  (leorgian  ;  but  in  the  settlement  of 
New  IJordeaux,  on  the  Savannah  River,  seventy  miles  above  Augusta,  much 
sewing-silk  was  manufactured  and  sold  in  the  neighboring  counties,  during  the 
Revolution,  by  the  French  residents.  ■.,.,'  :       " 


, ;.,«    .A--.,  h 


'Kil     ' 


mm 


m. 


430 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


The  fourth  colony  to  engage  in  silk-culture,  and  about  the  only  (;ne  to 
any  notable  extent  in  New  England,  was  Connecticut.  Mulberry-trees  iVoni 
Cultivation  Long  Island  were  planted  in  1755  at  New  Haven  and  Manslkld 
of  silk  in  (th^  latter  then  in  Windham  County,  but  now  of  Tolland  ("oimu  ) 
Connecticut,  _^^^^  silk-worm  eggs  were  introduced  in  1 762.  The  foilowini,'  vear 
1  )r.  Stiles,  afterwards  presid(  nt  of  Yale  College,  secured  an  act  of  the  Assem- 
bly granting  a  bounty  of  ten  shillings  on  every  hundred  mulberry-trees 
planted,  and  of  threepence  per  ounce  on  raw  silk.  These  bounties  resulted 
m  developing  the  culture  of  the  trees  very  substantially,  and  the  offer  was 
withdrawn  some  years  later.  .\  small  bounty  on  manufactures  of  home  raised 
raw  silk  was  then  granted.  In  i  763  a  half-ounce  of  mulberry-seed  was  sent 
to  every  town  in  the  colony  for  distribution.  Dr.  Stiles  was  a  great  entlmsiast 
on  the  subject  of  silk-growing,  and  made  many  valuable  experiments  and 
observations  from  1763  to  1790,  which  "ne  recorded  in  a  huge  maniiseript 
diary,  bounil  with  a  silken  cortl,  and  sti^l  i)reservjd  at  Yale  C'ollege.  The 
domestic  culture  of  silk  became  ([uite  general  in  the  colony  prior  to  the 
Revolution,  and  still  existed  in  some  sections  until  1825.  Small  groves  of 
white  mulberry-trees,  and  rude  cocooneries,  cared  for  by  women,  are  remem- 
bered by  persons  even  now  living.  It  is  especially  notable,  however,  tliat  tlie 
town  of  Mansfield  was  the  great  centre  of  silk-production  in  this  ( olony  ; 
and  Mr.  .\.  T.  Lilly  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  Mansfield  seems  to  have 
been  the  only  place  where  raising  silk  became  a  fixed  ■"  ulustry."  This  apjjlies 
more  particularly,  however,  to  the  period  between  18 10  and  1844.  Mans- 
field, nevertheless,  deserves  the  credit  of  being  the  first  silk-manufactiiring 
centre  of  this  country,  —  a  fact  to  whi(  h  we  shall  presently  recur.  Mr.  LilK 
estimates  that  the  people  of  Mansfielil  received  as  much  as  fifty  thousand 
dollars  a  year  in  barter  for  their  silk  from  1820  to  1830. 

Dr.  Aspinwall  of  New  Ha\  en,  who  was  the  first  to  import  mnlbcrry-trees 
and  silk-worms  into  Connecticut,  introduced  them  into  Pennsylvania  in  1767 
or  1768.  In  '770  Susanna  Wright  of  Columbia.  Lancaster  County,  made 
Penniyt-  a  piece  of  mantua  sixty  yards  long  from  home-raised  cocoons ; 
vania,  jjiid  this  cloth  was  afterwards  worn  as  a  court-dress  by  the  (Jiieen 

of  Creat  Britain.-  A  piece  of  similar  goods,  made  by  (Irace  Fisher,  was  suh- 
stvpiently  presented  by  (lov.  Dickinson  to  the  celebrated  Catherine  Maiaulay. 
k  filature  was  erected  in  Philadelphia  in  1769,  and  twenty-three  hundred 
pounds  of  .jocoons  were  brought  there  the  next  year  to  be  reeled.  The 
filature  was  built  by  subscription  and  at  the  insjiiration  of  the  .Ameriian 
Philosophical  Society,  which  was  aroused  by  Benjamin  Kranklin,  then  tlie 
colony's  agent  in  London. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  last  century,  and  in  the  early  part  of  this,  silk- 
New  York  culture  was  undertaken  to  a  limited  extent  in  New  York,  New 
and  other  Jersey,  Delaware,  near  Baltimore,  Maryland,  Illinois,  Massachu- 
statna.  k,qx\s,  Vermont,  New  Hampshire,  and  Maine,  with  but  little  success 

in  the  three  States  last  named. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


43  > 


I'lie   Revolution   nearly  annihilated  the   production   in   this   country  by 
cutting  off  the  export  trade.     But  private  domestic  manufacture  2,,^^^  ^^  ^^ 
still  <  reated  a  demand ;  and  after  the  war  was  over  a  slight  re-   Revolution 
vival  and  expansion  were  experienced  in  the  production,  Ohio,  "P""  *''" 
Kcniiicky,  and  Tennessee  also  engaging  therein.     However,  the 
general  decline  which  had  been  discernible  before  the  war  now  continued 
slowly,  and  by  1825  silk-culture  had  almost  entirely  died  out  in  the  United 
States. 

A  famous  period  in  this  industry  was  the  so-called  Mortis  miilticaulis 
mania.  The  favorite  variety  of  the  mulberry-tree  among  European  silk- 
growers  is  the  white,  or  Aforus  alba.  American  experimenters,  in„}xt 
however,  anong  the  first  of  whom  was  Gideon  B.  Smith,  who  muiucauiia 
imported  a  specimen  in  1826,  began  to  advocate  the  marvellous  """"•• 
merits  of  the  Aforus  multiniulis,  and  to  instigate  a  revival  of  silk-growing. 
Clearly  the  most  important  jjreliminary  step  in  this  direction  was  the  cultiva- 
tion of  mulberry-trees,  which  were  propagated  by  slips.  So  successful  were 
the  agitators,  that  the  agricultural  classes  of  nearly  the  whole  country,  espe- 
(ially  of  the  North,  were  excited  on  the  subject;  and  by  1834  or  1835  a 
demand  was  created  for  yoimg  trees  or  slips,  which  soon  rose  in  value  from 
three  or  four  dollars  a  hundred  to  twenty-five,  fifty,  a  hundred,  two  hundred, 
and  even  five  hundred  dollars  per  himdred.  One  enthusiast  bought  a  dozen 
cuttings,  not  more  than  two  feet  long,  nor  thicker  than  a  i)ipe-stem,  for  twenty- 
live  dollars,  and  said  he  valued  them  at  sixty  dollars.  In  the  furore  that 
ensued,  nurserymen  and  unscrupulous  agents  even  went  so  far  as  to  sell  slips  of 
entirely  different  stock  for  mulberry,  and  at  fabulous  prices.  A  story  is  told 
of  a  Long- Island  nurseryman  who  resorted  to  a  bold  and  shrewd  artifice  to 
IniiM  u])  his  trade.  He  drove  to  New  York,  and  took  the  steamer  to  New- 
jwrt.  He  drove  to  the  first  nursery  there,  and  asked  eagerly,  "  Have  you 
any  multicaulis  trees?"  —  "A  few,"  was  the  reply.  "I  will  give  you  fifty 
rents  apiece   for  all   you  have,"  said   the  Long- Islander.     The  nurseryman 

thought  a  minute  :  "  If  Mr. is  willing  to  give  that  price  for  them,  it  is 

because  he  thinks  they  are  worth  more."  So  he  answered,  '*  I  don't  think  I 
want  to  sell  what  few  I  have."  —  "  Very  well,"  was  the  reply:  "  I  presume  I 
lan  get  them  for  that."  Off  he  went,  and  visited  every  other  nurseryman 
who  was  known  to  have  mulberry  -  trees  in  Newport,  Providence,  Boston, 
Worcester,  Springfield,  Northampton,  and  elsewhere.  He  did  not  buy  a 
single  tree  ;  but  he  forced  the  price  up  from  twenty-five  cents  to  over  a  dollar 
in  a  single  week,  and  thus  improved  his  own  market  wonderfully.  So  enor- 
mous were  his  sales,  that  the  utmost  art  could  not  propagate  trees  fast  enough 
for  the  trade ;  and  in  1838-39  he  sent  an  agent  with  eighty  thousand 
dollars  cash  in  hand  to  France  to  buy  young  trees  for  him.  But,  before  the 
supply  could  be  had,  the  speculative  bubble  burst.  Excitement  throughout 
the  country  became  over-strained  in  1839,  and  a  sudden  re-action  took  place. 


43a 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


There  was  no  further  demand  for  the  mtilticaulis ;  and,  when  the  ent  i-irising 
Long- Islander's  supply  came  from  France,  he  was  obliged  to  sell  it  tor  pea- 
bnish  at  the  rate  of  a  dollar  a  hundred.  Numerous  other  speculators  were 
bankrupted  in  the  same  way. 

This  spirit  of  speculation  proved 
luirtful  to  those  sections  whore  silk- 
growing  had  been  already  carried  on 
successfully ;  for  it  crcatcil  such 
a  demand  for  the  trees,  tliat  raisers 
couid  not  afford  to  feed  their  worni^. 
A  single  tree  was  often  worth  more 
than  tlie  whole  probable  jjrodiu  t  of 
silk  that  season  to  tlie  owner.  Mr. 
Lilly  mentions  two  trees  of  onh  a 
single  year's  growth,  in  Nortii  Wind- 
iiam.  Conn.,  that  sold  at  ant  tion.  in 
August,  1842.  for  a  hundred  and  six 
and  a  huntircd  dollars  respectis  eiv ; 
and  the  rest  were  withdrawn  from 
sale  because  the  bidding  was  not 
sufficiently  spirited.  The  iiiulticauUs 
mania  completely  checked  the  actual 
silk-production  for  a  time  ;  and  then 
in  1844  a  general  l)light  killed  nu)st 
of  the  trees  in  the  coinitrv.  and 
very  effectually  put  an  end  to  the 
business. 

Tliere  were,   however,   jjrior  to 
this  time,  a  few  gentlemen  of  single- 
hearted   devotion   to    the   country's 
industrial  interests,  who  had  a(  live- 
ly engaged  in  and  encouraged  a  re- 
vival of  silk-culture.     .Among  these 
was  the   Hon.   Peter  S.  Dnponceau 
of  Philadelphia.     After  much  agita- 
tion of  the  subject,  and  having  employed  a  Frenchman  named  D'Homenine, 
Duponceau     ^^"    versed   both  in  producing  and  manufacturing  raw  silk,  lie 
of  Phiia-         nearly  obtained  an  appropriation  from  Congress  of  forty  thousand 
'  **   '■  dollars   wherewith    to   found    a    normal    filature,   or   school    for 

teaching  the  delicite  and  difficult  art  of  reeling  silk.  Failing  in  this,  he 
founded  such  an  institution  at  private  expense,  built  cocooneries,  went  into 
the  business  to  ( onsiderable  extent,  carried  on  extensive  correspondence  with 
other  parts  of  the  country  on  the  subject,  and   did   much   to   disseminate 


COCOUNS     COMPl.ETRI). 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


433 


valual)le  information.  His  efforts  resulted  in  financial  failure  in  1837.  Mr. 
Diipoiux'au  is  on  record  as  having  expressed  the  very  decided  opinion,  that 
we  Americans  should  keep  on  trying  to  make  silk-growing  a  success  before 
trviiiu'  to  manufacture,  even  if  we  had  to  wait  twenty  years.  But  the  country 
luis  not  followed  his  advice. 

Another  gentleman  distinguished  by  his  earnest  efforts  and  wide  influence 
in  this  realm  of  industry  was  the  late  Jonathan  H.  Cobb  of  Dedham,  Mass. 
Though  not  as  wealthy  as  Mr.  Duponccau,  he  was  nearly  as  Jonathan  H. 
active.  Interest  having  become  aroused  afresh  in  Massachusetts  '-°''''- 
ill  US30,  the  legislature  authorized  the  governor  to  appoint  him  to  prepare  a 
nKinual  on  silk-growing  for  distribution  among  the  agricultural  classes.  He 
(lid  the  work  ably,  and  the  book  ran  through  many  editions.  He  engaged, 
too,  extensively  in  the  culure  himself,  and  in  lecturing  thereupon.  In  1835 
he  engaged  in  an  enterprise  for  manufacturing  at  Dedham,  and  his  mill  turned 
out  two  hundred  pounds  of  sewing-silk  a  week.  He  also  co-operated  with 
Christopher  Colt  of  Hartford,  and  others  in  the  Connecticut  Silk  Company, 
uhose  works  were  in  the  latter  city.  This  latter  failed  in  1840.  His  losses 
])aMly/e(l  his  activity  a  vhilc  :  but  in  1843  he  started  up  his  old  mill  at  Ded- 
ham. ur.iler  the  management  of  C.  Colt,  jun.  :  but  a  fire  destroyed  the  estab- 
lishment in  1845,  and  thereafter  Judge  Col)b  had  no  more  to  do  with  the 
liibiness  with  which  he  had  been  more  or  less  identified  for  forty  years. 

For  more  than  (juarter  of  a  century  after  the  bursting  of  the  multicaulis 
liulilile,  little  raw  silk  was  produced  in  the  United  States.  The  census-returns 
])ut  down  the  yield  of  1850  at  a  trifle  over  10,000  pounds, —  Decline  in 
c'ijiii\alent  to  about  1 20,000  cocoons,  and  '.  •  ."th,  perhaps,  ^40,000.  s'ii«-c"'t"re- 
The  yield  of  i860  is  returned  at  about  11,000  pounds,  and  that  of  1870  at  less 
tlian  4,000.  Within  a  few  years,  however,  there  has  been  sometiiing  of  a 
rt.\i\al  in  the  production,  to  a  slight  extent  in  Louisiana,  but  very  conspicu- 
ously in  Southern  California. 

In  tiie  South  there  h;is  been  no  ability  manifested  to  reel  the  little  silk 
jirodiK  ed,  and  no  market  for  the  cocoons.  New  Orleans  abounds  in  mul- 
lierry-trees  planted  nearly  a  century  ago  by  the  French,  and  the  siiit-industry 
trees  are  haunted  by  a  wild  insect  whose  cocoons  are  plentiful,  in  the  South. 
From  1871  to  1S74  an  Ilali;tn  named  Roca  made  a  business  of  rearing  silk- 
worms in  that  city,  and  shipping  eggs  and  cocoons  to  Italy.  For  the  last- 
nitinioned  ycai  his  invoices  amounted  to  ten  thousand  dollars,  and  his  silk 
was  adjudged  at  Milan  su})erior  to  any  produced  thereabouts.  Besides,  three 
ciijis  of  cocoons  were  obtained  from  the  .\nierican  market,  and  but  two  from 
ti.e  It.ilian.  It  is  thus  dcmonstratetl,  that,  tiiough  the  dim.ate  there  is  a  trifle 
<Lunp,  Louisiana  might  make  a  great  success  of  silk-culture. 

California  soun  developed  wonderful  agricultural  excellence  after  her 
annexation  to  the  I'nited  St.ites.  Louis  Prc'vost  of  Normandy,  France, 
planted  nudberry-trees  at  San  Jose'  in  1S56,  but  could  not  procure  silk-worm 


m 

|f| 

M*^ 

If 

r'--"^ 

Vi 

(!£>< 

II 


I?-'-' 


434 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Kansas. 


eggs  until   1861.     He  grows  three  kinds  of  mulberries,  —  the  alba,  multi- 
catilis,  and   morclta,  but  lmvcs  the  white   ialba)  the  prcrcivnco 

California.  >  a  \  /  i  nv-i., 

as  do  most  other  Cahfornians.  A.  M.  Miiller  of  San  Jo.^c  went 
into  business  with  M.  Prevost  in  1861.  Joseph  Neumann,  a  German  silk- 
weaver,  started  a  similar  enterprise  near  San  Francisco  in  1866;  ami  I'dix 
Gillet  did  the  same  soon  after  at  Nevada  City.  These  California  pioneers 
raised  little  silk  during  the  first  decade  that  followed  Prevost's  beginnings. 
That  little  they  sent  to  Europe  as  samples  to  make  a  market  for  their  eg"s. 
In  1869  Neumann  raised  a  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  of  silk,  whicii  he  had 
made  up  into  two  national  flags,  and  presented  them  to  the  governments  of 
the  State  of  California  and  the  United  States.  For  the  last  ten  years  tho 
business  has  grown  very  rapidly.  Silk-mills  have  been  built  in  the  State,  anil 
are  supplied  entirely  with  raw  silk  of  domestic  production  ;  and  thousands  of 
dollars'  worth  of  eggs  are  annually  sent  to  Europe. 

The  only  other  i)oint  at  which  silk  is  produced  in  this  country  to  any 
notable  extent  is  Silkville,  Franklin  County,  Kan.,  where  E.  de  lioissieie,  a 
French  gentleman  of  means,  has  founded  a  small  colony  wliich 
is  engaged  in  both  growing  and  manufiicturing  silk.  In  1870  he 
planted  a  large  quantity  of  mull)crry-sced,  and  in  tiie  following  spring  set  out 
ten  thousand  young  trees  from  France.  His  experiments  with  French  eggs 
have  not  been  very  successful ;  but  he  is  doing  nicely  with  Japanese  impor- 
tations. 

« 

Thus  far  we  have  recounted  at  considerable  length  the  history  of  silk- 
culture  :  we  now  propose  to  give  the  story  of  silk-manufacturing  in  this 
country. 

Prior  to  the  Revolution,  nearly  all  the  s-lk  grown  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic  was  exported.  From  1780  to  1825  most  of  our  product  was  worked 
Domestic  "P  ^^  home.  Reeling,  spinning,  and  even  weaving  silk,  came  to 
manufacture  be  a  household  pursuit,  like  hatchelling  and  spiiming  flax,  or  card- 
**  '  ing  and  spinning  wool,  tiiough  by  no  means  so  common.     Still  it 

was  a  domestic  manufacture.  Usually  it  got  no  farther  than  the  form  of  sew- 
ing-silk ;  although  it  was  soinetimes  woven  into  dress-goods,  which  compared 
with  our  modern  machine-made  silks  about  as  the  old-faslvioned  "homesi)un" 
would  with  fin;  broadcloth.  The  processes  were  very  rude  and  defective: 
especially  so  was  the  reeling.  But  the  s])inning  and  weaving  were  generally 
performed  on  the  same  wheel  and  in  the  same  loom  used  for  wool,  ar.vl  t!ic 
apparatus  was  poorly  adapted  to  their  use.  It  mig'i:  be  here  remarked,  that, 
during  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century.  Eastern  Connecticut  was  the 
principal  centre  of  even  this  rude  industry.  The  sewing-silk  and  raw  silk 
made  in  Tolland,  Windham,  and  New-London  Counties,  in  1810,  were  valued 
at  $28,503  ;  while  the  fabrics  made  of  refuse  silk  mingled  witli  wool  were  esti- 
mated at  half  as  much.  In  some  other  parts  of  the  cjuntr),  however,  the 
business  was  carried  on,  but  to  a  much  more  limited  '    t(  nt. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


435 


The  first  organized  efforts  at  silk-manufacture  in  this  country  were  those 
of  tlie  brotiiers  Rodney  and  Horatio  Hanks  of  Mansfield,  Conn. ;  the  latter 
of  wiioiii,  prior  to  the  building  of  their  piill  in  1810,  had  invented   _ 
a  double  wheel-head  which   greatly  facilitated   the   spinning  of  factureat 
cotton,  wool,  or  silk.      This  first  mill,  run  by  water-power,  was  •[•■"**'«•''• 
(Icvotcil  to  the  manufiicture  of  sewing-silk  by  machinery.     The 
(.(lifii  e  measured  but  twelve  feet  each  way ;  but  the  enterprise  was  successful. 
In  1814  the  two  brothers  associated  with  themselves  Harrison  Holland  and 
John  (Gilbert,  and  built  a  new  and  larger  mill  at  Gurleyville,  near  by.     This 
venture  wa!-- a  virtual  failure.     In  1821   Rodney  Hanks  built  still  another  mill 
at  M.insficld,  and  associateil  his  son  George  with  h;  n  in  the  business.     This 
mill  was  operated  until  1S2S,  when  the  improvement  of  machinery  by  others, 
and  the  ruinous  competition  that  ensued,  drove  the  Hankses  out  of  the  field. 
\Vc  shall  presently  recur,  however,  to  the  progress  of  the  industry  in  this  his- 
toric town  of  Mansfield. 

The  second  pioneer  in  silk-manufacturing  in  the  United  States  was  William 
II.  IKirstmann,  who  came  from  Germany  to  Philadelphia  in  1815.  He  cstab- 
lisliC'l  liinisclf  in  the  biisinc  ;s  of  making  all  sorts  of  trimmings,  wniiam  H. 
into  the  composilicju  of  wbich  silk  partially  entered.  He  had  Horstmann. 
learned  the  art  of  silU-weaving  in  France,  imported  several  machines  for  his 
use,  and  invented  others.  Mis  products  were  dress-trimmings,  belt  and  other 
rihbons,  plaited  and  braided  gcods,  fringes,  sashes,  epaulets,  &c. ;  and  his 
business  steadily  developed.  He  was  the  first  to  introduce  the  Jacquard  loom 
into  this  country,  which  he  did  in  1S24.  His  son,  William  J.  Horstmann, 
manufactured  power-looms  of  his  own  designing  in  1837-38,  simultaneously 
with  their  adoption  in  Switzerland.  He  succeeded  his  father,  on  the  latter's 
deatii  in  1852.  The  elder  Horstinann's  father-in-law,  Hoccklcy,  was  estab- 
lished in  Philadelphia  in  the  business  of  making  coach  lace,  fringe,  and  tassels. 
The  Horstmann  Sons  combined  all  these  departments,  and  have  developed  the 
l>usiness  greatly,  continuing  it  to  the  present  day,  having  taken  premiums  at 
many  local  and  national  exhibitions. 

The  high  tariffs  of  1S24  and  182S,  and  other  influences  which  stimulated 
manufacturing  of  all  sorts,  induced  further  effort  with  silk.  In  1S29  a  ribbon- 
manufactory  was  started  in  Baltimore  ;  but  it  was  a  short-lived  affair. 

Tiie  next  enterprise  was  in  Mansfield,  Conn.,  again.     This  started  as  early 
as  18:7-28,  when  a  corporation  was  organized  called  "The  Mansfield  Silk 
Company."    The  partners  were  Alfred  Lilly,  Joseph  Conant,  Wil-   Mansfield 
Ham  .\.  Fisk,  William  Atwood,  Storrs  Hovey,  and  Jesse  Bingham.  Siik  Com- 
These  names  have  since  figured  very  prominently  in  connection   ''*"''■ 
with  silk-manufacturing.     The  organization  was  formally  incorporated  by  the 
legislature  in  1S29.     It  gave  attention  to  the  encouragement  of  production, 
but  aimed  especially  to  improve  the  quality  of  sewing-silk  by  improving  the 
processes    of   reeling    and   "  throwing,"   or  doubling.      Its    first  successful 


!/*l 


■'!'* 


436 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


machinery  was  designp'^'  by  Edward  Golding,  a  young  English  throwster. 
Their  reels  were  greatly  impro  ed  a  year  or  two  later  (at  the  suggestion  of  a 
Mr.  Brown,  an  English  silk-manufacturer  who  had  settled  in  Boston),  and 
operated  by  water  power  instead  of  hand.  Their  business  now  developed,  and 
they  attained  cjuite  a  reputation.  American  sewing-sill:,  though  not  yet  per- 
fect in  color  or  evenness,  came  largely  into  use.  The  company  offeretl  to  buy 
all  the  cocoons  offered  it :  it  went  even  farther,  anil  undertook  silk-growing 
itself  on  a  largo  scale.  Large  tracts  of  land  were  leased,  and  planted  with 
mulberry-trees;  and  the  legislature  was  induced  in  1832  to  grant  bounties  on 
tree-raising  and  reeling.  They  then  n-.ade  another  venture ;  namely,  an  at- 
tempt at  weaving  :  but  their  apparatus  wi's  poorly  adapted  to  the  end.  A  third 
influence  operated  hurtfully  upon  the  enterprise.  Nathan  Rixford  of  Mans- 
field invented  improvements  in  winding,  doubling,  and  spinning,  which  put  the 
Mansfield  Company's  machinery  behind  the  times,  just  as  theirs  had  ecliitsed 
that  of  the  original  Hankses.  In  1835  Mr.  Lilly  withdrew  from  the  co.Kern; 
three  others  did  in  1839;  and  then  the  company  suspended,  although  for  a 
time  it  let  its  mill  to  other  parties.  This  factory,  however,  deserves  the  credit 
of  being  the  first  in  this  country  where  silk-manufacture  was  successfullv 
carried  on  to  any  e.\tent. 

The  early  endeavors  of  the  Hanks  family,  and  the  operations  of  the  Horst- 
manns,  had  widely  advertised  the  possibilities  of  silk-manufacture  in  tliis  coun- 
try. The  imposition  of  a  protective  tarifl",  the  efforts  of  public-spirited  men  to 
promote  silk-growing,  the  application  of  Yankee  ingenuity  to  the  improvement 
of  machinery,  the  marked  success  of  these  mechanical  endeavors,  and  the 
practical  achievements  of  the  Mansfield  Company,  awakened  wide  interest  in 
the  fabrication  of  the  silk  fibre,  and  drew  men  and  capital  into  such  enterprises, 
to  a  great  extent,  from  1830  to  1839,  — a  period  the  reader  will  identify  with 
that  of  the  famous  viulticaulis  mania.  The  critical  year  1839 
blasted  nearly  all  these  many  young  and  promising  enterprises,  and 
marked  a  dividing-line,  beyond  which  few  of  the  earlier  ones  passed  ;  altho!ii,'li 
several  of  the  most  successful  manufactures  of  later  days  were  built  upon  the 
ruins  of  that  fatal  period,  and  by  men  intimately  associated  thc^with.  This 
will  the  more  clearly  appear  from  the  history  of  three  or  four  of  the  leading 
undertakings  of  that  day  and  this. 

In  the  village  of  Florence,  near  Northam])ton,  Mass.,  on  the  stream  known 
as  Mill  River,  where  the  historic  bursting  of  a  dam  occurred  in  1S74,  tliere 
Northamp-  ^'^  erected,  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  what  was  long  known  as 
ton  Silk  the  "old  oil-mill."     About  1830  Samuel  Whitmarsh  of  New  York, 

ompany.  ^^j^^  j^.^^j  accumulatctl  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  in  the  tailorin;^- 
business,  went  to  Northampton,  bought  the  mansion  now  owned  by  I'.dward 
Lyman,  erected  two  hothouses  for  raising  mulberry-trees,  and  in  1S32  (  au^ed 
the  old  oil-mill  to  l)e  put  in  order  for  silk-manufacturini;.  Machinery  was 
constnicted  after  designs  by  Nathan   Rixford,  the  Mansfield  inventor.     Mr. 


1839. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


437 


Whitmarsh,  by  his  enthusiasm  and  activity,  not  only  excited  the  neighborhood, 
but  secured  the  co-operation  of  several  gentlemen  from  Middletown,  Conn., 
in  iiis  enterprise,  among  them  Augustus  anil  Samuel  Russell,  who  had  founded 
a  large  American  shipp'ng-house  in  China.  These  gentlemen  now  organized 
the  Northani])ton  Silk  ■  "ompany,  and  in  1834  built  a  new  brick  mill  in 
aiidiiiiin  to  tiie  old  oil-mill.  They  laid  out  large  mulberry-plantations,  and 
[)ro(  ceded  with  the  manufacture  of  watch-ribbons,  vestings,  and  other  goods. 
Henry  Clay,  I  )aniel  Webster,  and  other  public  men,  were  presented  with  heavy 
lila(  k-silk  vest-patterns  from  this  establisiiment.  Dut  tlie  supply  of  raw  silk  was 
small,  and  headway  slight.  In  1.S35  Mr.  Whitmarsh,  presiilent  of  the  com- 
panv.  went  to  France  to  obtain  information  on  silk-culture.  The  result  of  iiis 
observations  was  published  in  a  valuable  book  in  1839.  That  summer  he 
rem  iikeil  to  John  Kyle,  then  in  his  employ  as  a  weaver,  "  I  shall  make  this 
vcar  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  before  next  winter."  The  col- 
lapse of  the  multicaiilis  bubble  ruined  the  rompany ;  and,  when  winter  came, 
Mr.  \\'hitmarsh  had  neither  cash  nor  credit  enough  to  buy  a  barrel  of  flour. 
The  ( ompany  eventually  paid  all  its  debts,  amounting  to  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  ;  and  Mr.  Whitmarsh  went  to  Jamaica,  where  he  made  fresh  ventures, 
that  were  but  partially  succesMful.  Shortly  before  his  death,  in  1S75,  he 
seriously  contemplated  imdertaking  new  ones  in  ('alifornia. 

When  Mr.  Whitmarsh  left,  the  Northampton  Company  secured  the  services 
of  Capt.  Joseph  Conant,  who  had  been  associated  with  several  Mansfield 
enterprises  since  1S27;  but,  when  bankruptcy  ensued  in  1840,  the  company 
sold  out.  Capt.  Conant,  S.  L.  Hill,  Cicorge  W.  Henson,  and  William  Adams, 
were  the  purchasers.  The  new  corporation  took  the  Florence  property,  and 
organized  a  "community  "  of  interest  and  i)articipation  in  work.  This  proved 
a  failure;  and  in  1844  the  property  again  changed  hands,  and  Mr.  Hill,  who 
had  secured  the  partnership  of  a  Northampton  capitalist,  S.  L.  Hinckley, 
olitained  control.  The  establishment  was  now  denominated  the  "  Nonotuck 
Steam-Mill,"  and  has  done  a  i)rosperous  business  in  sewing-silk  and  twist  ever 

since.     Their  "  Corticelli  "  brand  is  widely  famous.     Conant  built 

.,,       ,,  .  ,    ,  ...      Conantviile. 

the  Conant  Mill  ut  Conantville,  C  onn.,  in  1S52  ;   and  he  and  ins 

taiuily  were  instrumental  in  founding  several  other  enterprises.  New  and 
successful  ventures  have  since  been  made  at  Florence,  Northampton,  and 
Holyoke,  Mass.  This  brief  narration  gives  one  an  i  lea  of  the  vicissitudes 
that  have  attended  the  progress  of  the  silk-industry  in  this  country. 

Another  simil.ir  story  is  that  of  the  C'onnecticut  Silk-Man  (licturing  Compa- 
ny, incorporated  at  Hartford  in  1S35.  which  receive, 1  a  bonus  of  about  eleven 
thousand  dollars  net  from  a  bank  charter.  It  was  managed  by  Christopher 
Colt  and  J,  H,  Hayden,  It  collapsed  in  1838,  after  sinking  its  entire  capital. 
The  latter  gentleman  then  went  into  partnership  with  Mr.  Haskell,  who 
furnished  the  capital ;  and  they  established,  under  the  firm-name  of  J.  H. 
Hayden  &  ('ompany,  a  silk-mill  at  Windsor  Locks,  near  Hartford,  which  con- 
tinues prosperous  to  this  day. 


i 


lijii'.;| 


438 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


One  of  the  most  successful  undertakings  in  this  department  of  in(histrv !« 
that  of  the  Cheney  Hrothers  of  South  Manciiester,  Conn.  The  familv  was 
Chen  °"*^  °^  '"■'ftli^  industrious,  enterprising   farmer-boys.     St  ih  and 

Brothers,  John  became  artists,  and  left  Iionie  ;  so  did  two  othi  i^.  wlio 
South  Man-  engaged  in  mercantile  pursuits  in  I'rovidence.  All  of  ihcm  h;ul 
been  more  less  tiimiliar  with  the  culture  of  mulberry-trccs  (luriiiL' 
their  boyhood  ;  and  in  J  nuay,  1838,  Ward,  Rush,  Frank,  and  Ralpii  staiiud 
the  Mount-Ni  Sil'  .!s  in  their  native  town,  wh'.- re  for  four  or  five  vcars 
past  they  had  ,-■.::!  \  ;.  ••g  iilk-worms  and  produc-  some  silk.  The  mills 
soon  closeil  for  ;.  .i*).!  :.-iod,  during  wiiich  W'a.  K'usii,  and  Frank  went 
to  Burlington,  N.I. ,  -  engi  :•  in  the  nursery  and  c  jcoonery  business.  I'liey 
also  published  a  magazine,  i,aii  il  "The  Silk-Gro.ver's  Manual,"  frum  liily_ 
1838,  to  July,  1840.  Other  members  of  the  family  cultivated  mulhcrrv  trees 
in  Florida,  Georgia,  and  Ohio.  The  multicaulis  collapse  hurt  them  finam  lally ; 
and  so  the  brothers  went  back  to  South  Manchester  in  1841,  and  re-opeiieil 
the  mill.  Putting  in  new  machinery,  they  began  with  the  manufacture  of 
sewing-silk,  gradually  extending  their  business  to  ribbons  and  handken  luufs. 
They  used  imported  raw  silk  almost  exclusively,  as  the  .American  silk  wa>  too 
poorly  reeled  to  be  serviceal)le,  and  too  scanty  in  supi)ly.  Soon  an  attempt 
was  made  to  manufacture  broad  goods,  or  dress-goods  ;  their  first  experiments 
being  made  with  pierced  cocoons,  floss,  silk-waste,  and  such  material  as  could 
not  be  reeled.  This  was  carded  and  spun,  and  used  tor  filling,  by  luadnncry 
made  expressly  tor  the  i)urpose.  The  j^roduct  was  a  substantial  but  lustreless 
goods,  which  found  a  good  market.  Five  years  of  jxUient  ingenuity  and 
perseverance  were  needed  to  perfect  this  apjjaratus  and  insure  success.  This 
si)un  silk  was  woven  into  pongees  and  haiulkerchiefs  at  fust,  and  then  into 
foulards,  ribbons,  and  broad  goods.  In  1854  a  new  mill  was  built  at  Hartford, 
and  put  in  charge  of  Charles  Cheney,  wno  had  come  home  from  Ohio  in 

1847. 

Until  the  breaking-out  of  the  late  civil  war,  and  the  imposition  of  the 
heavy  tariff  of  1861  upon  foreign  silk-goods,  the  Cheney  Brothers  could  not 
compete  successfully  with  imported  articles.  The  acts  of  1S31 
and  1846  had  left  the  silk-industry  in  this  country  with  too  little 
protection.  But,  with  the  re-imposition  of  a  stiff  tariff,  the  business  ra])idly 
grew;  and  the  Cheney  silks  have  now  accjuired  a  wide  and  enviable  rei)utation. 
The  Cheneys  have  been  public-spirited  and  philanthropic  employers.  Not 
only  do  they  ])ay  their  help  well,  but  they  ha\e  beautified  the  village-homes 
of  their  operatives,  provided  commodious  boarding-houses,  erected  and  fur- 
nished a  fine  public  hall,  a  reading-room,  and  library,  and  contributed  largely 
to  the  erection  of  church,  school,  and  armory.  Meantime  they  have  pros- 
pered in  business,  and  acquired  wide  reputation  and  influence  in  their  state 
and  nation. 

The   largest   silk-manufacturing  centre  in  the   country  is    Paterson,  N.J. 


Tariff. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


439 


John  K   'e. 


Hitlur,  in  1839,  came  Christopher  Colt,  jun.,  son  of  the  Connecticut  silk- 
mannt.ictiiring  company's  presitlent,  and  l)rothcr  of  Samuel  Colt,  Pstenon, 
inventor  and  maker  of  the  revolver  which  bears  his  name.  Young  ^^^• 
Chii^toplier  had  been  connected  more  or  less  with  the  unsuccessful  venture 
in  11.11  tford  with  which  his  father  was  connected  ;  but,  foreseeing  the  impend- 
iiii;  ruin  there,  he  removed  to  Paterson,  wiiere  his  brother  had  already  built 
a  |ii>ic)l-factory.  Samuel  gave  the  use  of  the  fourth  story  of  his  building  to 
ihi'  vounger  Christopher,  who  there  began  silk-manufacturing  on  a  small 
scik  ;  but  in  1840,  amid  the  very  general  depression,  he  sold  out  to  John 
Ryic. 

Ryle  was  a  native  of  Kngland,  and  a  member  of  a  family  engaged  in  silk- 
maiiiilacturinc,'.  He  was  drawn  to  this  country  by  tiie  miilticaulis  fever.  '*"or 
.n  sliort  time  he  was  in  the  employ  of  Mr.  Whitmarsh  at  North- 
ampiun,  and  later  he  visited  the  Hartford  factory.  He  noted  tlie 
nit'd'nical  defects  of  these  two  establishments,  and  saw  how  they  coul<-  "  im 
prDvcii.  He  possessed  not  only  practical  ingenuity,  but  business  sb  (Ui  '"). 
During  iiis  visit  to  Northampton  he  had  come  in  contact  with  (1.  \V.  \i  :  uy 
anil  subsequently  met  that  gentleman  in  New  V'ork.  He  impressed  -  o  strongly 
upon  .Murray's  mind  the  idea,  that,  at  the  time  of  the  great  d.  ri,  ,  in 
1S41),  one  CO'  111  most  profitably  invest,  tiiat  he  persuaded  that  capitalist  to 
advance  thirty-two  hundred  dollars  wherewith  to  buy  out  Ciiristopher  Colt, 
jini.  Murray  pu*.  Ryle  in  charge,  and  three  years  later  took  him  into  jjartner- 
shiii.  In  1846  Ryle  received  enough  assistance  from  his  brothers  in  Kngland 
to  purchase  the  full  ownershi|),  and  the  following  year  he  extended  the 
business  so  as  to  include  the  manufacture  of  broad  goods.  In  1846  he  had 
set  a  few  looms  at  work,  and  made  several  pieces  of  ilress-silk  a  thousand 
yards  in  length.  In  1847  the  facilities  were  increased,  and  in  1S50  he  went 
to  !"ran(  e  to  visit  the  i)rincipal  silk-factorics  of  that  country.  A  fair  specimen 
of  his  work  at  this  period  was  the  large  silk  flag  which  waved  over  the  Crystal- 
Pahue  llxhibition  in  New  York  in  1852.  Since  then  his  business  has  in- 
creased. pr()s|)ered,  and  excited  lively  competition.  In  1857-58  he  was 
employing  four  hundred  or  five  hundred  operatives,  and  consuming  two 
thousand  pounds  of  raw  silk  a  week,  —  an  amount  then  unprecedented  in 
America. 

This  is  the  foundation  of  the  Patcrson  silk-industry.  In  1840  Paterson 
was  hut  a  village  of  seven  thousand  inhabitants  :  now  it  is  a  large,  beautiful, 
and  flourishing  city.  Then  John  Ryle  was  a  poor  mechanic,  with  Ryie'» 
scarcely  a  friend  :  he  has  since  won  a  national  reputation.  In  «"':=eii. 
1852  he  bought  a  large  piece  of  property  near  Passaic  Falls,  greatly  beautified 
it  liy  the  arts  of  landscajjc-gardening  and  architecture,  and  presentee  it  to  the 
people  of  the  town  as  a  free  public  park.  Shortly  afterward  he  w  is  elected 
mayor  of  Paterson.  In  1854  he  built  the  Murray  Mill,  then  one  of  the  largest 
and  best-equipped  establishments  in  the  country. 


•**!,!. 


» '   i  kJc 


^i 


l/i* 


'ft'-" 


MlppllCll 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


441 


For  nearly  twelve  years  Ryle  was  without  local  competition.  In  1851-52 
John  licnson,  formerly  a  cotton-maniifacttirer,  started  a  small  silk-mill  in 
I'atcisoii.  Three  years  later,  Hamil  ^:  IJooth  beyan  business  with  twenty 
opcr.itives,  and  gradually  developed  their  business  (their  establisiunent,  the 
l'a,-,iii-  Silk-Works,  confming  itself  for  fifteen  years  simply  to  '•  tni-owiiig " 
silk);  and  soon  other  small  factories  were  started,  some  of  which  were  tiie 
foundations  of  great  enterprises. 

Having  thus  sketched  the  foundations  of  the  silk-industry,  we  ])ause  to 
consider  some  of  the  causes  that  gave  it  development,  and  hastily  to  outline 
its  fiilK'i-  dimensions. 

Olio  agency  that  stimulated  manufacture  from  iSro  to  1.S40  was  the 
cuilini^'  of  the  r.iw  material  in  this  country ;  but  since  the  last-named  date  we 
have  been  dependent  chielly  upon  the  foreign  supply.     Another 


'I'Ik 


Reasons 


aL'cn<  V   was    the    invention   of   mai  hinery    by    .\mcri(  ans.       ...^      . 

'p  J         '  why  manu* 

Hanks    iirothers   used    rude    machinery  with    their   w.iter-power.   facture  has 
Nathan  Rixford  inventeil  many  useful  devices,  the  most  valuable   »"""'■'*'• '" 

■'  this  country. 

of  \vhi<  h  was  that  for  reeling  silk.  liefore  the  processes  of 
(ioubhng,  spinning,  or  dyeing,  are  jHTformed,  the  fibre  from  half  a  do/.cn 
cocoDtis  needs  to  be  combined  in  a  single  tliread.  .\s  some  cocoons  contain 
hilt  three  hundred  ami  others  tliirteen  hundred  feet  of  filament,  and  as  this  is 
of  spiilcr-web  delicacy,  the  work  of  lombining  parallel  fil)res,  and  attaching 
the  siKcessive  ones  smoothly  and  perfectly,  is  a  very  difficult  one.  Rixford's 
Rixtbnl's  reels  were  a  great  advance  on  our  old  ones,  and  were  inventions. 
sent  ti)  China,  with  samples  of  thread,  fc  •;  .e  and  imitation  by  tiie  natives  who 
supiilied  our  manufacturers  with  raw  material  after  1.S40;  and,  though  it  was 
hard  work  to  secure  their  introduction,  they  finally  came  into  wide  use,  and 
taciiiiated  American  manufacture.  Mention  has  been  made  alre.uly  of 
Horstmann's  application  of  the  power-loom  to  silk-weaving  at  I'hilaiU  Iphia  in 
1S37.  and  to  the  ("heney  Hrothers'  appar-'us  for  carding  and  spinning  silk  for 
filling  which  could  not  be  reeled.  Tiiis  latter  was  an  important  advance  in 
the  iiiiiiness.  Rixford  also  invented  for  Ralph  Cheney,  in  i.S_5.S,  a  friction- 
rolkr  for  ii->e  in  spinning,  which  was  of  great  value  and  extended  use.  .\Ir. 
M.  Heiuinway,  who  began  the  maiuil^rcture  of  silk  at  Middletown,  Conr..,  in 
iS-jQ,  was  the  first  to  substitute  spool  for  skein  silk.  I,.  1).  Iirown,  formerly 
of  (luricyville,  but  alterwards  of  Conantville  and  .Middletown,  invented  valiia- 
hlc  ajjparatus  for  spooling  silk  and  weighing  it  ;  so  that  the  thread  was  cut 
when  the  spool  contained  an  oimc( .  For  many  years  past  the  Danforth 
Ix)(i)ni()tive  and  Machine  Company  of  I'aterson  has  been  making  a  machine 
for  "  throwing "  or  spinning  silk,  which  is  more  useful  and  valuable  than  is 
manufactured  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  Messrs.  Atwood  &  Holland  of 
Wiiliinantic  use  a  stretching-machine,  which  reduces  the  nnevennesses  in 
knotty  Chinese  silk  to  the  smoothness  of  the  finest  Italian  product. 

I'he  enthusiasm,  far-sightedness,  persevering  energy,  and  business-tact  of 


■m 


■»l'v''V^?Tr»*»'ipf%f 


44a 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  pioneers  in  the  silk-business,  in  tlie  face  of  faihire,  ridicule,  and  many  other 
adversities,  have  done  every  thin^  to  establisii  the  in<histry,  and  win  MthcrH 
tiiereto.  Dr.  Benjamin  I-'rankiin,  Dr.  Stiles  of  New  Haven,  Dr.  As|)iinv;ill  of 
that  city,  Mr.  Diii)onceau  of  I'hiladelpiiia,  J'ldge  Cobb  of  Dedham,  Rodney 
and  Horatio  Hanks,  tiie  Atwoods  an<l  C'onants,  the  Lillys  and  others  of  Mans- 
field, Sanuiel  Whitmarsh,  Christopher  Colt,  J.  H.  Hayilen,  and  John  Kylo,  are 
among  the  individuals  to  whom  the  success  of  silk-manufacture  in  .\nKri( a  is 
chiefly  due.  Association  for  the  exchange  of  information  and  ide.is,  and  for 
co-operation  in  promoting  the  common  interest,  has  proved  helpful  in  this  a^s 
in  other  industries.  Paterson  had  ;\  local  organization  of  this  sort  in  1S58, 
re-organi/,ed  in  1X72  ;  and  in  the  last-named  year  a  national  organization  was 
effected,  which  has  since  had  an  annual  meeting  every  spring.  The  protci  tive 
tariffs  which  were  en.icted  shortly  after  the  war  of  1812-15  did  something  to 
encourage  manufactuiing ;  but  tiiey  were  nearly  all  removed  in  1.S31.  'I'he 
threats  of  civil  war  in  1859  depressed  the  business  considerably;  Imt  the 
imposition  of  the  tariff  of  1861  gave  fresh  encouragement  by  checking  the 
importation  of  foreign  goods.  Witiiin  the  jjast  three  or  four  years  the  law  has 
been  so  evaded,  tliat  large  (piantities  of  ilress-goods  have  been  put  on  the 
market  in  New  York  which  hail  escaped  payment  of  the  duty ;  and  no  iitlie 
embarrassment  has  ensued. 

By  1S30  there  had  been  only  three  or  four  short-lived  ventures  in  Mans- 
field, Conn.,  one  in  Baltimore,  and  one  successful  one  in  Philadelphia.  This  latter 
Progreit  and  the  Manstiekl  Company's  were  the  only  ones  in  operation  in 
until  1830.  that  year.  During  the  next  decade,  besides  the  Hartford,  Wind- 
sor-Locks, Northampton,  Tlorence,  and  Paterson  undertakings,  there  were 
])erhaps  a  dozen  others  started  ;  among  them  the  .\tlantic  Silk  Comjiany  of 
Nantucket,  the  Poughkeepsie  Silk  Company,  Mr.  Cobb's  silk-mill  at  Dedham, 
the  Morodendron  Silk  Company  of  Philadelphia,  and  two  or  three  organiz.ations 
at  Mansfield.  These  and  a  few  others  failed  altogether,  or  changed  hands, 
about  1840.  One  of  the  successful  enterprises  was  that  of  B.  B.  Tilt  of  Boston, 
who  began  making  silk  trimmings  for  dresses  in  1834,  and,  after  doing  a  good 
business  many  years,  went  to  Paterson  in  1862,  where  he  organized  the 
Phcenix  Silk  NLinufacturing  Company. 

From  184010  1 86 1,  besides  the  three  or  four  surviving  organizations  and  the 
three  or  four  more  built  upon  the  ruins  of  old  ones  already  named,  there  were 
upwards  of  a  hundred  new  enterprises  undertaken  in  Boston,  the 
Connecticut  Valley,  various  small  villages  of  Kastern  Connecticut, 
New- York  City,  Paterson,  and  Philadelphia.  Many  of  these  were  small,  and 
for  the  manufacture  of  only  sewing-silk  and  twist.  Several,  es])ecially  in  the 
cities,  made  dress,  coach,  upholsterers',  and  undertakers'  trimmings.  The 
Cheneys  and  Kyle  were  almost  the  only  ones  that  made  broad  goods. 

Since  1861  there  have  been  a  large  number  of  new  establishments  started; 
but  a  larger  number  of  old  ones  have  suspended.     In  i860  there  were  139 


1840  to  1S61. 


OF   THE    UNirED   STATES. 


443 


rettirmd  in  the  census,  employing  5,435  hands  and  ^2,926, 980  capital,  with 
an  .u^^ayatc  production  of  1^6,607,711.  In  1.S70  there  were  but 
cigiity-ninc  returned  (i)riniipally  in  Connecticut,  New  Vorl;,  and 
New  Jersey),  employing  6,649  hands  and  $6,231,130  capital,  with  a  total 
prodm  tion  of  $1 2,210,662.  It  was  during  this  era  that  some  of  the  men 
now  most  prominent  in  the  business  —  tlie  Dales,  the  Ikldens,  and  others  — 
cstaliliihcd  themselves. 

Since  1870  the  industry  has  developed  still  farther.  Our  total  jmxluction 
h.is  increased  to  upw.irds  of  $25,000,000  a  year.  From  1S50  to  1.S60  our 
imports  of  silk-goods  averaged  ;?2 7,000,000  a  year,  and  in  1860  progren 
.iiiiDunted  to  S,}4..?,?o,3i;r.  During  the  next  decade,  owing  to  the  »'"«:«  "^to- 
hij;h  t.iriff,  they  averaged  but  $17,500,000  a  year;  but  in  1.S71  they  rose  to 
j*3.5.'^'>'^7'"'  '"^i'l'e'  then  they  have  steadily  fallen  off.  In  1.S75  they  aggrc- 
gatiil  but  ;S2j,i6.S,i  iS,  and  in  1S77  about  ;S2i,ooo,ooo.  Thus  it  will  be  .seen 
that  we  are  gradually  driving  the  foreign  produci  from  our  markets.  More 
than  tluit,  we  arc  now  exporting  nearly  $100,000  worth  of  sewing-silk  a 
year.  Our  products  have  taken  many  premiunis,  and  received  high  en- 
:omiiuus  from  the  juries  of  fairs,  —  local,  state,  national,  and  international. — ■ 
within  the  past  few  years ;  and,  exce|)t  in  the  (juality  of  a  few  ilress-silk.i  and 
fclvcts,  they  ecjual  any  thing  i>roduced  in  other  tjuartcrs  of  the  globe. 


^ 


AAA 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


ii<„  --<; 


CHAPTER   VII. 


SHOE    AND    LEATHER    MANUFACTURES. 


WHEN  one  realizes  that  more  persons  arc  employed  in  the  United  States 
in  preparing  and  manufacturing  leather  than  are  engaged  in  niakiii" 
cotton,  linen,  and  woollen  goods,  and  that  the  total  value  of  the  former  jnoil- 
Magnitudeof  ucts  cxceeds  the  latter,  he  api)reciates  more  fully  than  before  the 
the  industry,  importance  of  this  class  of  industries.  The  census-returns  of  1870 
set  down  the  number  of  persons  engaged  in  tanning,  dressing  skins,  and  mak- 
ing hoots  and  shoes,  saddles  and 
harnesses,  trunks,  valises,  salcliels, 
pocket-books,  gloves,  belting,  ami 
hose,  at  over  202,000.  To  tlusu 
siiould  be  added  at  least  50,000 
cobblers  and  small  shoemakers,  who 
are  excluded  from  the  above  fimiros ; 
and  an  allowance  shoukl  be  made 
also  for  those  who  use  leather  in 
book-binding,  carriage-building,  and 
making  "cards"  for  textile  fibres. 
The  total  value  of  the  dire(  i  lealher- 
l)rotlu('ts  above  enumerated  was 
.^386.000.000  ;  and  ,^64,000,000 
woukl  not  be  an  extravagant  esti- 
mate of  the  value  of  the  leather 
element  in  the  goods  of  wlii(  h  it 
forms  but  a  i)art.  The  same  census- 
returns  put  down  the  number  of 
operatives  engaged  in  ( otton,  linen, 
silk,  and  woollen  manufact\ire,  at 
about  250.000,  and  tiicir  produi  ts 
at  $390,000,000.  Since  that  time 
the  leather-industr"  has,  if  any  tiling,  gained  the  advantage  over  those  with 


!ii;A'riN<;-()t'T  maciiinh. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


44S 


which  we  here  make  comparison.  It  is  safe  to  say,  that,  in  point  of  value, 
it  constitutes  over  one-tenth  of  the  whole  manufacturing-industry  of  the 
couiitr)',  and,  in  employment,  surpasses  the  combined  manufacture  of  textile 

fabrics. 

Unless  we  except  the  primitive  fig-leaf,  the  skins  of  wild  and  domestic 
.iiiimals  may  be  said  to  have  constituted  the  earliest  clothing  of  mankind. 
The  spinning  and  weaving  of  flax  and  wool  was  of  later  date  than  g,,i„g  ^^^ 
the  first  use  of  skins.  Egyptian  pictorial  inscriptions  of  an  age  earliest  kind 
anterior  to  the  Jewish  captivity  show  the  familiarity  of  the  denizens  °  '^  °'  '"*f- 
of  tlic  Nile  country  with  tanning  and  the  uses  of  leather.  The  art  of  making 
"rams'  skins  dyed  red,"  with  which  the  mosaic  tabernacle  was  covered,  was 
(loubtiess  learned  in  Egypt.  It  is  an  interesting  fact,  that  bronze  leather- 
slicers.  similar  to  those  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  have  been  found  in  old 
Mexican  sepuU  hrcs,  indicating  that  the  arts  of  making  and  using  leather  were 
understood  by  the  founders  of  the  early  civilization  of  that  country. 

The  aborigines  of  the   United  States  whom  the   Europeans  found  here, 
doubtless  of  a  later  stock  than  the  ancient  Toltecs  and  Aztecs,  understood  the 
.art  of  dressing  the  skins  of  buffalo,  elk,  deei,  moose,  and  other   ^^^^  .^^j 
wild  animals.     'I'hey  employed   smoke   in  their  curing-processes,   mode  of 
hilt  evidently  did  not  understand  the  properties  of  oak  and  hem-   '*''f»»'"K 
lock  bark.     The  moccasons,  leggings,  and  hunting-shirts  of  the 
Indians  were  generally  well  curried,  and  sometimes  well  dyed  ;    and  these, 
as  well  as  their  robes,  were  often  adorned  with  jjictorial  and  symbolical  de- 
signs of  considerable  intricacy,  if  not  beauty. 

Before  tiie  early  settlers  could  do  any  thing  of  consequence  in  the  way 
of  making  leather,   it  was  necessary  that  their  stock  of  imported   domestic 
ciUle  siiould  increase;   which  it  did  rapidly.     Accordingly,  as  early  as  1620, 
a  list  enumerating  the  kinds  of  tradesmen  needed  in  the  colony  of  Virginia 
cuntaiiK'd    tanners,  leather-dressers,  and   shoemakers.      We  hear 
little  I.A  actual   shoemaking,  however,  before    1649,  when  Capt.   of  industry 
Matdiews,  an  old  settler,  received  legi.ilative  conmiendation   for   among  the 
tiie  various   industries   he    had    inaugumted.     Among    his   other   ^^[1^^^^ 
achie\enients  were   the  erection  of  a  tan-house,  the   manufacture 
<if  leather,  and   the   employment   of  eight   shoemakers.     The  production  of 
leather  and  shoes  was  very  slight,  though,  for  many  years  ;    and,  indiviilual 
ente.prise  not  being  alone  sufficient   to  develop  the  business,  resort  was  had 
to  legislative  encouragement.     In    1662   the  Virginia  Assembly  recjiiired  that 
tan-houses  be  erected  in  every  county  at  the   county  charge  ;   and  provision 
was  to  be  made  for  the  employment  of  tanners,  curriers,  and   shoemakers. 
An  allowance   was  to  be   made   every  one   for  dry  hides  at   the   rale   of  two 
]H)iin(ls  of  tobacco  for  every  pound  of  hide,  and  shoes  were  to   be   sold   for 
thirty  and  thirty-five  pounds  of  toliae  co  per  jiair  for  the  largest  sixes.      The 
exportation  of  hides  was   prohibited   under  ])enalty  of  a  tine  of  a  thousand 


'  W'f^i  i'f 


446 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORV 


pounds   of  tobacco.    The  low  price  of  tobacco  afforded  an  incentive  for 
building  up  new  varieties  of  industry,  and  the  carelessness  and  neglud  with 

which  cattle  were  treated  made  sonic  steps 
for  their  protection  almost  necessary.  Just 
how  effectual  these  enactments  in  Virginia 
were  does  not  appear ;  but  they  were  fol- 
lowed in  Maryland,  in  1681,  with  similar 
ones  as  regards  exporting  hides.  Beverly, 
writing  a  few  years  afterwards,  says  that 
a  few  hides  were,  "with  much  ado,  tanned 
and  made  into  st.-vants'  shoes,  bnt  at  so 
careless  a  rate,  that  the  planters  don't  ( are 
to  try  them  if  they  can  get  otiiers ;  and 
sometimes  a  better  manager  than  ordinary 
will  vouchsafe  to  make  a  pair  of  lireethes 
of  a  deer-skin."  Hence  it  would  appear, 
that,  until  some  time  in  tlie  eigliteenth 
(  entury,  Virginia  and  Maryland  imported 
most  of  their  siiocs,  of  all  grades,  from 
l!urope. 

New  England,  however,  engaged  in 
the  shoe  and  leather  business  at  that 
early  day  more  extensively.  Cattle  were 
extensively  bred  there  between  1620  and 
1649  ^"i"  food,  and  for  the  exportation  of  meat  and  live-stock.  In  the  last- 
Growthof  "'I''!*-''!  y^^'if  die  Stoppage  of  emigration  greatly  depressed  the 
industry  in  cattlc-iiiarket ;  yet  stock  was  always  plenty,  and  tolerably  well 
cared  for.  As  early  as  1630  Mr.  Higginson  mentions  the  ahun- 
dance  of  "  sumacke-trees,  good  lor  dying  and  tanning  leather," 
near  Salem.  The  first  tannery  in  New  F.ngland,  howxner.  was  at  the  village 
of  Swampscott,  in  the  town  of  Lynn,  destined  from  that  time  on  to  be  famous 
for  its  shoe-factories.  It  was  built  by  Francis  Ingalih  on  Humphrey's  IJrook, 
Francis  and  his  brother  Edmund  being  among  the  first  settlers  in  the  toaii. 
The  first  shoemaker  in  I.ynn  was  Philip  Kertland,  who  came  there  from  Fng- 
land  in  1635  ;  and  John  Herbert,  another  shoemaker,  settled  in  Salem  the 
same  year.  In  1629  the  company's  letter  to  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts 
Colony  commends  to  him  a  shoemaker  named  Tiiomas  Beard,  wlio  was  sent 
out  to  be  maintained  at  the  colony's  expense,  and  work  un-kr  the  governor's 
direction.  A  sujjply  of  hides  accompanied  him  on  "The  Mayflower,"  on 
which  he  was  to  pay  freight  at  the  rate  of  four  pounds  per  ton.  It  was 
ordered  that  fifty  acres  of  land  be  allotted  him  ;  but  it  does  not  appear  where 
he  lot  ated.  Records  exist  of  other  individuals  who  were  either  tanners  or 
shoemakers  in  Massachusetts  prior  to  1 O40.     In   that   year  a  law  was  passed 


POWEH   SOI.Ii-MOUl.DER. 


N'wEng- 
land 


■y.!'' 


«^ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


447 


punisliing  sucli  persons  as  slaughtered  cattle  and  neglected  to  save  the  hides 
and  seiul  them  to  be  tanned ;  from  which  it  is  probable  that  all  the  towns  then 
organi/i-'il  had  tanneries.  Searchers  and  sealers  of  leather  had  already  been 
appointed  in  certain  towns ;  but  in  1642  a  general  law  was  passed  regulating 
the  niamifacture  of  leather  more  particularly.  Butchers,  curriers,  and  shoe- 
makers were  forbidden  to  tan,  it  being  regarded  desirable  to  make  tanning  a 
distinct  occupation.  No  one  was  allowed  to  buy 
a  hide  but  a  tanner.  Tanners  were  required  to 
avoi<l  'not  "  moors,"  or  processes  that  would  burn 
or  scald  their  leather.  They  were  punishable 
also  for  selling  imperfectly-tanned  leather.  Cur- 
riers were  minutely  instructed  what  preparations 
thcv  should  use  and  should  not  use.  Sealers 
were  10  mark  good  leather  upon  examination, 
and  onlv  sealed  leather  should  be  used  by  shoe- 
makers. The  exportation  of  raw  hides  or  un- 
wroupjht  leather  was  prohibited  in  1646.  In 
.64S  the  shoemakers  had  so  increased  in  num- 
ber, that  tiiey  were  incorporated  as  a  guild  by 
th'.'  legislature.  These  were  more  numerous  at 
Lvnn  than  elsewhere. 

Says  Hisho]),  "The  fisheries  of  New  England 
furnished  abundance  of  oil  at  a  cheap  rate  for 
the  leather-ma  lufitcture.  From  the  coasts  of 
Labrador  and  Newfoundland  were  also  obtained, 
before  the  Revolution,  considerable  quantities 
of  seal  skins.  On  account  of  the  high  duty 
upon  them  in  luigland,  many  which  would  otherwise  have  gone  there  were 
sent  to  New  luiglaiul,  where  they  were  tanned,  and  made  into  shoes,  boots, 
&c.,  and  returned  to  supply  the  fishermen  on  the  north-cast  coast.  Others 
were  dressed  in  the  hair,  and  were  variously  employed  in  making  trunks, 
taps,  ( oats,  tVc.  The  manufacture  of  leather  in  Massachusetts  in  early  times 
was  chielly  confined  to  the  old  maritime  counties  —  Essex,  Midillesex,  and 
Suffolk  —  around  IJoston  Bay.  Since  the  Revolution,  tanning,  like  shoe- 
making,  for  which  Massachusetts  has  become  famous,  has  developed  largely 
in  Worcester  County." 

It  shoukl  be  remarked  in  this  connection,  that  the  shoes  most  worn  by  the 
ladies  were  stuff  shoes  :   the  gentlemen  wore  leather  boots  and  shoes,  few  if 
any  of  whic  h  were  made  of  calf-skin  until  after  the  Revolution.   Description 
Tow  hide   was   used    almost   exclusively  for  foot-gear,   although  of  shoes 
biick-skins  were  largely  wrought  up  into  servants'  clothing.    Clovers  ^°'"" 
and  furriers  are  enumerated  among  the  artisans  of  1651.     We  find  further  but 
Unimportant  legislation  in  Massachusetts  relative  to  shoe  r.nd  leather  production 
subsequent  to  that  just  mentioned. 


*=*^-^iiiWH  ^^ivcat  i:^'_=i^ 


FOOT-POWEK    SOLU-MOL'LDER. 


:  toff 


\  »i^^-^  '^ 


HillPfli 


■'  \)\'\m 


i^ri'vf 


44a 


INDUSTRIAL    J/ J  STORY 


Connecticut  was  a  decidedly  agricultural  colony,  and  cattle  were  ex- 
tensively raised  in  its  earliest  days;  and  we  find  between  1640  end  i6c6 
Early  legis-  ^^^V  ^^^^"^  the  Same  legislation  there  as  had  been  enadcd  in 
lation  on  the  Massachusetts  relative  to  the  preservation,  tanning,  and  cxporta- 
subject.  j^-^j^  ^j.  j^jjgg^  jjj^jj  j]^^.  separation  of  the  tanner's  from  the  cunjer's 

butcher's,  and  shoemaker's  trade.  We  also  find  the  General  Assembly  fixing 
the  prices  of  different-sized  shoes,  and  ordering  size-sticks  to  be  made  as  a 
standard  in  the  colony.  Rhode  Island,  anf'  that  part  of  Massachusetts  wliich 
was  subsecjuently  set  off  as  Maine,  had  tanneries  before  the  close  of  the 
century ;  but  nearly  a  hundred  years  more  elapsed  before  New  Hampsiiire  did 
any  tanning. 

Cattle  were  imported  into  the  Dutch  colony  of  New  Netherlands  in  1',  -c. 
The  first  tanner  in  the  i)rovince  was  one  of  four  brothers  named  Kvertsen,  who 
Industry  in  Settled  either  at  I'avonia  or  Manhattan  in  1638.  Tanners  soon 
New  York,  bccame  numerous  and  prosperous  in  and  about  the  city  of  New 
York,  and,  despite  the  laws,  combined  the  shoe^naker's  trade  witii  their  o;l-!  r. 
A  large  tract  of  land  on  the  west  side  oi  Broad  Street,  above  Bcaser,  bct.ame 
conspicuous  for  its  tanneries  as  eirly  as  1653.     The  luiglish  governor  Ami  (jt, 

and  his  council  wore  very  uriv^i 
in  their  exclusioa  of  i.inivtrs  from 
the  city  in  1676,  gnutir  ■  a  mo- 
nopoly \j  only  two.  .'*  niber 
of  wealthy  an'  "u.^mineoi  ',ng- 
lish  and  D- ich  tanner;,  thcreforfc, 
moved  outside  tlie  city  walls  to 
i  region  cast  cf  llnndway,  and 
r  veen  Maid-jn  Lane  and  Ann 
S  icet,  where  tuey  set* led.  'I'iiev 
called  the  pla<  e  "  Shoennkcrs 
Land."  Subseciuently  they  u  a 
forced  still  farther  up  town.  —  to 
the  borders  of  Fresh-water  I'miil 
and  Heekinan's  Swamp  :  and  in 
that  liKaiity,  known  as  "The 
Swamp,"  many  of  the  craft  linger  to  the  present  day. 

New  Jersey  received  lu-r  first  tanner  in  16(10,  he  locating  at  Klizabethtownj 
and  her  first  shoemaker  located  there  in  1C76.  Stock-raising  for  tiio  New- 
York  markets  gave  her  plenty  of  hides.  Tan-bark  abounded  in  the 
<  olony  ;  and  judicious  legislation  so  developed  tiie  produce  of 
leather  there,  that  New  York  was  obliged  to  buy  of  her  for  a  long  time.  ^\■L'st 
F:;i-i»yl-  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  were  even  more  tardy  in  developin;;  the 
vii:.i^'..  tanning  an  1  .shoemaking  industries.     In  the  cjrly  part  of  the  eigh- 

tccni.J  century,  however,  we  find  tanning  extensively  carried  on  in  Pennsylvania; 


lllOT-l'OWEK   STIillTFI!. 


New  Jersey, 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


449 


iiiid  leather  was  exported  thence  to  Europe  in  173 1.  In  that  colony,  too, 
miu  li  was  made  of  deer-skin  for  clothing ;  and  Logan,  the  famous  Mingo 
chief,  was  long  actively  engaged  in  dressing  them  for  sale  to  the  whites. 
Poui'.  in  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  cattle  were  exceedingly  abundant, 
especially  a  small  breed  which  were  allowed  to  run  wild.  But  little  attempt 
was  made  to  utilize  their  hides.  Live  cattle  were  shipped  to  the  West  Indies 
and  to  Pennsylvania  :  raw  hides  were  likewise  sent.  Until  very  near  the  time 
of  tlic  Revolution  few  attempts  were  made  tc  manufacture  shoes,  a  pair  of 
uhidi  were  worth  as  much  as  an  ox.  A  little  leather  was  made  in  the  coast- 
region  ;  but  it  was  exported.  Indeed,  from  1745  to  1760,  the  two  Carolinas 
exported  quite  a  large  amount  of  tanned  leather  and  dressed  deer-skins.  In 
ilvj  back  country,  where  tan-bark  was  plenty  and  imported  goods  rare,  the 
colonists  made  some  few  shoes  for  themselves.  The  greater  numbe**  of  the 
iniiabitants  of  those  colonies  obtained  their  shoes  either  from  those  farther 
north  anil  east,  or  from  (ireat  Britain. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  north  of  Virginia,  every  new 
town  liad  its  tannery  almost  immediately  after  the  first  settlement ;  and  shoe- 
makers and  saddlers  soon  fullowed.    In  i  731,  when,  at  the  solicita- 
tions of  jealous  London  manufacturers  and  merchants.  Parliament   ind"us'try"by 
ordered  the  British  Board  of  Trade  to  incpiire  into  the  condition   middle  of 
of  manufacturers  in  this  country,  they  found  the  Americans  almost   "'^hteenth 

^  •'  century. 

(onipletely  supplied  with  shoes  of  their  own  manufacture.  The 
local  shoemakers  in  most  towns  did  something  toward  meeting  the  home 
<iem and.  Itinerant  shoemakers  sometimes  went  from  house  to  house,  working 
i\p  into  shoes  the  familv  stock  of  leather  that  iiad  been  tanned  by  the  local 
tanner.  Itinerant  cobblers  also  went  from  house  to  house.  Massachusetts 
manufactured  a  surplus  of  shoes,  which  went  to  the  other  colonies  and  to  the 
\\  CMt  Indies.  When,  in  1 764,  Kngland  attempted  to  levy  duties  on  .American 
imports,  and  the  colonists  resented  it  by  refusing  to  buy  British  goods  a  'ar 
as  possible,  a  sjiecial  stimulus  was  given  to  shoe  and  leather  productior  re 
before  less  attention  had  been  given  thereto. 

During  the  Revolution  the  supply  of  hides  was  greatly  reduced, 
amount  of  labor  that  was  free  to  tan  them  and  make  shoes  was  also  ' 
by  the  demand'  of  tiie  military  service  :  consecjuentiy  a  great  ei' 
,s;ar(  ity  of  both  leather  and  shoes  characterized  that  period.  The  ' 
army  suffered  great  privations.  W!'"n  the  British  forces  landed  at  \ 
ter,  N.V.,  in  October  of  1776,  the  Colonial  (lovernment  caused  such  hides  as 
Miuld  be  collected  to  lie  removed  to  places  of  concealment  in  the  Highlands. 
I  he  ( omiuissary  dei)artinent  of  the  Continental  army,  partly  from  im  ompe- 
teiu  e  and  jiartly  from  limiteil  resources,  found  it  impossible  to  obtain  shoes 
enough  for  the  soldiers.  It  was  stated  to  Congress,  in  December  of  1776, 
that  (ine-third  of  the  army  at  'I'iconderoga  had  to  perform  duty  without  shoes. 
Onl)  nine  hundred  j^airs  were  sent  thither  on  a  retjuisition  to  supply  ovei  t.elve 


the 
ned 

>t  of 
lution. 

Ches- 


'f^^^^mm^mw 


-mm 


^ums 


.■^'. 


'^itrm: 


i 

^1 


45° 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


storing  the 
industry. 


Principal 
seats  of 
industry 
during  the 
last  century 


thousand  men.  The  army  was  then  authorized  to  impress  shoes  and  other 
supplies  where  they  could  be  found.  During  the  operations  in  New  Jcrsev 
that  winter,  many  of  our  soldiers  "  were  without  shoes,  marching  over  frozen 
ground,  which  so  gashed  their  naked  feet,  that  each  step  was  marked  with 
blood."  The  following  autumn  it  was  discovered,  that  near  Lancaster,  rcnn. 
greater  quantities  of  leather  than  were  ever  before  known  there  were  in  store. 
Much  leather  was  to  be  had  at  Yorktown  in  exchange  for  green  hides ;  Imt 
shoemakers  to  manufacture  it  were  exceedingly  scarce. 

On  the  restoration  of  peace,  tanning  and  shoemaking  rapidly  revived ;  hut 
the  immediate  influx  of  foreign  goods  soon  depressed  them  agaiu 
peace  in  re-  Until  a  tariff  could  be  imposed.  Virginia  resorted  to  sucli  protec- 
tion in  1 788,  and  Congress,  under  the  new  Constitution,  in  1  ^89. 
The  principal  seats  of  shoe  and  leather  manufacture,  says  liishop, 
in  the  last  century  and  beginning  of  this,  were  in  Massachusetts,  Connc(  ticut, 
New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  though  Maryland  and  Delnware 
also  made  a  considerable  amount.  South  Carolina  iiad  tanned 
some  excellent  leatiicr  before  the  Revolution  ;  but  after  the  war 
the  Southern  States  gave  little  attention  thereto,  or  to  shoeniakint;, 
buying  from  the  Nortli.  .\s  the  \Vcstern  country  was  graduallv 
settled,  cattle-raising,  tanning,  and  a  small  amount  of  siioemaking,  kept  jiac  e 
witli  th?  movement ;  and  though  that  set'  -n  has  been  dependent  on  New 
Kngland  and  the  Middle  States,  to  some  extent,  for  shoes,  it  has  not  called  top 
more  unmanufactured  leather  than  it  could  itself  i)roduce,  inasmuch  as  ( attle- 
raising  has  been  a  j)roniinent  industry  of  that  section. 

It  is  asserted  that  Morocco  leather  of  fair  quality  was  made  in  Charles- 
town,  Mass.,  as  early  as  1770.  ]>y  the  subseciuently  fomous  Lord  'riiiiothy 
Manufacture  Dext.'  and  otlicrs  ;  and  the  manufa(  ture  was  resumed  there  in 
of  morocco,  i  jqO.  The  art  of  making  Turkey  and  .Murocco  leathers  from  goal 
and  sheep  skins  was  not  understood  in  London  until  about  i  783,  —  the  \ear 
of  i^eace.  The  Pennsylvania  Society  for  the  I'lncouragement  of  Manufactures 
and  Useful  .Xrt.i  instituted  an  imjuiry  in  1787,  and  found  that  two  ])ersons  in 
Philadelphia  had  attemi)ted  the  imitation  with  tolerable  success.  Sheepskins 
have  been  rendered  less  valuable  for  the  ])ast  fifty  years  by  the  introduction  ot' 
merino  breeds,  in  which  improved  fleeces  are  offset  by  poorer  pelts.  The 
morocco-business,  however,  has  been  a  specialty  of  the  Philadeljihia  leather- 
business  to  a  greater  extent  than  it  has  in  any  other  part  of  the  Union,  in 
i860  it  employed  over  thirty  large  fitctories,  1,600  hands,  and  more  than 
S500.000  of  capital,  with  sales  to  the  amoimt  of*? 2, 000, 000.  These  figures 
might  now  be  safely  increased  fifty  per  cent.  Indeed,  our  exports  alone  of 
this  (lass  of  leather  exceed  J  1,000. 000  annually. 

Within  the  present  centur*-,  too,  calf  or  kip  skins  have  come 
into  general  use  :   when^as  in  Revolutionary  aiKl  prt- Revolutionary 
days  they  were  unknown  on  this  side  of  tke  Atlantic. 


Calfskins. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


451 


harles- 
iniolliy 
KTC   in 
nil  goal 
ic  year 
utiK'turcs 
rsoiis  ill 
p-skins 
tioii  of 
V     The 
Icatlier- 
lon.     In 
3rt-  than 
c  figuas 
lone  of 

,-(.'  rome 
hitioiury 


S<^)on  after  the  Revolution,  our  tlomestic  supply  of  hides  proved  insufficient 
foro'ir  tanners'  needs,  and  importation  began  chiefly  from  South  America  and 
the  British  East  Indies.  The  immense  development  of  cattle-  importation 
hrceiling  in  this  country,  and  the  annexation  of  'lexas,  have  not  °'  *'■''"•• 
kept  pace  with  our  demands ;  and  the  importation  of  hides  has  steadily  in- 
creased, with  but  slight  fluctuations.  In  1858  we  hnported  59,719,083  worth, 
or  al'out  1,075,000  hides.  In  1877  our 
inil)ortations,  exceeding  th.ose  of  the  pre- 
vious year  by  a  half,  amounted  to  over 
3,000,000  hides,  valued  at  about  5 18,000,- 
ojo.  Thirty  years  ago,  when  the  Erie  Rail- 
road was  opened,  most  of  these  hides  came 
to  New- York  City,  and  were  sent  out  along 
the  southern  tier  of  counties  in  that  State 
for  tanning ;  then  they  came  back  in  the 
forra  of  leather,  and  were  mostly  sent  to 
New  l',iiL,'land. 

The  imported  hides,  it  will  be  borne  in 
niiiiil.  form  only  a  portion  of  the  whole 
leather-product.  T~hiis,  in  t<S39,  when 
;.46;,,6ii  sides  or  half  hides  were  tanneil 
as  sole-leather,  and  3,781,86^  .,kins  were 
tinned  and  curried  for  upiK-r  leather,  oiir 
importation  was  i)robai)l_\'  less  than  i,(,)oo,- 
000  sides  and  skins.  In  1870  there  were 
8,7X8,752  hiiles  (17,577.404  sides)  ,uid 
ii.'i(i4,i4.S  skins  tanned,  of  which  less  than 
;,ooo,ooo  hides  and  skins  were  iii\i)()rted. 
riio  ioliowing  table  will  give  some  iilea  of 
the  growth  of  the  leather-producing  industry  in  the  L'nited  States  of  late  years. 
it  will  be  observed  that  there  has  been  a  lendencv  toward  centralizing  the 
'lusiness.  the  big  establishments  driving  the  little  ones  (Jiit  of  business  as  the 
.Mijirovements  in  the  art  increased.  It  should  be  noted,  also,  that  certain 
Kinds  of  leather  are  estimated  twice  over  in  the  census-returns,  from  which 
the  following  figures  are  taken.  The  dressers  of  skins,  the  morocco-makers, 
and  the  manufacturers  of  patent-leather,  are  included  in  the  table. 


K(K1TI>11:   .MACHINH. 


KO.  OP 
ETFATBS. 


NO.  OK  HANDS 
KMI'LUTBU. 


CAPITAI, 
INVBSTKD. 


IS40. 

iSGo. 
1S70. 


6,6iNt 
S,i88 


VALUK  OF 
PKODUCTION, 


2"^  595 

35.243 


$15,650,929  $20,919,110 

-2,774.795  43.4S7.S98 

jy,o.' 5,620  I     75.<*>S,747 

61,124,812  I    157,237.597 


••M 


452 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


The  improvements  in  the  manufacture  of  leather,  says  Uishop,  havo  lucii 
very  numerous,  and  mostly  originated  within  the  present  century.  'I'hiv  luiw 
Improve-  '"''''"  '^"''^  mechanical  and  chemical,  of  foreign  and  native  on^in 
ments  in  Their  adoption  has  been  attended  by  a  marked  influence  in  tin.'  ijro- 

"f°i""the'r""  grt-'ssive  improvement  of  the  quality  and  (juantity  of  the  product 
in  the  enlargement  of  the  operations  individually  and  in  the  iiL'L're- 
gate,  and  in  a  i)r()portionate  increase  in  the  |)rofits ;  while  the  price  of  Ifallur 
compared  with  tlie  raw  material,  has  been  reduced.  'The  principal  oi  iIksc 
are  the  several  mechanical  appliances  for  softening,  fulling,  rolling,  ami  >|i|it- 
ting'  skins  and  hides,  and  for  grinding  bark  (some  of  whicii  were  vcrv  oadv 
introduced),  and  others  for  washing,  glazing,  and  finishing  leather.  Hu'  a|i|)li- 
ration  of  water-power,  and  especially  of  steam,  in  many  of  the  o|)erati()ns,  aiul 
of  hot  water  in  others ;  the  extraction  and  application  of  tannin  in  ( uiu  un- 
trated  solutions  and  by  hydraulic  pressure  ;  the  greater  subdisision  of  lal)ur  in 
large  establishments,  attended  by  more  skilful  manipulation  in  the  ijrficcsscs  of 
tanning,  currying,  and  finishing  leatiier,  —  have  all  greatly  influenc  ed  liic  oc  (jiio- 
niy  of  leather-manufacture.  Its  profits  liave  been  much  augmented  by  ilic 
"  sweating  "  and  other  operations,  whereby  the  gelatine  and  muscular  fibre 
of  the  skin  is  more  com])letely  exposed  to  the  tannic  acid,  and  the  wei};ht  of 
leather  increa.sed.  and  also  by  the  various  utilizing  inventions  whidi  iiavc 
appropriated  all  the  refiise  materials  to  some  useful  purpose  in  the  arts. 

The  manufactures  of  articles  from  leather  in  this  country,  including  boots 
and  shoes,  saddlery  and  harness,  trunks,  valises,  and  satchels,  belling  and  hose. 
,,  ,       ,         gloves  and   i)ockel-l)ooks,   and    omitting  whi])s.  carriaijes,  (aid^ 

Value  of  "  '  o  J  »     >  •  . 

manuti--  and  book-binding,  aggregated  over  $230,000,000  ;  and  of  that 
amount  5181,644,090  re|)r('sents  the  boot  and  shoe  industry,  and 
5.32,709,981  the  saddlery  and  harness  business.  Thus  it  will  lie 
seen  that  more  than  three-fourths  of  the  leather-manufacture  is  in  boots  and 
shoes. 

.•\s  we  have  already  pointed  out.  and  as  the  reader  is  aware,  the  knight  of 
St.  Ois|>in  who  makes  boots  and  shoes  for  local  custom,  and  who  generallv 
Knights  of  combines  with  that  branch  of  the  trade  the  more  ignoi)ic  dcpart- 
st.  Crispin,  nient  of  repairing,  is  to  be  found  in  nearly  every  town  aiul  village 
in  the  country.  More  frecpiently  than  not,  his  establishment  is  combined  with 
a  shoj)  for  the  sale  of  shoes  ])urchased  ready  ma<le  from  some  large  niami 
facturer.  This  class  of  shoemakers  reijuire  no  further  mention.  Our  (  hief 
interest  centres  in  the  wholesale  manufacturers.  The  census-return  of  :!3,4-'.s 
establishments  and  $181,644,090  of  products  in  1870  includes  some  of  the 
little  establishments.  Those  making  over  $5,000  worth  of  goods  a])iece  an 
set  down  as  3,151,  and  producing  $146,704,000  worth  of  boots  and  shoes,  ii 
is  with  them  that  we  are  concerned  chiefly. 

From  the  very  first,  Massachusetts  has  had  the  lead  in  this  great  indiistn 

'  Thick  hides  arc  somriimrs  split  inio  as  many  as  five  layers.  eatH  of  which  is  dressed  for  upper  lc;uli<:r 


tured 
articles 


OF    THF    UNITED    STATF.X. 


453 


Ihc  towns  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston  attracted  masons,  carpenters,  and 

iitliL'i   woriimen,   in    the  winter-season,  when  work  was   dull,  to   ,^i,„,jhu 

piirsiK'  shoemaking,  which  was   always  a  resource.     As  early  as   setts  leads 

1635  Lynn  had  a  shoemaker.     Fifteen  years  later  she  made  more   '•''•''">"»- 

shoes  than  any  other  town  in  the  colony,  or  even  in  the  country. 

She  made  a  specialty  of  women's  shoes,  most  of  which  were  made  of  cloth  ; 

hut.  ill  all  the  kinds  manufactured,  the  work  was  (juite  rude  for  a  hundred  years 

or  more.     Shoemakers  were  cjuite  tmskilled,  and  had  little  capital  or  general 

knowledge.     In  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  they  would  send  to 

Kngiand  for  well-made  shoes,  and  take  them  apart  to  study  the  mechanism. 

liy  1750  there  was  a  surplus  for  ex- 

|iort;iti()n.     New  Kngiand  was  sup- 

|jHed  ( hiefly  from  this  one  centre  ; 

nil!  siioes  were   also   sent  to  New 

Viirk,  I'liiladelphia,  and  even  farther 

South,      In   the  year  just  named,  a 

Welsh  shoemaker,  named  John  .Xdam 

li;ii,'vr,  settled  in  Lynn,  and  by  his 

superior  skill   soon   became    known 

throui;li<)ut  the  surrounding  country 

;is  the  celebrated  shoemaker  of  Kssex 

(County).     Many  persons  in   f.ynii 

,ui(l  the  neii^'liboriiif,'  towns  a(  (luircd 

from  liini  a  better  knowledge  of  tlio 

,irt,   .111(1    obtained     the    reward    of 

sii|)eri()rity  in   the   increase  of  their       ; 

liu>iness.     A    Hoston   rorres])ou(ic'iit 

of   "The     London    ( 'lironic  k-,"    in 

17(14,  wrote   that   shoes  for  women  iiikhk. 

were   made   at    Lynn    exceeding    in 

^tiiiiulh   and  beauty  any  that  were  usually  imported  from  London.     During 

the  Revolution  the  towns  of  Lastern  Massachusetts  provided  the  army  with 

iiio,i  of  its   shoes.     Immediately  after  the  war  ended,  the  business  rapidly 

ileveloped.     In  1 7SS   Lynn  alone   exjiorted  100.000   pairs  of  shoes;  in  1795 

her  export    was   300,000   pairs.      In    1877    iier  product    was    not   less   than 

14,000.000  pairs  of  boots  and  shoes.     The  wonderful  facility  with  which  siioes 

were  turned  out  in  those  early  ilays  led  to  the  legend,  that  the  materials,  being 

AwV  to  the  wall  by  an  awl,  were  comI)ined  in  the  proper  manner  by  a  blow  of 

liie  l.ipstone   skilfully  aimed   at  them.     There  were  those  who  asserted  that 

hoots  and  shoes  grew  there  spontaneously.     Thus,  for  over  two  centuries,  Lynn 

h.is  had  the  .ascendency  in  the  .American  shoe-manufacture. 

Marblehead,  which  makes,  perhaps,  four  million  pairs  of  shoes  yearly,  was 
led  into  the   business,  after  the   Revolution,  by  the  decline  of  her  fisheries. 


■n 


''>  ■&^'^- 


484 


/A'/?  US  TRIA  I.    Ills  TOR  Y 


ifiE? 


|U< 


Danvers,  Haverhill,  and  other  places  in  Essex,  were  early  engaged  in  ii^. 


Marblehead, 


manutiicture  of  women's  shoes;   and  there  was  in  17X.S  a  c, 


)n- 


siderahle  manufacture  of  men's  shoes  at  Reading,  near  l.ynn 
Boston,  (^uincy,  and  many  other  towns  in  the  vicinity,  engaged  in  the  slioc- 
nianufacture  after  the  Revolution,  as  did  also  Worcester  and  other  towns  of 
that  county. 

Philadelphia  and  New- York  cities  have  also  been  famous  for  luarly  a 
century  for  the  quality  of  their  shoes,  and  the  States  of  which  they  arc  tlie 
Phitadei-  business  capitals  have  also  developeil  the  wholesale  maniit'arture 
P'''"'  in  other  towns.     Thi.-  following  table  gives  the  distribution  of  the 

industry,  showing  only  establishments  whose  annual  ])rodu(-t  exceeds  five 
thousand  dollars,  and  only  those  Slates  being  named  particularly  wliidi  liave 
over  a  hundred  such  establishments  :  — 


STATB. 


M.issachusetta  . 

New  York 

Pennsylvania     . 

New  Hampshire 

Maine 

New  Jersey 

Ohio 

Missouri   . 

Illinois 

Other  States     . 

Total 


NirMUKR  OF 
BSTATKS. 


I.t23 

341 

335 

78 

r.7 
164 
1S2 

ss 

688 


Nl'MDKR  OF 
11  ANUS, 


3.'S' 


51, 167 
11,409 

2.777 
2,105 
1,990 

2,0^6 

960 

1.274 
9,664 

9'."/02 


fAVITAt. 
INM'.sri'.l). 


$19, 1 48,64  5 

4,.S72,9()6 

4,240,52.5 

919.435 
677,300 

777.900 

790,025 

505,200 

1,527,44s 

4.059.577 

$37.5'9.oi9 


VAI.fK  Of 
I'KOIll  CIICIN. 


5.S6,5r.5,44, 

I7,S|  5,048 

1 1, 00:, 5X7 

4,7*^0,0:0 

3.'5S."" 

2,S;,o„5-'2 
2,,S()(),So3 

2,:/.j,7oi 

2,2(>S.I36 

13,0:8,717 

1146,704,000 


It  might  be  ad<led  to  this,  that  Connecticut  with  only  thirty-eight  est.ahlish- 
Connecticut  '"<-'"'^.  ''"''  Maryland  with  sixty-eight,  each  i^roduced  very  nearly 
•nd  other  jj2,ooo,ooo  ill  iHyo;  California  produced  over  ;fl  1,5 00,000  ;  and 
States.  Wisconsin  and  Iniliana,  each  a  trifle  over  ;S  1,000,000. 

Thirty  years  ago  the   sales  of  Massachusetts'    enormous   suqilus   to   tlic 

other  sections  of  the  Union   and    for  the   foreign  trade  were   mostly  in  tiic 

..  J     ,  hands  of  New-York  merchants,  to  whom  the  New-Kngland   pro- 

Mode  of  ,       ,  . 

manufactur-    ducers    eitiier   sold    or   consigned   their   goods.      Cimdualiy  this 

ine  and  system  changed,  pardy  owing  to  a  change  in  the  system  of  manii- 

fiicture.     The  number  of  skilled  workmen  that  came  from  abroail 

became  so  great  as  to  fdl  most  of  the  departments  into  which  the  boot-trade 

became  divided,  —  as  crimi)ing,  bottoming,  heeling,  and  fmishing  ;  and  the 

pay  of  the  work-i)eoi)le  by  the  piece  or  the  pair  enables  each  to  control  his 

own  time,  working  when  he  pleases.     These  sometimes  clid)  their  work,  and 

appoint  an  agent  to  sell  :   others,  by  economy,  save  their  pay,  and  employ  a 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


455 


few  men  whose  work  they  direct.  These,  in  the  cities,  are  called  "garret 
hossfs."  When  they  succeed  in  estal)iishing  a  trade,  they  conduct  the  manii- 
f;u  lory  l>y  ii  foreman,  and  o|)en  an  office  in  the  city,  where  they  sell  their 
waris,  and  purchase  stock  for  manufacture.  The  materials  are  in  this  manner 
hcitir  jxirchased ;  and  as  the  seller  is  himself  the  manufacturer,  coming  in 
(ont.K  t  with  buyers  from  all  sections,  he  becomes  conversant  with  the  styles 
adaiitcd  to  all  localities,  and  the  manufacture  is  by  far  the  better  conducted 
lor  it.  The  advantages  of  this  system  have  made  Boston,  of  late  years,  the 
grand  centre  of  such  operations,  and  have  drawn  thither  the  jobbers  from 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Haltimore,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  &c.,  until  JJoston 
has  liL'come  the  largest  shoe-market  of  tlic  world. 

\\c  have  already  si)oken  of  tin;  improvements  in  the  beauty  and  other 
(jiialitics  of  American  shoes  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
'I'Ikv  (ontinued  to  be  manifest  from  that  time  on,  and  were,  in   , 

J  Improve- 

later  years,  due  to  V'ankee  ingenuity  and  taste,  and  not  to  mere   ments  in 
iinitatii)n.     A  few  fancy  boots  are  even  yet  imported  from  Paris,   »»yie <>' >"■«>- 

,  ,    .         .     ,  ,    .  ,  ,    .  ufacture. 

and  our  exports  are  cluelly  ot  the  pianier  grades;  yet  as  damty 
ami  (liiral)le  a  boot  can  be  made  in  this  country  as  anywhere  on  the  globe, 
riic  improvement  m  the  (|Mality  of  our  shoes  is  in  a  large  measure  due  to 
tlu'  iKw  methods  of  s|)litting  an<l  currying  leather,  thus  affording  softer  and 
riiut  material  for  uppers. 

I'tiily  as  marked  as  the  advance  in  the  (juality  of  our  work  is  the  startling 
])rogn'ss  made  in  the  methods  of  manufacture.  In  the  old  days  the  shoes 
were  sewed,  and  by  hand, — a  slow  and  laborious  process.     Hut  in   „  , 

'  •'  _  ■  Progreii  in 

iSiS  a  Yankee,  named  J()se|)h  Walker,  of  Hopkinton,  Mass.,  mode  of 
invented  the  shoe-peg.  This  wrought  (juite  a  i-jvoiutiem  in  the 
business.  At  first  tiie  pegs  were  worked  out  by  hand  ;  but  when 
tliev  were  found  efficacious,  and  cheaper  than  sewing,  machines  were  invented 
tor  their  manufacture,  and  they  were  sold  in  larger  or  smaller  quantities  to 
shoemakers  all  over  the  ( oimtry.  There  are  now  some  thirty  establishments 
whose  exclusive  business  it  is  to  make  shoe-pegs.  The  tradition  is  current 
in  New  Kngland,  that  at  one  time  shoe-pegs  became  so  plenty  an<l  cheap, 
that  artful  speculators  tried  to  sell  them  to  farmers  as  a  new  variety  of  large 
oats  for  seed. 

lint  two  more  important  strides  were  to  be  taken  in  the  art.  Proliably 
none  of  our  inilustries  has  been  more  extensively  developed  than  the  boot 
and  siioe  business  by  the  application  of  lal)or-saving  machinery.    .  . 

When  tile  sewing-machine  was  reduced  to   practice  some   thirty   or  ubor- 
years   ago,    the    utilization    of    the   device    for   shoemaking   was   ■■*''"« 

"  °  machinery. 

qiiii  kly  thought  of.     It  was  several  years,  however,  before  it  was 
properly  adapted  to  this  use.     Now,  however,  machines  made  expressly  for 
this  industry  ((juite  different  in  details  from  those  used  on  cloth),  and  operated 
in  large  numbers  by  steam  like  the  looms  of  a  woollen-mill,  are  in  use  in  about 


manu- 
facture. 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-S) 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


UiW2A    |2.5 
■^  Ui    12.2 


Photographic 

Sciences 

Corporation 


23  WIST  MAIN  STRUT 

WIBSTER.N.Y.  M5M 

(71«)I72-4S03 


^v 


^^ 


N? 


\ 


\ 


^.>. 


>^^^ 


\ 


4^. 


'^. 


^^ 


45  6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


half  the  large  shoe-factories  of  the  country.     In  the  other  half  the  shoes  are 
pegged  by  machinery.      There  are,  however,  some  establishments  which  use 

both  kinds  of  machinery;  Imt  tiie 
business    is    so    divided    up,    that 
most  manufacturers  make  either  one 
kind  or  the  other  exclusively.    It  is 
almost  incredible,  to  one  who  has 
not  seen  it  done,  that  shoes  can  l)e 
sewed  by  machines  ;  but  the  idea  of 
a  machine  which  both  makes  ami 
dri"es  pegs  instantaneously,  and  so 
rapidly  that  a   whole  shoe  can  l)e 
pegged   inside  of   ten   seconds,  is 
still  more  marvellous.    The  idea  has 
been  realized,  nevertheless,  and  has 
been  in  successful  operation  for  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  years.    Tiie  charac- 
teristic feature  of  it  is  a  narrow  rib- 
bon of  white  wood,  a  hundred  or 
more    feet    long,   reeled  upon  the 
machine.    This  ribbon  is  of  the  thickness  of  a  peg :    its  width  is  just  the 
length   of  a   peg.     One    edge   has,  by  machinery,  been  pared  sharp ;    and 
the  grain  of  the  wood  runs  straight  across  the  ribbon.     The  operator  of  tlie 
pegging- machine  has  a  basketful  of  shoes  or  boots  brought  him,  each  with  the 
uppers  and  soles  properly  adjusted,  and  tacked  to  a  last.      Upon  applying 
them,  one  at  a  time,  to  the  machine,  he  causes  a  strong  awl,  kept  just  so 
far  from  the  edge  of  the  sole  by  an  adjustable  gauge,  to  pierce  a  series  of 
holes  in  the  leather :   simultaneously  a  sharp  knife  splits  enough  wood  from 
the  end  of  the  ribbon  for  a  peg ;  the  point  of  the  peg  is  guided  to  the  liole 
just  made  by  the  awl ;  and,  while  that  instrument  is  making  its  next  punc- 
ture, the  new-made  peg  beside  it  is  forced  down  into  place.     Both  operations 
go  on  with  the  rapidity  of  a  sewing-machine  needle,  and  the  shoe  has  only 
to  be  guided  and  turned  while  the  process  goes  on. 

Machines  have  been  invented  for  smoothing  the  rough  soles  after  pegging, 
for  making  lasts,  and  for  other  departments  of  the  shoe-manufacture,  doing 


POWER-ROLLER. 


4S6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


POWER-ROLLER. 


half  the  large  shoe-factories  of  the  country.     In  the  other  half  the  shoes  are 
pegged  by  machinery.      There  are,  however,  some  establishments  wliich  use 

both  kinds  of  machinery ;  but  the 
business    is    so    divided    up,    that 
most  manufacturers  make  either  one 
kind  or  the  other  exclusively.    It  is 
almost  incredible,  to  one  wlio  has 
not  seen  it  done,  that  shoes  can  be 
sewed  by  machines ;  but  the  idea  of 
a  machine  which  both  makes  and 
dri'-es  pegs  instantaneously,  and  so 
rapidly  that  a  whole  shoe  can  be 
pegged   inside   of   ten  seconds,  is 
still  more  marvellous.     The  idea  has 
been  realized,  nevertheless,  and  has 
been  in  successful  operation  for  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  years.    The  charac- 
teristic feature  of  it  is  a  narrow  rib- 
bon of  white  wood,  a  hundred  or 
more    feet   long,   reeled   upon  the 
machine.    This  ribbon   is  of  the  thickness  of  a  peg :    its  width  is  just  the 
length   of  a   peg.     One    edge   has,  by  machinery,  been  pared  sharp ;    and 
the  grain  of  the  wood  runs  straight  across  the  ribbon.     The  operator  of  tiie 
pegging-machine  has  a  basketful  of  shoes  or  boots  brought  him,  each  with  the 
uppers  and  soles  properly  adjusted,  and  tacked  to  a  last.      Upon   ajjplying 
them,  one  at  a  time,  to  the  machine,  he  causes  a  strong  awl,  kept  just  so 
far  from  the  edge  of  the  sole  by  an  adjustable  gauge,  to  pierce  a  series  of 
holes  in  the  leather :   simultaneously  a  sharp  knife  splits  enough  wood  from 
the  end  of  the  ribbon  for  a  peg ;  the  point  of  the  peg  is  guided  to  the  l\ole 
just  made  by  the  awl ;  and,  while  that  instrument  is  making  its  next  punc- 
ture, the  new-made  peg  beside  it  is  forced  down  into  place.     Both  operations 
go  on  with  the  rapidity  of  a  sewing-machine  needle,  and  the  shoe  has  only 
to  be  guided  and  turned  while  the  process  goes  on. 

Machines  have  l)een  invented  for  smoothing  the  rough  soles  after  pegging, 
for  making  lasts,  and  for  other  departments  of  the  shoe-manufacture,  doing 
away  with  the  necessity  of  any  particular  skill  on  the  part  of  the  workmen, 
lessening  the  cost  of  labor,  but  immensely  magnifying  the  total  production. 
That  our  shoe-manufactures  have  increased  from  #54,000,000  in  1S50  to 
$92,000,000  in  i860,  and  |i8i,ooo,ooo  in  1870,  is  chiefly  attributable  to  the 
application  of  new  labor-saving  machinery  to  the  business.  It  should  be  re- 
membered too,  that,  owing  to  the  lessened  cost  of  production,  some  kinds  of 
shoes  are  now  even  cheaper  than  before  the  war,  and  that  the  increase  in 
quantity  since  1850  is  .quite  proportionate  to  the  total  values  above  expressed. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


487 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


PAPER   AND   PAPER-HANGINGS. 


THE  philosophers  and  historians  of  Europe  have  been  accustomed  to  claim 
that  all  the  progress  of  the  modern  world  is  due  to  the  races  which  have 
had  white  skins.  They  take  the  world  as  they  find  it  to-day,  or  as 
it  was  in  the  days  of  the  Greeks,  and  point  to  the  difference  in  „*^ing  firtt 
greatness  in  war,  science,  industry,  art,  and  business,  between  the  practised  by 
races  of  Europe  and  those  of  Asia  and  Africa ;  the  one  quarter  of  g.j' ,^°°"  "^ 
the  world  being  progressive  in  all  things,  the  other  passive  or 
retrogressive.  Heeren  tries  to  account  for  this  difference  by  calling  attention 
to  the  fact  upon  which  he  says  physiology  throws  no  light,  and  which  philoso- 
phy scarce  dares  to  touch  ;  namely,  that  the  great  races  of  the  modern  world 
have  fair  skins,  and  the  backward  nations  dark  skins.  He  intimates  that 
herein  is  to  be  found  the  cause,  or  a  part  of  the  cause,  of  the  difference  in  the 
development  of  the  two  great  branches  of  the  family.  The  assertion  is  flat- 
tering to  Anglo-Saxons ;  but  Heeren  seems  to  have  overlooked  the  Moors  of 
Spain  and  the  ancient  Hindoos  of  India,  to  whom  the  modi,  n  world  is 
indebted  for  nearly  all  of  its  great  arts  and  industries.  The  working  of  iron, 
the  spinning  and  weaving  of  cotton,  silk,  and  wool,  the  practice  of  decoration 
and  of  graving,  and  many  other  important  occupations,  took  their  rise  among 
those  two  peoples  ;  and  Spain  gained  all  its  early  reputation  for  industry  from 
the  swarthy  race  which  planted  the  arts  and  sciences  on  her  soil,  and  left  them 
there  to  flourish  after  it  had  itself  been  driven  back  to  Africa.  The  Moors 
and  Hindoos  may  have  lacked  the  vigor  in  politics  and  affairs  which  the 
European  races  have  ever  shown  ;  but,  at  any  rate,  they  are  the  authors  of  the 
arts  which  have  ameliorated  society,  and  made  the  world  a  comfortable  abiding- 
place  for  man.  Paper-making  is  one  of  these  arts.  It  took  its  rise  among  the 
Moors  of  Spain ;  and  though  it  spread  from  Spain  to  Italy,  and  to  France, 
Holland,  England,  and  Germany,  and,  in  the  end,  attained  greater  eminence 
in  those  countries  than  in  Spain,  there  is  no  doubt  about  its  birthplace  and  the 
people  to  whoi  the  world  is  indebted  for  its  invention.  The  Egyptians  made 
paper  from  the  papyrus-plant  in  early  times ;  but  the  product  was  not  paper 


4S8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


in  the  modem  sense  of  the  term.  The  modem  article  was  first  made  l)y  the 
Moors  in  Spain  about  eight  hundred  years  ago.  Paper-mills  were  in  operation 
at  Toledo  as  early  as  1085. 

The  manufacture  of  paper  was  introduced  into  France  about  13 14.  it 
Introduction  was  begun  in  Italy  about  1367,  and  in  Germany  in  1390.  The 
into  France,    fj^gt  paper-mill  in  England  was  started  in  Hertfordshire  in  1496. 

The  invention  of  modem  paper  antedated  the  printing-press  by  about  four 
hundred  years.  It  was  not  until  1455  that  Clutenberg  and  Faust  began  jjrinl- 
invention  oi  '"8  ^^  Bibles  and  Psalters  which  initiated  the  era  of  printing, 
modern  while   paper  had  been  made  from   1085.     The  consumption  of 

'*''"■  paper  was  small  until  the  printing-press  was  introduced,  and  even 

then  books  were  too  costly  and  rare  to  create  much  of  a  demand  for  the 
material.  The  real  growth  of  the  industry  began  about  simultaneously  with 
the  planting  of  the  English  colonies  in  America.  In  1622  the  first  ne\v.si)aper 
was  printed  in  England ;  and  this  apjjlication  of  the  art  of  printing  gave  a 
spur  to  thought  and  the  employment  of  the  pen,  so  that  paper  came  into 
demand,  and  the  world  was  soon  filled  with  a  flc  od  of  newspapers,  pami)hlets, 
and  books,  as  a  conseciuence  of  it.  Paper-mills  started  up  everywhere  in 
Europe,  and  the  manufacture  soon  became  \  ery  large. 

Vegetable  fibre  was  first  used  for  the  manufacture  of  paper  by  tiie  early 
makers,  direct  from  the  plant ;  and  a  wide  variety  of  fibres  was  used,  tiiat 
Use  of  vege-  of  flax  being  preferred.  Along  in  the  fourteenth  century  linen  rags 
table  fibres,  came  into  vogue  for  paper-making,  as  being  just  as  good,  and  much 
cheaper.  The  clothing  worn  in  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  and  France,  was  largely 
composed  of  linen,  especially  among  the  peasantry,  who  wore  scarcely  any 
thing  else.  There  was  in  all  those  countries,  therefore,  an  immense  supply  of 
cast-off  clothing  which  might  be  utilized  in  paper-making,  if  engines  could  he 
made  to  reduce  the  cloth  to  fibre.  Such  engines  were  invented ;  and  after 
1600  Spain,  Italy,  France,  and  Holland  employed  rags  only,  and  attained 
a  great  reputation  for  their  linen  papers.  The  first  three  of  tbe  countries 
named  produced  fine  papers.  The  linen  rags  of  Holland  were  coarser  and 
darker,  and  the  paper  correspondingly  coarse.  In  making  the  paper  it  was 
customary  at  first  to  pile  the  rags  in  large  stone  vats,  and  allow  them  to  fer- 
ment and  soften  in  water.  They  were  then  reduced  to  jmlp  by  stamping,  were 
bleached,  washed,  and  felted  into  paper.  In  Holland  the  process  was  im- 
proved, at  least  in  rapidity,  by  employing  a  machine  which  beat  the  rags  with 
long  steel  knives,  and  reduced  them  to  fibre  with  great  ceierity.  The  machine 
took  the  name  of  the  Hollander,  and  has  always  retained  it.  When  cotton- 
clothing  came  into  use,  cotton-rags  were  employed  for  paper.  They  have 
since  nearly  superseded  linen-rags,  just  as  cotton-cloth  has  linen. 

The  English  colonies  in  America  were  large  consumers  of  paper  from  the 
beginning  of  their  career.  "  Oiled  paper  for  the  windows  "  was  one  of  the 
first  things  the  emigrants  were  exhorted  to  bring  with  them  here  by  those  who 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


459 


Parliament 
opposed  to 
manufacture 
of  paper  in 
the  colonlei. 


had  preceded  them  to  the  new  continent.  Printing  was  introduced  at  a  very 
early  date ;  and  newspapers,  pamphlets,  sermons,  books,  and  Bibles  were 
brought  out  on  a  large  scale.  Franklin's  first  work  was  a  pamphlet,  con»ump- 
ancl  for  a  long  time  the  product  of  his  presses  belonged  chiefly  tion  of  paper 
to  that  class  of  publications.  Sermons  were  extensively  printed  *""'""'«•• 
at  that  day :  the  prominence  they  occupied  among  early  American  publica- 
tions can  easily  be  recognized  by  any  one  who  chooses  to  rummage  in  the 
garret  where  the  relics  of  the  early  days  of  his  family  are  stored  away.  After 
1704  newspapers  were  started  in  all  the  cities  of  the  different  colonies,  and 
paper  jjecame  one  of  the  regular  and  profitable  commodities  in  which  every 
importer  to  this  country  traded. 

The  Parliament  of  P^ngland  did  not  care  to  see  paper  manufactured  in  the 
colonies :  enactments  were  accordingly  made  against  it.  Pasteboard  for  the 
pressing  of  cloth  was  alone  permitted.  Nevertheless,  a  paper-mill 
was  started  among  the  Americans  as  early  as  1693  in  a  little  village 
near  Philadelphia  named  Roxborough,  where  writing,  printing, 
and  wrapping  papers  were  prosperously  made,  until  an  untimely 
freshet  broke  loose  one  day,  anil  executed  the  will  of  Parliament 
in  a  summary  manner  by  carrying  away  the  mill,  rags,  vats,  machinery,  and 
ail.  In  the  next  generation  after  the  starting  of  this  original  mill  oro^vth  of 
three  other  factories  were  put  up,  —  one  near  Boston,  one  upon  industry  in 
Chester  Creek  in  Delaware  County,  Penn.,  and  the  third  in  Eliza-  »•«"'«'"'"• 
bethtuwn,  N.J.  The  newspaper  printers  of  the  colonies  were  very  much 
interested  in  the  growth  of  this  industry.  They  were  good  customers  of  the 
mills,  and  an  ample  supply  of  paper  at  low  prices  was  essential  to  their 
prosperity.  Brailford,  the  famous  printer  at  New  York,  owned  the  mill  at 
Klizabethtown  himself;  and  Franklin  assisted  to  build  no  less  than  eighteen 
others  in  the  course  of  his  life.  By  1 769  there  were  forty  paper-making 
establishments  in  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  Delaware.  The  paper  was 
made  by  these  early  makers  from  rags  of  cotton  or  linen.  The  pulp  when 
obtained  was  taken  by  ladling  or  dipping  into  a  hand-sieve  or  mould  made 
suitable  to  the  purpose,  and  ])y  a  rapitl  shaking  motion  spread  evenly  over  the 
whole  bottom  of  the  sieve.  The  water  draining  through  the  cloth  left  the 
pulp  in  a  sheet,  which  was  then  removed,  and  pressed  in  a  pile  with  other 
sheets  (a  piece  of  felt  lying  between  each  sheet),  dried,  and  finished.  The 
process  was  slow,  and  the  product  of  each  mill  small.  After  the  Revolution- 
ary war  broke  out,  the  importations  of  paper  stopped,  and  the  Effect  of 
number  of  mills  in  the  colonies,  and  the  variety  of  their  product,  Revolution- 
increased.  Mr.  Willcox  on  Chester  Creek,  Penn.,  made  the  paper  "'"  ^'"'' 
tor  the  Continental  money  issued  by  Congress.  By  1787  there  were  sixty- 
three  mills  in  the  States,  forty-eight  being  in  Pennsylvania;  and  in  1791  Alex- 
ander Hamilton  reported  the  business  as  being  among  the  "  considerable  " 
manufactures  of   the  period.    The  qualities    made  were   printing,  writing, 


460 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


sheathing,  and  wrapping  paper,  pasteboard,  fuller's  or  press  paper,  and  papei 
for  hangings.  Congress  did  what  it  could  for  the  manufacture  by  layiiiT  ;j 
duty  of  seven  and  a  half  per  cent  on  paper  i!i  1 789,  and  making  rags  free. 
It  has  never  changed  this  policy,  except  at  different  times,  when,  to  give  tlie 
finished  product  more  protection,  it  raised  the  duty.  The  duty  has  at  times 
been  as  high  as  thirty-five  per  cent,  and  is  still  at  that  rate. 

The  principal  hinderance  of  the  early  American  manufacture  was  the  short 
supply  of  the  raw  material,  j'he  makers  could,  of  course,  have  used  raw  cotton 
Lack  of  raw  and  raw  flax,  both  of  which  were  abundant,  and  would  iiave  made 
material.  remarkably  good  papers,  owing  to  the  length  of  the  fibres ;  hut 
the  excessive  price  of  the  paper  would  either  have  caused  a  literary  famine  in  the 
land,  or  given  the  Europeans  absolute  control  of  our  markets.  Shortly  after  tlie 
panic  of  1837,  when  prices  were  down  and  the  cotton-crop  large,  the  raw  fibre 
of  cotton  was  used  to  some  extent,  but  not  much  ;  and  manufacturers  liave 
never,  as  a  nile,  considered  bale  cotton  one  of  their  available  resources  for  raw 
material.  Their  main  dependence  has  always  been  upon  cotton  and  linen 
rags.  In  1804,  in  order  to  encourage  invention  to  pay  some  attention  to  the 
subject  of  raw  fibres  suitable  for  paper-making,  the  American  Company  of 
Booksellers  ofleied  gold  and  silver  medals  for  the  greatest  (juantities  and  best 
qualities  of  paper  made  from  materials  other  than  cotton  and  linen  rags  ;  but  at 
the  same  time  the  company  used  its  best  efforts  to  promote  the  saving  of  rags 
among  the  families  of  the  country,  as  being  more  likely  to  be  productive  of 
good.  'I'he  newspapers  seconded  the  effort  to  induce  people  to  save  rags  by 
frecjuent  agitation  of  the  subject.  The  Yankee  peddler  «li(l  more 
in  this  direction,  however,  than  all  other  agencies  combined,  by 
carrying  about  the  country  in  his  big  wagon  a  tempting  array  of  l)right  new 
tinware,  new  brooms,  &c.,  and  offering  to  exchange  tiieni  for  good  rags,  which 
he,  on  the  return  from  bis  expedition,  sold  for  cash  to  the  paper-manufacturers. 
In  the  very  large  cities  the  demand  for  paper  material  afterwards  gave  rise  to  a 
distinct  race  of  people  called  rag-women  and  rag-men,  who  went  about  the 
streets  from  early  dawn  to  sunset  with  iron  hooks,  collecting  all  the  rags  and 
scraps  of  papers  they  could  find  in  the  ash-barrels  and  gutters,  and  selling  them 
to  paper-makers.  The  ready  inarket  for  rags  soon  led  every  prudent  house  wile 
to  keep  a  rag-bag,  into  which  all  the  chippings  and  worn-out  cottons  and  linens 
might  go ;  and  the  system  of  collecting  the  rags  was  soon  well  organized. 
Notwithstanding  all  this,  the  consumption  of  paper  in  the  United  States  was 
enormously  in  excess  of  the  production  of  rags,  and  always  has  been.  The  war 
of  1 86 1  promoted  the  consumption  enormously.  The  consequence  has  been, 
that  the  United  States  has  always  had  to  import  rags.  In  1845  the  importa- 
tion had  grown  to  9,000,000  pounds  a  year ;  in  1855  it  was  40,000,000  pounds ; 
in  1872  it  was  over  150,000,000  pounds.  It  is  only  since  1873  that  the  impor- 
tation has  begun  to  fall  off,  owing  to  the  discovery  of  other  raw  materials ; 
but  the  quantity  of  foreign  rags  consumed  is  still  75,000,000  pounds  a  year. 


Rag-iaving. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


461 


teriali  (or 
rags. 


Tlie  imported  rags  come  mainly  from  Italy.    The  governments  in  the 
nortli  of  Kiirope  do  not  favor  the  exportation  of  rags,  especially  those   of 
linen.    At  various  times,  France,  Holland,  Spain,  Portugal,  and   importation 
Jielgium  have  absolutely  prohibited  it.     Those  from  the  south  of  *•'  '■*•• 
Kuropc  have  been  held  to  be  the  best,  however,  being  whiter  and  finer. 

The  great  scarcity  and  growing  price  of  rags  have  led  to  numerous  experi- 
ments during  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years,  with  a  view  to  utili/iug  other 
raw  materials.  Just  before  our  Revolutionary  war  there  was  great  substitution 
anxiety  in  Europe  in  respect  to  the  supply  of  rags ;  and  nearly  of  other  ma- 
every  grass,  plant,  and  tree,  which  showed  its  head  above  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth,  was  made  a  subject  of  the  devouring  attention 
of  naturalists  and  manufacturers,  witii  a  view  to  ascertaining  its  capabilities  for 
jjaper-making.  In  1772  a  book  was  printed  in  Germany  containing  leaves  of 
paper  made  out  of  sixty  different  materials,  amcng  which  were  shavings,  saw- 
dust, tliistles,  cabbage-stalks,  nettlesr  the  cones  of  pine-trees,  and  the  bark  of 
several  trees.  About  1 780  paper  was  made  from  wood  in  Germany.  None 
of  the  vegetable  fibres  of  Europe  were,  however,  found  to  be  available,  —  either 
|)ecaiise  of  their  scarcity,  or  tiie  lack  of  a  proper  knowledge  of  how  to  reduce 
tliem, —  except  the  esparto-grass  of  Spain.  This  grass,  so  fibrous  as  to  be 
available  for  other  purposes  than  paper-making,  produced  an  excellent  pulp, 
and  was  easily  reduced.  It  became  a  valuable  addition  to  the  resources  of  the 
industry.  Its  quantity  being  limited,  experiments  continued  with  other  fibres. 
Straw  was  tried,  and  wood  again  ;  and  at  length,  in  1854,  Mellier  invented  a 
plan  for  treating  straw,  under  a  pressure  of  eighty  degrees,  with  caustic  alkali, 
wiiich  cleared  the  fibre  of  silica  and  gum,  and  brought  it  into  the  industry  as 
an  available  material  for  the  cheaper  tjualities  of  news  and  printing  paper.  A 
cheniital  process  for  treating  wood  made  that  material  available  the  same  year. 
The  manufacture  of  paper  from  wood,  straw,  and  hemp,  began  in  the  United 
States,  in  consequence  of  these  discoveries,  about  the  year  1861,  at  San 
Lorenzo,  Cal.,  and  in  1865  at  Manayunk,  Penn.  The  three  materials  are 
now  very  largely  used,  straw  most  of  all.  It  may  be  mentioned  as  a  curious 
circunistance,  that,  about  fifty  years  ago,  the  idea  was  started  of  using  the 
cotton  or  linen  wrapi)ers  for  paper-making  in  which  the  mummies  of  Egypt 
are  swathed.  The  export  of  these  cloths  actually  began  for  this  purpose, 
and  would  have  continued,  except  that  Mehemet  Ali  wished  to  monopolize 
them  for  his  own  use  in  paper-making  in  Egypt. 

.\  great  change  has  been  wrought  in  the  manufacture  of  paper  by  the 
employment  of  machinery  in  place  of  the  old  hand-processes.     The  principal 
machine  now  used  in  paper-making  is  the  Fourdrinier  invention,  improve- 
The  world  is  indebted  to  Louis  Robert  of  France  for  this  remarka-  •"■"'  °'  ""■■ 
ble  apparatus.      It  was   brought   into  use  in   1799,  and  Robert  making 
received  both  a  patent  and  a  premium  of  eight  thousand  francs  p»per. 
fram  the  French  Government.     Leger  Didot  carried  it  to  England  in  1802, 


■■jir*r'r'    'k, 


^£ 


463 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


and  the  Foiirdrinicrs  perfected  it.  After  1820  some  of  these  niadiines 
were  brought  to  the  United  States;  and  about  1830  Phelps  ^:  SiJoffonl  of 
Windham,  Conn.,  began  to  make  a  rival  machine,  called  the  "(vlindcr 
Machine,"  for  the  trade.  Not  long  afterward,  Howe  &  ("loddard  of  WorccstiT 
Mass.,  began  to  make  the  P'ourdrinier  machine.  The  application  of  jiowLr  to 
the  manufacture  was  a  welcome  idea  to  .\mericans.  Labor  was  high  luru,  and 
the  cost  of  hand-moulded  paper  excessive.  The  idea  of  employing  iikk  hint's 
was  taken  up  joyfully.  'I'he  machinists  perfected  the  cyliniler  and  I'Durdriniir 
inventions,  and  contrived  a  large  variety  of  other  mechanical  exiKiIicnts  for 
use  in  the  mills  ;  and  the  imi)roved  processes  made  more  rapid  proj,Tuss  here 
than  they  did  in  either  France  or  Kngland,  which  originated  tlicni.  While 
those  two  countries  contin\ied  to  use  the  hand-moulds  on  an  immense  scale, 
and  still  do  employ  them,  the  United  States  directed  their  whole  effort  to  devel- 
oping machinery  which  should  make  the  best  <iualities  of  paper  antomatii  ally 
as  well  as  they  were  made  in  Kurope  by  the  other  process.  Tiie  greatest 
strides  have  been  made  since  1861.  The  success  has  been  so  great,  that 
American  machine-made  papers  are  competing  successfully  at  home  and 
abroad  with  :hose  cust  in  the  hand-moulds. 

Under  tNe  oitl  system,  a  pile  of  a  hundred  ami  twenty  sheets  of  pajjer. 
formed  by  hand,  consumed  two  weeks  in  the  making  and  fmisiiing :  now- 
Paper-  ^^  work  is  all  done  in  less  than  four  minutes.  The  milky  pulp. 
making  prepared  by  grinding,  bleaciiing.  and  washing,  flows  from  a  cis- 
escn  e  .  ^^^^^  down  upou  One  end  of  a  long  machine  stretihiiig  across 
a  large  room,  which  is  a  combination  of  entUess  aprons,  gangs  of  heavy 
rollers  arranged  perpendicularly  one  over  the  other,  cog-wheels,  and  steam 
heating-pipes.  The  pulp  foils  upon  a  leather  apron,  and  flows  in  a  little 
cascade  upon  an  endless  wire-doth,  over  which  the  web  of  pajjcr  i:;  formed. 
The  size  of  the  stream  is  regulated  according  to  the  tiiickness  of  liie  |)ai)er. 
The  wire-cloth  is  constantly  vibrating  from  side  to  side.  The  motion  spreads 
the  pulp  evenly  over  the  cloth  as  it  would  be  done  by  the  shaking  motion  in 
the  hand-process  :  it  also  aids  the  felting  of  the  particles  of  fibre,  and  the 
drainage  of  the  water  through  the  wire-cloth.  The  greater  part  of  the  water 
having  disappeared,  and  left  a  moist  web  on  the  cloth  as  it  slowly  travels 
away  from  the  leather  apron,  the  web  is  taken  up  through  a  ])air  of  rollers 
covered  with  flannel,  which  give  it  a  slight  i)ressure,  s(]ueezing  out  some  of 
the  remaining  moisture,  and  condensing  the  web.  The  web  goes  through 
between  a  second  pair  of  wet  press-rolls,  and  is  then  taken  up  by  an  endless 
felt  apron,  which  carries  it  to'  a  fresh  set  of  rolls,  which  squeeze  it  more 
severely,  and  leave  the  paper  strong  and  dry  enough  to  go  on  without  the 
support  of  the  aprons.  It  travels  along  now  bet'  een  pressing-rolls  and  over 
the  surface  of  steel  cylinders  heated  by  steam,  and,  after  passing  o.'er  about 
thirty  or  forty  feet  of  heated  surface,  reaches  the  end  of  its  journey,  and  is 
wound  up  tightly  on  a  large  roller,  —  an  endless  sheet  of  paper.     The  machine 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


463 


moves  at  the  rate  of  from  twenty-five  to  forty  feet  a  minute.  The  paper  is 
made  at  the  rate  of  from  three  to  five  miles  a  day.  From  the  paper-making 
niachiiK'  the  roil  goes  to  the  calendering  and  <;utting  machinery ;  though 
sometinics  the  rutting  is  done  at  the  end  of  the  first  process  by  the  action 
of  a  pair  of  shears,  the  paper  coming  from  the  Fourdrinier  machine  in  sheets 
instead  of  in  a  wel).  Calendering  is  done  by  passing  the  paper  between  two 
rollers,  one  of  polished  copper,  the  other  covered  with  paper.  The  i)ressure 
of  the  rolls  is  enormous,  and  the  paper  comes  from  between  them  compacted 
ami  with  a  beautiful  surface.  Letter-paper  receives  its  power  to  take  ink 
without  blotting,  not  only  by  good  calendering,  but  by  sizing  the  i)aper,  the 
latter  being  the  more  essential. 


mil.YOKt    lAI'KK   CUMI'ANV,    IIULYUKK,    MASS. 


Ever  since  the  application  of  machinery,  about  the  year  1830,  the  impor- 
tation of  foreign  papers  to  the  United  States  has  fallen  off.  The  importations 
previous  to  that  date  were  heavy,  and  were  carried  to  such  an  _, 

'  -' '  Decrease  m 

extent,  that,  for  a  long  time  previous  to  1825,  the  United-States  importation 
Senate  actually  used  paper  which  was  not  only  of  foreign  manu-   "'  foreign 
facture,  l)ut  which  bore  the  water-mark  (remarkably  out  of  place 
in  a  republic  like  this)  of  "  Napoleon,  Empereur  et  Roi,  1813."     During  the 
late  war,  and  for  a  few  years  afterwards,  the  amount  of  the  importations  was 
from  one  to  three  million  dollars'  worth  a  year.     This  was  an  apparent  in- 
crease ;  but  it  only  took  place  because  there  was  a  demand  for  elegant  writing- 
papers  consequent  upon  the   demands  of  fashion,  and  the  percentage  of 


464 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\\ 


foreign  papers  to  the  total  amount  consumed  was  really  smaller  than  ever 
The  importations  soon  fell  away  again.  Belgium  ceased  to  send  us  Ikt  (  hca., 
news  and  book  papers,  wiiich  had  been  consumed  in  New  York  to  a  l;,r^,^. 
extent.  The  orders  for  the  French  anil  English  writing,  ledger,  fancy,  and 
tissue  paf)ers,  began  to  stop;  and  after  1871,  the  year  of  greatest  import.ition 
consumption  of  foreign  papers  dwindled  rapidly  away,  until  it  readied  the 
very  insignificant  figure  of  ;^ii,i78i3  in  the  whole  year  of  iS;-,  tlie 
total  production  of  this  country  being  about  ;R6o,ooo,ooo  worth  a  year. 
One  London  house,  which  ten  years  ago  sent  ^30,000  worlli  of  ])ai)cr 
to  this  country,  had  ceased  to  pay  any  attention  to  this  trade.  While  this 
extraordinary  change  was  taking  place,  an  export  of  American  papers  spiant' 
up.  Before  the  war  ^here  had  been  an  export  to  South  .\nieri(  a  ;  but 
it  was  discontinued  in  1861.  It  was  resumed  after  the  war.  It  grevy  so 
Exporution  fast,  that  it  rose  from  S3.777  in  1869  to  ;J93S.ooo  in  1S77. 
of  paper.  American  manufacturers  discovereil  in  1869,  what  they  had  not 
really  been  consciously  aware  of  before,  that  their  machine-inade  pajiers 
were  of  as  good  a  quality  as  the  foreign  hand-made,  and  th.it  they  ( cmld 
compete  in  foreign  markets  for  their  sale.  They  organized  in  1877  for  ion- 
certed  action  in  pushing  the  export  of  paper.  Forty-one  firms  uniteil  in  a 
movement  to  send  agents  to  England  and  to  South  .America  to  see  what  could 
be  done ;  and  they  succeeded,  not  only  in  selling  their  papers  of  all  kinds  in 
South  America,  but  also  in  England,  in  competition  with  the  local  manufac- 
turers of  that  kingdom.  Their  writii.g-papers  were  found  to  vithstaiui  the 
moist  climate  of  England  better  than  the  English-made.  American  bank-note, 
bond,  news,  book,  and  writing  papers  now  go  to  South  America  freely.  The 
writing,  ledger,  and  plate  pajjcrs  go  to  England.  The  thin  manilas  go  all 
over  the  world.  Wrapping-papers  go  to  the  West  Indies.  The  range  and 
amount  of  the  sales  is  rapidly  increasing,  and  the  United  States  is  now  fairly 
in  the  field  for  producing  a  part  of  the  world's  supply  of  paper. 

In  1872  there  were  812  paper-mills  in  the  United  States,  princii)ally  in 
Massachusetts,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania.  They  employed  22,000  people, 
Number  of  and  produced  317,637  tons  of  paper,  or  a  little  over  1,000  tons  a 
miiii.  (lay,  the  value  of  the  same  being  ^66,500,000.     Of  the  total  i)rod- 

uct  Massachusetts  made  one-third.  Since  1872  about  eighty  mills  have  been 
added.  It  is  believed  that  there  are  now  no  hand-made  paper  establishments 
in  the  country.  Machinery  drove  them  all  out  of  existence.  Two  lingered 
along  until  within  a  very  few  years,  —  one  in  Massac  ausetts,  and  one  in  Penn- 
sylvania,—  when  they,  too,  "folded  their  tents,  and  silently  stole  away." 
Earl  uie  of  Paper-hangings  were  first  ofiered  for  sale  in  America  in  1737; 
paper-hanc-  but  they  were  little  used,  except  in  families  of  wealth,  before  1 750. 
*"*•  in  the  Their  use  was  regarded  as  sinful  luxury  and  ostentation.  White- 
washed walls  began  to  be  regarded  as  something  less  than  of  the 
highest  beauty  and  moral  worth  only  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution  :  those 


OF  illE   UNITED  STATES. 


465 


who  ( ould  afford  them  then  bought  the  Knglish  and  French  hangings,  and  put 
them  in  their  houses.     Tiiey  were  so  costly,  that  they  w'ere  not  pasted  upon 
the  walls,  but  were  merely  hung  upon  tlv;in,  or  placed  against  them,  attached 
to  iVinics.     They  were   freepiently  moved  from  house  to  house.   i,„porttd 
Their  manufacture  was  begun  ujjon  a  small  scale  in  1 763 ;  and   from 
bviySy  there  were  small  factories  in   Boston,  New  Jersey,  and      "•■"• 
IVniisyivania.     The   paper   for  them  was   fabricated   from   the  coarsest  and 
<  heapest  rags,  and  even  from  woollen  stuff.      It  was  made  in  sheets  thirty 
inches  long,  which   were   pasted   together   neatly  in  strips  long   p.,,,,  n„„y. 
c'noiiy;ii  to  reach  from  floor  to  ceiling  ;  antl  the  pattern  was  stamped   (acturei  in 
upon  tiiem  with  wooden  blocks  by  lianil.      In  1 789  Jolin  Carnes  ^"'*«"' 
of  Delaware,  who  had  been  consul  at  Lyons,  resolved  to  enter  upon 
the  nianiifiicture  of  paper-hangings  on  a  larger  scale  than  had  been  common  in 
the  loiintry.     He  associated  himself  with  Burrell  Carnes  and  two  French  work- 
men by  tiie  names  of  Le  CoUay  and  Chardon,  and  tliey  went  into  business  at 
I'hiiailelpiiia  extensively.     The  hangings  j)roduced  by  these  early  makers  were 
of  a  very  cheap  description ;  but  they  sufficed  to  introduce  color  and  form 
into  tlie  decoration  of  houses,  and  were  very  e    ensively  bought  by  the  people. 
Bostuii  was  producing  24,000  pieces  yearly  by  1794.     By  1810  four  establish- 
ments in  the  vicinity  of  I'hiladelphia  were  producing  140,000  pieces  yearly, 
worth  $97,41 7  ;  and  I'roviilence  was  making  8,000  pieces,  worth  $8,000,  yearly. 
Tiic  best  papers  were,  of  course,  imported  from   France  and   Kngland, 
vliere  the  arts  of  design  and  decoration  found  rich  patrons,  and  had  been 
practised  for  generations.     I'eople  of  fasiiion  were  in  the  habit  of  importa- 
putting  none  except  French  and  luiglish  papers  on  their  walls,  at  t'om 
least  iu  their  best  rooms.     The  American  makers,  for  fifty  years 
after  the  Revolution,  aspired  to  do  little  except  to  supply  the  mass  of  the 
peoi)le  with  cheap  hangings.     The  prettiest  of  the  papers  they  made  were  in 
imitation  of  the  foreign  styles  ;  but  a  part  of  their  goods  were  in  original  styles, 
and  were  frequently  extremely  unique.     The  writer  has  a  sample  of  a  paper 
made  at  Albany  in  181 2  by  Barnard  &  Steele,  which  was  called   ..xhe  battle 
"  the  battle  of  Lake  Krie  "  paper.     It  had  pictures  in  black  and  of  Lake 
gray,  on  a  white  ground,  representing  in  a  vague  and  ideal  sort  of  ^'  *    p«p«'- 
way  three  scenes  in  that  famous  naval  conflict.     The  pictures  were  about  two 
feet  apart,  and  a  wall  papered  with  the  hanging  must  have  been  a  bewildering 
object  to  look  at.     Patriotic  scenes  were  common,  the  pattern  deriving  its 
interest  solely  from  association  of  ideas,  and  not  from  its  material  beauty. 
.'\nother  queer  paper  much  in  use  in  those  early  days  was  the    "rainbow 
paper,"  invented  about  1830  by  the  sons  of  John  B.  Howell  at  Philadelphia. 
Enormous  fem-leaves  covered  the  surface  of  the  paper,  the  hues  of  which 
shaded  from  dark  brown  at  one  end  to  light  yellow  at  the  other,  while  the 
grounds  shaded  from  light  blue  to  dark  blue.     This  shading  of  grounds  and 
patterns  soon  became  very  coaunon. 


continued. 


466 


INDUSTKIAL    IllSTOKY 


f 


t  All  the  printing  was  done  by  hand,  with  a  wooden  block  twenty  im  lies 
square  and  three  inches  thick.  The  color  was  first  spread  upon  a  liLmkut 
Mideof  'Hie  block  was  laid  on  the  blanket  to  receive  its  color,  .uul  was 
printinr  t],j,„  applied  to  the  strip  of  wall-paper,  metal  pins  at  the  i  oriicr 
marking  places  on  the  strip  to  guide  the  printer  in  applying  future  <  olors 
Pressure  was  a[)plied  to  the  block  by  a  treadle  operateil  by  the  printer'M  inoi 
After  each  impression  the  strip  of  paper  was  pushed  along,  and  a  new  impres- 
sion made,  until  the  hanging  hatl  received  its  printing  from  one  end  to  il^ 
other.  If  the  pattern  was  in  niore  than  one  color,  the  paper  was  hunj<  iih  lo 
dry  after  receiving  each  color,  and  then  taken  down  and  subjected  to  tiie  s.uuc 
process,  each  tint  being  put  on  separately  and  by  a  tlifferent  block.  '\\\u  was 
a  tedious  process,  and  one  man  ami  one  boy  could  print  only  a  hundnd  rulls 
of  one-colored  paper  a  day.  If  six  colors  had  to  go  on,  it  would  take  a  wcuk. 
The  process  was  identical  with  that  for  printing  calicoes  and  dress-f^otJiU. 
The  grounds  of  these  old  papers  were  generally  white,  and  in  the  patuin,  a 
great  ileal  of  reil,  yellow,  and  brown  was  used.  The  fashionable  IruiK  li 
papers  were  generally  horrible  combinations  of  yellow,  gilt,  brown,  and  wliitc, 
the  floral  and  leaf  patterns  being  of  enormous  size,  anil  the  borders  twelve  or 
eighteen  inches  wide.  Oftentimes,  however,  the  imported  pa|)ers  rei)reseiiti;(l 
scenes  in  a  garden,  classic  legends,  &c.,  the  room  jjapered  with  them  resem- 
bling a  panorama,  A  pajjer  exhibited  at  one  of  the  world's  fairs,  represoiuing 
a  chase  in  the  forest,  reipiired  the  aid  of  twelve  thousand  blocks  in  the  prim- 
ing.    In  1824  glazed  grounds  began  to  be  introduced. 

After  1820  the  business  grew  very  rapidly.  The  Kourdrinier  paper-machine 
enabled  the  material  for  the  hanging  to  be  produced  in  rolls,  obviatiiij^  the 
Orowth  of  costly  old  process  of  pasting  the  thirty-inch  sheets  together  by 
buiinei*  hand,  and  cheapening  the  expense  of  the  finished  hanginjjs  im- 
■iterisao.  mensely.  Then  in  1843  a  machine  for  printing  two  colors  was 
introduced  into  the  business,  and,  within  ten  years  afterwards,  one  which  would 
print  in  six  colors.  This  machine  soon  superseded  all  the  hand-printing  of 
ordinary  papers  in  this  country.  This  still  further  cheapened  the  cost,  and 
increased  the  sale  of  hangings.  Other  machinery  was  soon  invented.  For- 
merly, whenever  the  ground  of  the  hanging  was  colored,  the  stain  was  laid  on 
by  hand.  A  machine  was  now  constructed  to  brush  on  the  color  automatically. 
Others  were  contrived  for  cutting  up  the  long  rolls  of  paper  into  strips  of 
proper  length  for  sale,  for  rolling  up  the  strips,  for  brushing  the  jjaper  lo 
produce  the  satin  finish,  for  embossing  the  paper,  and  for  other  pur])oses. 
The  printing-machine  was  still  further  improved.  The  manufocturers  did  not 
stop  with  six  colors,  but  put  roller  after  roller  into  the  machine  luitil  its 
capacity  had  been  increased  to  twenty  colors.  Each  color  was  laitl  on  by  a 
separate  roller,  and  the  long  web  of  paper  passed  from  one  to  the  other  until 
it  had  taken  them  all ;  and  it  then  i)assed  off  to  a  frame,  which  caught  it  up  in 
a  succession  of  long  folds,  and  carried  it  slowly  across  the  room  to  dry.    One 


or    THR    UNITED    STATES. 


m 


roll  ipplicd  varnish  to  the  paper,  and  to  this  giMin^  was  afterwards  applied  by 
dii^tiiit,'  it  o'>'  ">'  •*>"■  l>ri;*»'-'»t  process  cne  machine  can  turn  out  in  one  day 
irom  tlirce  thousanil  to  five  thousand  rolls  of  hangings  printed  in  any  number 
of  (i)lors  from  one  to  twenty:  by  the  old  process  this  work  would  have  cm- 
ploNul  a  man  and  a  boy  for  a  year  and  a  half.  'I'he  beauty  of  tlie  papers  and 
tht'ii  ( hc;)pness  continually  improved  with  this  ap|)li(ation  of  machinery. 
{'oliiK'd  grounds  were  generally  introduced  in  ])lare  of  the  cold  white  grounds, 
and  rii  lier,  darker,  and  prettier  patterns.  Some  haiMl-printing  of  the  more 
costK  p.ipers  has  still  continued  to  be  done  ;  but  American  machinery  is 
gtcatlily  enc  roac  hing  on  the  territory  of  hand-work,  and,  for  all  except  the 
napirs  costing  from  three  dollars  to  eight  dollars  a  roil,  the  work  is  so  well 
doiu',  tiiat  experienc  cd  judges  cannot  tell  which  is  machine-made  and  which 
h.'ind-made.  In  France  and  Knglanil  the  manufacturers  cling  to  the  hand- 
|)ro(  esses :  they  regard  the  product  as  clearer  in  print.  Yet,  within  the  last 
three  years,  .American  makers  have  taken  Knglish  jiatterns  and  jmnted  them 
by  mac  lime,  and  sent  the  papers  bat  k  to  England,  where  they  defied  dis- 
crimination from  the  others  by  the  most  experienced  eye.  ■         '     ' 

i'lie  lact  that  the  large  cities  of  the  United  States  arc  the  best  customers 
of  tiie  paper-hanging  makers  has  led  them  to  assemble  their  factories  of  late 
ycar^.  near  those  <entres  of  p()|)ulation.  Formerly  the  factories  Location  of 
were  scattered  through  New  ICngland  and  the  Middle  States  in  '■««"'••• 
the  rural  cities  and  villages,  where  watcr-jjower  was  plenty,  or  taxes  light : 
now  tile  concern  of  J.  R.  iligelow  &  t'ompany  at  Hoslon  is  the  only  one  in 
.New  Fngland  ;  and  the  most  jirosperous  and  largest  concerns  in  addition  to 
Higelow's  are  centre«l  in  New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  Philadelphia.  One  advan- 
tage of  having  large  factories  in  a  city  is,  that  the  people  of  the  place  can  go 
to  the  factory,  select  a  pattern,  and  have  enough  of  the  hanging  made  in  any 
special  color  or  tone  to  match  their  carpets  and  furniture.  In  i860  there 
were  twenty-six  paper-hanging  factories  in  the  United  States,  making  11,037,- 
600  worth  of  hangings  a  year.  The  business  has  increased  in  amount ;  but 
the  number  of  factories  has  decreased.  There  were  in  1870  only  fifteen  fac- 
tories ;  but  they  produced  J2, 200,000  worth  of  hangings :  since  then  the 
production  has  increased  nearly  J  1,000,000  worth. 

Tiiere  is  in  paper-hangings,  as  in  silver  Tnd  gold  ware,  architecture,  and 
decoration  generally,  a  need  of  distinctive  American  styles.  American  flowers 
and  leaves  are  largely  used  in  the  cheaper  paper  ;  but  in  the  costly  style  in 
kinds,  by  which  the  art  of  decorating  paper-hangings  must  be  p«p«'»' 
judged,  there  is  still  the  same  imitation  of  foreign  patteins  which  was  common 
a  hundred  years  ago.  Manufacturers  copy  the  French  and  English  ideas 
habitually.  Two  manufacturers  in  New  York  are  trying  to  introduce  their  own 
designs  in  expensive  paper ;  but  their  inspiration  is  still  the  foreign  decora- 
tions. One  concern,  that  of  Leissner  &  Louis,  devotes  itself  largely  to  making 
patterns  in  the  antique  styles,  producing  papers  in  the  Egyptian,  Persian, 


'*V"r'-^f,f>rr*  fir      '(f| 


i  1 


^.j^;'' 


468 


INDUSTRrAL    HISTORY 


Greek,  Pompeiian,  or  any  other  style  to  order.  There  is  great  need  of  eman- 
cipation from  the  influence  of  the  ideas  of  the  Old  World,  and  the  con- 
trivance of  designs  in  a  pure  American  spirit. 

Not  only  are  the  styles  of  paper  constantly  changing,  but  the  tastes  of 
people  also  change  concerning  their  use.  Only  a  few  years  ago  it  was  gener- 
ally believed  that  many  kinds  of  wall-paper  were  unhealthy,  because  of  the 
Painted  V*.  poisonous  ingredients  put  into  the  coloring-materials ;  wiiile  the 
paper  walla,  paste  used  in  sticking  papers  to  the  wall  attra.,ied  moisture,  making 
roon  damper  than  they  would  otherwise  be.  Actoidingly,  a  period  of  gen- 
eral wall-scraping  was  inaugurated.  Having  been  thoroughly  cleaned  of  old 
paper  and  paste,  walls  were  painted ;  it  being  everywhere  admitted  that  tlie 
colors  adopted  were  healthy,  as  well  as  more  pleasing  to  the  eye.  But,  now 
taste  is  setting  once  more  in  the  opposite  direction,  colored  walls  are  being 
re-covered  with  paper,  the  most  stylish  mode  of  putting  it  on  being  to  use 
three  shades,  —  the  lightest  shade  for  the  middle  or  body  of  the  wall,  a  darker 
shade  for  the  top,  and  a  still  darker  for  the  bottom.  By  and  by  we  shall 
doubtless  hear  of  another  change,  made  as  suddenly  as  this ;  and  perhaps 
wall-papers  may  be  discarded  altogether. 

The  importation  of  foreign  hangings  has  been  at  times  very  large,  but 
never  so  large  as  since  the  war.  In  1872  it  amounted  to  1^982,000  worth : 
since  then  it  has  fallen  to  almost  nothing.  A  large  export  has  sprung  up  in 
its  place,  especially  to  South  America,  Canada,  and  the  West  Indies. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


469 


CHAPTER  IX. 


GUNPOWDER   AND   FIREWORKS. 


Dupont. 


WHEN  old  Putnam  stormed  and  fumed  about  the  earthworks  on  the 
hills  overlooking  Boston,  and  cried,  "  Powder,  powder !   O  ye  gods, 
give  us  powder  !  "  the  quality  of  the  article  he  then  sighed  for  so  ardently  was 
extremely  poor.     This  inflammable  material  had  been  in  use  for  four  hundred 
years ;  but  the  smoke,  flame,  and  ashes  it  made  were  out  of  all  proper  propor- 
tion to  its  power.     The  quantity  then  made  in  the  United  States  _ 
was  not  so  large  per  annum  as  would  be  consumed  in  one  of  workaduring 
our  modern   mining-regions   in  a  week,  or  in   one  lively  battle,  t^e  •*«»»•»- 
The  government  started  powder-works  during  the  Revolution  to 
insure  a  supply  of  that  necessary  munition  of  war;  but  it  was  not  until  1802 

—  when   a  Frenchman   by   the   name   of  Eleuthere   Irene   Du- 
pont started  a  factory  on  the  Brandywine,  near  Wilmington,  Del. 

—  that  powder  of  any  great  excellence  was  made  upon  our  soil.  Dupont 
had  had  a  chemical  education,  and,  noticing  the  poor  quality  of  American 
powder,  resolved  to  supply  the  rising  young  republii  with  an  article  which 
would  obviate  the  inconveniences  of  an  explosive  which  fouled  the  musket 
badly,  and  which  would  make  the  country  more  formidable  in  war  and  peace. 
The  demands  of  the  people  of  the  several  States  for  sporting-powder  and  for 
military  powder  with  which  to  fight  Indians,  and  the  hostilities  with  England 
which  began  in  181 2,  gave  Dupont  all  he  could  do  in  the  way  of  manufacture. 
He  repeatedly  enlarged  his  factory  ;  and  when  he  died,  in  1834,  his  establish- 
ment was  the  largest  of  the  kind  in  the  country :  it  has  since  then  become 
the  largest  in  the  world.  The  war  of  181 2  led  to  the  establishment  of  other 
factories  of  powder,  especially  in  Pennsylvania,  which  has  always  been  a  large 
consumer  of  powder,  and,  by  all  odds,  the  largest  manufacturer.  The  factories 
were  generally  small,  and  were  located  in  places  remote  from  other 

.  .  ,  ,  r  ,  ■     ,   ,  M  ,       Manufacture 

projjerty,  m  order  not  to  endanger  life  and  capital  by  a  possible  of  powder 
explosion.      During  the  war  of   1861  the  quantities  of  powder  duringrecent 
consumed  in  the  United  States  were  enormous.     The  resources  of 
the  existing  factories  were  taxed  to  supply  the  market  which  was  so  suddenly 


y 


i:! 


470 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


and  unexpectedly  created, 
requirements  of  the  times. 


It  was  necessary  to  start  new  factorii^s  to  meet  the 
By  1870  there  were  thirty-three  powdcr-fiic  tories 


in  full  operation  in  the  United  States,  fifte-     of  them  being  in  Peniis\  l\aiiia 


Factorie* 
In  1870. 


five  in  New  York,  three  in  CaUtomia,  two  in  Connecticut,  and  two 
in  Ohio.  One  of  those  in  Connecticut  was  that  of  the  Ha/ard 
Powder  Company  of  Hazardvilie,  a  celebrated  concern :  another  was  tlie 
Laflin  &  Rand  concern  of  New- York  City. 

In  a  country  like  the  United  States  there  must  always  be  a  great  denniid 
for  powerful  explosives.  We  have  few  or  no  wars  of  jealousy  and  con.iuost 
Need  of  to  fight ;  but  we  have  a  million  railroads,  canals,  and  streets  wliic  h 

powder.  rcisx'-X  be  laid  out  on  direct  and  level  routes,  regardless  of  kkUs 

and  mountains ;  and  they  could  never  be  laid  out  and  built,  with  any  regard 
to  levels  and  straight  lines,  without  the  aid  of  powerful  explosives  to  sliatter 
the  rocks,  and  remove  them  from  the  way.  We  have  a  million  mines  of 
gold,  silver,  copper,  and  iron,  and  cjuarries  of  stone,  to  work,  whose  treasures 
would  be  almost  inaccessible,  except  for  the  agency  of  guji])QiKde£juul^  nitro- 
glycerine. There  are  reefs  and  rocks  to  be  cleared  out  of  the  harbors ;  there 
are  guns  to  be  fired  on  occasions  of  public  holiday ;  there  are  fireworks  to 
be  burned  at  festivals,  and  rockets  and  mortars  to  be  fire<l  by  life-saving  crews. 
Leaving  aside  the  whole  subject  of  the  demands  of  the  army  and  navy  of 
the  United  States,  and  of  the  militia  regiments  of  the  several  States,  the 
legitimate  demands  of  the  engineering  works,  the  mines,  and  amusements  of 
our  people,  are  still  sufficient  of  themselves  to  create  a  necessity  for  a  large 
manufacture  of  gunpowder  and  explosives.  Not  long  since,  a  blast  was  fired 
in  a  limestone  quarry  of  the  Glendon  Iron  Company,  at  Easton,  Penn.,  wliich 
contained  a  charge  of  twelve  thousand  pounds  of  mortar-powder,  displai  ing 
sixty  thousand  tons  of  rock.  The  legitimate  demands  of  the  United  Stales 
now  amount  to  over  twenty  million  pounds  of  powder  annually.  The  manu- 
facture is  larger  than  that,  however,  because  there  is  an  export  of  gun- 
powder to  Europe  and  South  America  constantly,  both  in  tlic  form  of 
cartridges,  and  loose  in  kegs.  The  export  trade  is  irregular,  and  dc])ends 
largely  on  the  progress  of  hostilities  abroad  :  but,  whenever  there  is  war,  there 
is  always  a  demand  for  American  powder ;  and,  as  the  monarchies  of  Europe 
or  the  nations  of  Asia  are  in  a  quarrel  about  half  of  the  time,  there  is  very 
seldom  a  year  in  which  more  or  less  of  our  powder  does  not  go  abroad. 
About  half  the  powder  used  in  the  Crimean  war  is  said  to  have  been 
bought  in  America :  a  great  deal  of  that  which  the  Turks  used  in  the  late 
war  was  certainly  bought  here. 

Gunpowder  is  made  of  three  ingredients, — charcoal,  nitre,  and  sulphur, — 
Powder,  in  proportions  which  vary  slightly,  according  to  the  use  to  which 
how  made,  t^g  powder  is  to  be  devoted.  The  ingredients  arc  combined  by 
weight.  The  following  are  four  of  the  more  common  proportions,  the  recipes 
being  for  a  hundro  pounds  of  powder  each  :  — 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


47» 


Atomic  theory 
Uniicd-Statcs  military 
Sporting  . 
Wasting  . 


74.64 
76 

78 
62 


13-51 
14 
12 
18 


11.85 
10 
10 
20 


The  nitre  is  reduced  in  quantity  for  blasting-powder  in  order  to  cheapen 
the  cost  and  lessen  the  rapidity  of  combustion.  For  most  purposes  of  blast- 
ing, a  sustained  and  increasing  push  is  better  than  a  sudden  and  terrific  shock. 
A  strong  and  chcaj)  blasting- powder  is  also  made  by  using  nitrate  of  soda  ^ 
instead  of  nitrate  of  potassa  or  nitre.  The  ingredients  are  mixed  in  the 
very  highest  state  of  purity.  The  sulphur  and  nitre  are  carefully  and  con- 
scientiously refined  before  the  mixing  takes  place.  It  is  desired  that  the 
powder  shall  burn  away  completely,  without  residuum  or  ash ;  and  it  will  not 
do  this  if  impurities  are  present.  The  charcoal  is  obtained  from  slender 
willow-shoots^or  from  poplar,  in  the  United  States.  The  trees  are  generally 
cultivated  by  the  owners  of  the  factories.  In  Europe  the  alder  is  used,  and 
in  Russia  the  white-birch.  The  wood  is  charred  in  red-hot  iron  cylinders, 
and  ground  when  cold  by  rolling,'  in  a  barrel  with  zinc  balls.  The  ingredients 
are  all  reduced  to  powder :  they  are  then  mixed  in  the  proper  quantities, 
and  sent  to  the  grinding-mill  in  quantities  of  about  fifty  pounds  at  a  time. 
The  incorporation  of  the  ingredients  is  a  very  important  matter,  and  the 
grinding,  is  therefore,  very  carefully  attended  to.  It  takes  place  in  a  circular 
trough  of  cast-iron,  in  which  cast-iron  wheels  of  three  or  fou-  tons'  weight 
follow  each  other  slowly  around  in  a  circle,  crushing  the  powder  under  them 
as  they  pass  along.  The  powder  is  kept  moistened  throughout  the  opci-ation. 
After  grinding,  the  powder  is  subjected  to  heavy  pressure  between  copper 
plates,  and  is  thus  reduced  to  a  cake.  It  is  then  broken  up  into  grains,  either 
by  mallets  or  toothed  rollers,  glazed  by  rolling  in  barrels  so  as  to  enable  the 
grains  the  better  to  resisi  moisture,  dried,  sifted,  and  cleaned  of  dust. 

The  relative   proportion   of  the   ingredients  causes  the  powdes  to  burn 
slowly  or  rapidly.     This  idea  was  taken  advantage   of  by  Gen.   j  „,.,g„    . 

Rodman,  U.S.A.,  in   1856,  in  order  to  produce  a  powder  suited  powder, 

to  large  cannon.     He  conducted  a   series  of  experiments  with  •'owdeter- 
powders,  and  was  the  first  in  the  world  to  produce  an  explosive 
suited  to  modern   artillery.     His  powders  were  made  in  two  forms.     One, 
called  the  "  mammoth,"  was  in  irregular  grains,  from  six-tenths  to 

,  .  Rodman. 

nme-tcnths  of  an  mch  m  diameter :    the  other,  called  the  "  per- 
forated cake,"  was  in  hexagonal  or  cylindrical  grains,  perforated  with  six  or 
ten  holes.     Gen.  Rodman  gained  slow  combustion  by  these  varieties  of  pow- 
der, and  consequently  greater  initial  velocity  at  the  mouth  of  the  gun,  with 


'  '■58  ■    *  "j 

.-3.  r  hK. 


f^:„V'i(i  .i,-'i' 


47a 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\..\      '^11 


m 


^;!u!i!!!i'i 


■/*''  ft  • 


r./'i«l'<''    'Tl 

it    li"    '<3 

l*^J  ,'(  .     Ill 


.■>'      '7. 


POWOER-KXrLOSION. 


OF  THE    UNITED    STATES. 


mi 


less  recoil.  The  heavy  guns  used  in  the  war  of  1861  were  supplied  with 
the  Rodman  powder.  It  is  related,  that  in  many  cases,  when  light  bat- 
teries or  infantry  regiments  were  deployed  in  front  of  the  heavy  guns,  on 
lower  ground,  but  close  to  them,  the  men  of  the  latter  were  sometimes 
hit  and  wounded  with  kernels  of  the  powder  which  had  not  been  burned. 
Rodman's  idea  was  adopted  in  Europe  as  soon  as  it  became  known.  The 
.English  pebble  and  pellet  powders,  and  the  Russian  prismatic,  are  the  out- 
growth of  it. 

The  power  of  gunpowder  is  enormous.    Water  expands  seventeen  hundred    / 
times  in  becoming  steam  ;  but  gunpowder  expands  into  a  greater  volume  of 
gases,  and  its  tension  is  enormously  promoted  by  the  heat  gener-  power  of 
ated  in  combustion.    One  early  experimenter  in  this  country  con-  gunpowder, 
fined  twenty-eight  grains  of  powder  in  a  cylindrical  space  which  it  exacdy 
filled :  when  fired,  it  burst  a  piece  of  iron  which  would  have  resisted  a  strain 
of  four  hundred  thousand  pounds.    A  mortar  loaded  with  one-twentieth  of  an 
ounce  of  powder,  and  having  a  twenty-four-pounder  cannon  laid  on  top  of  it, 
was  burst  by  the  explosion,  and  the  cannon  lifted.     Various  experimenters  have 
arrived  at  different  results  in  testing  the  pressure  of  gunpowder  before  being 
relieved  by  expansion,  the  product  of  force  ranging  from  seven  to  662  tons'    /  9 
pressure  to  the  square  inch.    The  average  force  of  gunpowder  is  rated  at  forty 
tons  to  the  square  inch. 

Within  the  last  sixty  years  a  number  of  other  explosives  have  been  added 
to  the  list  with  gunpowder,  some  of  which  have  been  extremely  useful  in 
engineering.     The  first  was  discovered   in    1832    in   Europe  by  other  explo-  '^ 
Braconnet,  who  found  that  starch  dissolved  in  nitric  acid,  and  pre-  •'*'•• 
cipitated  with  water,  becomes  explosive  by  concussion.     Braconnet  called  his 
new  powder  xyloidine.     Shortly  afterward  Pelouse  treated  paper  and  cotton 
and  linen  fabrics  with  nitric  acid,  and  got  an  equally  explosive  product,  which 
he  called  pyroxyline.    The  new  substance  was  so  destructive,  that 
a  peaceful  old  stocking  treated  with  nitric  acid  became  so  incen- 
diary and  energetic  as  to  be  able  to  blowup  a  house.     In  1846  Schonbein 
made  gun-cotton  by  the  use  of  nitric  and  sulphuric  acid,  and  great  attention   —^^m^  \ 
was  paid  to  the  new  product  all  over  the  world.     Gun-cotton  has  since  been 
made  to  some  extent  in  two  forms.     In  one,  long-staple  cotton  is 

!_•  1  1  ,.  ....  ,,,.,.      Oun-cotton. 

subjected  to  the  action  of  one  part  of  nitric  and  three  of  sulphuric  A 

acid,  and  put  through  a  long  series  of  washings  in  water  and  dryings,  and  boil- 
ing in  alkaline  solutions.  The  staple  is  twisted  into  ropes,  or  woven  into  cloth, 
for  use.  In  the  other,  or  English  process,  the  staple  is  beaten  into  pulp,  as  in 
paper-making,  after  being  treated  with  nitric  and  sulphuric  acids,  and  is  com- 
pressed into  small  white  cubes  or  cylinders,  while  moist,  under  a  pressure  of 
four  or  five  tons.  Gun-cotton  for  experimental  purposes  has  been  made  on 
a  very  small  scale  in  this  country.  It  was  tried  at  the  government  engineer- 
ing-works at  Hell  Gate,  in  New- York  harbor,  previous  to  the  demolition  of  the 


Pyroxyline. 


474 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


1^ 


Dynamite 


reef  there  ;  but  it  has  always  been  found  too  violent  and  uncertain  in  its  action 
and  too  expensive,  for  practical  use. 

A  whole  world  of  explosives  has  grown  out  of  the  discovery  of  gun-cotton. 
Schultze-powder  was  soon  invented ;  which  was  nothing  more  than  wood 
Nitro-  reduced  to  large  grains,  and  treated  with  acids.     Nitro-glycerine 

glycerine.  was  discovered  in  1847,  and  first  applied  to  engineering  in  1864, 
in  Sweden.  The  simplicity  of  manufacture  and  extraordinary  power  of  tliis 
agent  soon  made  it  popular.  It  is  prepared  by  introducing  glycerine,  drop  liy 
drop,  into  nitric  and  sulphuric  acids.  It  is  a  terrible  exi)losivc,  prodncini,' 
three  and  a  half  times  as  much  gas,  and  twice  as  much  heat,  as  gunpowder,  and 
is  never  safe  to  handle  except  when  frozen.  It  congeals  at  forty  or  forty-five 
degrees,  and  is  then  perfectly  safe ;  but,  when  liquid,  it  explodes  with  slight 
concussion  ;  and  its  power  is  so  great,  that  a  can  which  has  contained  it,  but 
has  been  emptied,  will,  when  thrown  on  the  ground,  explode  with  violenee 
sufficient  to  destroy  life.  When  not  confined,  it  burns  with  difficulty  on  tiie 
application  of  a  match.  Since  1865  it  has  been  extensively  used  in  tiie  United 
States  for  blasting  in  the  excavation  of  railroad  tunnels,  reefs,  &c.  It  is  easily 
\  Ymade  in  the  vicinity  of  tiie  works.      Dynamite,  or  'dant-ijowder, 

lite.'  oil 

dualine,  Vulcan-powder,  lithofractem,  and  other  explosives,  are 
produced  by  causing  nitro-glycerine  to  be  absorbed  by  some  inert  and  jiorous 
solid.  The  silicious  infusorial  earth  found  in  Hanover,  called  "  kieselguhr," 
is  the  best  which  has  been  found  for  the  purpose.  It  is  not  so  dangerous  to 
handle  in  this  form,  and  is  yet  slightly  slower  in  combustion,  and  hence  more 
serviceable.  Nitro-glycerine  and  all  of  its  compounds  are  exploded  in  blasting 
by  a  fulminate  of  mercury  contained  in  a  copper  capsule,  and  usually  ignited 
by  an  electric  spark  from  a  battery  at  a  safe  distance  from  the  mine.  One  of 
the  explosives  with  which  the  United-States  engineers  experimented  at  Hell 
Gate  was  called  "  vigorite."  It  was  made  of  coal-tar  by  the  action  of  nitric 
and  sulphuric  acids.  The  idea  was  to  get  a  cheaper  explosive  than  nitro- 
glycerine,  if  possible  ;  the  cost  of  blowing  up  the  reef  there  being  large,  and 
a  reduction  of  expense  being  desirable.  The  engineers  had  to  fall  back, 
however,  on  nitro-glycerine  —  that  is  to  say,  its  compounds  —  at  last,  as  being, 
all  things  considered,  preferable  to  all  other  agents.  Twenty-six  tons  of 
the  material  were  used,  distributed  in  cartridges  in  4,462  holes  in  the  rock. 
Dynamite  was  principally  used ;  but  some  of  the  cartridges  were  of  dualine 
and  Vulcan-powder  also. 

The  brilliant  effects  produced  by  the  burning  of  gunpowder  at  night,  es- 
pecially in  conjunction  with  the  metals,  and  other  substances  having  a  colored 
Fireworks       flame)  caused  the  new  combustible  to  be  seized  upon  at  once  in 
and  colored     Europe  to  add  to  the  attractions  of  the  royal  fttes.     In  Portugal, 
'  **■  France,  Spain,  Italy,  and    England,  in  the  ages  succeeding  the 

invention  of  gunpowder,  public  carnivals  for  the  entertainment  of  the  people, 
or  royal  festivities  in  honor  of  distinguished  guests,  were  extremely  common, 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


475 


and  were  of  the  most  extraordinary  description.  The  travels  of  the  kings 
through  their  own  realms  were  also  attended  by  public  displays,  and  a  regular 
feature  of  the  night  performances  soon  came  to  be  the  burning  of  fireworks  and 
colored  lights.  In  America,  cannon-firing,  bonfires,  the  ringing  of  the  bells,  and 
public  jjarades  and  speerhes,  were,  for  a  long  time,  the  sole  elements  of  a  public 
festival,  especially  of  those  of  a  political  character.  John  Adams  predicted 
that  the  Fourth  of  July  would  always  be  celebrated  with  demonstrations  of  that 
character.  Fireworks  were  not  greatly  used  in  the  republic  for  some  time 
after  the  Fourth-of-July  celebrations  began.  Ship-masters  disliked  to  take 
them  on  shipboard  in  Europe  and  bring  them  here,  owing  to  their  dangerous 
character ;  and  they  were  too  costly,  and  in  too  little  demand,  to  be  manu- 
factured here.  After  1816  they  were  manufactured  on  a  small  scale;  and 
they  are  now  made  in  moderate  quantities  every  year,  as  Fourth  of  July 
approaches,  in  response  to  the  demand  for  them  for  the  festivities  on  that 
occasion.  Their  public  use  is  confined  entirely  to  that  anniversary,  the  custom 
being  to  have  the  display  on  the  night  of  July  3  along  with  the  bonfires,  the 
parades  and  speeches  coming  on  the  day  after.  Fifty  years  ago,  when  fire- 
works were  first  coming  into  general  use,  the  displays  were  conducted  by 
private  enterprise.  They  were  either  the  patriotic  demonstration  of  private 
citizens,  or  were  the  speculation  of  some  ingenious  business-man,  who  would 
put  up  a  high  board  fence  around  the  garden  adjoining  his  public-house  and 
exhibit  his  wheels  and  snakes  and  Roman  candles  and  rockets  to  tfie  admir- 
ing gaze  of  the  people  at  a  shilling  or  twenty-five  cents  a  head.  As  the  cities 
of  the  country  have  grown  in  size,  it  has  been  deemed  fit  that  the  celebration 
of  so  important  an  event  as  the  anniversary  of  national  independence  should  in 
all  respects  be  carried  on  by  the  community  at  large.  So,  for  twenty  years  or 
more,  the  annual  displays  of  fireworks  have  taken  place  at  the  public  expense 
in  the  various  cities  of  the  country,  except  here  and  there  where  demagogues 
and  two-cent  politicians  in  the  city  councils  have  refitsed  to  vote  the  necessary 
funds  on  the  plea  of  economy  for  the  sake  of  the  dear  people.  There  is  an 
obvious  propriety  in  having  the  displays  take  place  under  official  supervision. 
Not  only  are  they  likely  to  be  more  splendid,  but  they  are  certain  to  be  less 
productive  of  accident,  and  damage  to  property.  The  great  accumulations  of 
wealth  in  cities,  in  the  form  of  buildings,  have  made  caution  and  official  super- 
vision desirable. 

The  materials  used  in  pyrotechny  are  gunpowder  (or  various  mixtures  of 
nitre,  charcoal,  and  sulphur) ,  and  various  metals,  salts,  and  substances  for  pro- 
ducing brilliant  colors.  The  powder  used  is  of  a  low  grade  of  Manufacture 
explosive  power,  and  is  intended  merely  to  burn  with  brilliant  "'  firework*. 
sparks,  instead  of  exploding.  In  rockets  alone  is  there  any  explosion.  In 
wheels,  rockets,  and  Roman  candles,  the  powder  is  so  confined  as  to  give 
propelling  power.  Rockets  were  originally  used  in  war.  The  Congreves 
formed  a  great  feature  at  the  siege  of  Copenhagen  in  1807,  and  at  the  battle 


i':' 


0% 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


of  Leipsic.     The  French  were  routed  on  the  latter  field  by  a  volley  of  Ton- 
greves.     Rockets  are  now  used  on  the  sea  as  a  signal  of  distress,  and  a  ht-avy 

variety  is  eniployeil  on  shore  to  c  airy  a  line 
to  a  stranded  ship.  They  are  good  tor  a  dis- 
tance of  eight  hundred  yards,  or  marl)  lialf  a 
mile.  The  rockets  of  the  present  day  tor  kstjval 
use  are  often  very  powerful,  and  ascend  in  tlif 
air  from  a  thousand  to  twelve  hundre<!  fcut ;  at 
their  highest  point  they  burst,  and  tinow  out  a 
volley  of  colored  stars,  or  a  cluster  ot  snakes. 
Within  two  or  three  years  the  paracluite-ro(  ket 
has  been  invented,  which  throws  out  one,  two, 
or  three  large  stars,  each  with  a  parachute, 
which  sustains  them  while  lliey  float  off  slowly 
on  the  breeze,  burning  red,  then  white,  then 
blue,  and  oftentimes  other  colors.  An  immense 
variety  of  wheels  is  made,  with  showers  of 
sparks  of  diflerent  forms,  and  flames  of  the 
different  colors  of  the  rainbow  :  they  range  from 
the  little  whizzing  pin-wheel  three  inches  in 
diameter,  a  boy's  plaything,  up  to  the  huge 
wheel  six  feet  across,  which  flings  out  a  circle 
ROCKETS.  of  flame  and  scintillations  twenty 

feet  in  diameter.  Roman  can- 
dles have  been  in  use  from  the  beginning,  throwing  anywhere 
from  two  to  eight  balls,  one  after  the  other.  Within  the  last 
few  years  volcanoes  have  been  introduced,  shooting  out  a  tor- 
rent of  balls  for  several  seconds ;  and  quite  recently  the 
bomb,  which,  being  set  upon  the  ground,  throws  up  a  hollow 
ball  straight  into  the  air  to  the  height  of  five  hundred  feet, 
which,  exploding,  also  throws  out  a  shower  of  balls.  The  fire- 
cracker, the  delight  of  the  boys,  introduced  to  this  country 
from  China,  forms  no  part  of  the  public  displays ;  but  it  does 
form  a  considerable  feature  in  the  sales  of  the  dealers  in  fire- 
works. Its  use  has  been  regulated  by  law  since  the  disastrous 
ten-million-dollar  fire  at  Portland,  Me.,  and  the 
large  number  of  small  fires,  which  resulted  from 
the  careless  use  of  this  noisy  plaything.  Fourth 
of  July,  though,  is  a  hollow  mockery  to  the  boys  without  the 
fire-cracker ;  and  they  still  consume  it  enormously.  A  great 
feature  of  the  public  shows  is  the  set  pieces,  in  which  a  spread 
eagle,  or  a  portrait  of  Washington,  or  "  Independence,"  or  some  other  motto, 
is  depicted  in  lines  of  fire.     The  fancy  of  the  makers  has  free  play  in  the  con- 


Evil  consC' 
quences  of 
fireworki. 


RUMAN   CANDLE. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


477 


stniction  of  these  pieces,  and  they  bear  names  of  the  most  poetical  descrip- 
tion. Among  those  produced  for  the  Centennial  displays  in  1876  were  the 
Siarol  America,  the  Yankee  Windmill,  the  Jajjanese  CUory,  the  Fairies'  Frolic, 
the  Persian  Rose,  the  Uate-Tree  of  the  Desert,  the  Scroll  Quadrille,  the 
KdeidoM  ope,  the  Star  of  Independence,  Washington,  the  Tribute  to  Ceres, 
the  I'olka  Dance,  the  Siiield  of  the  Union,  the  Bald-headed  I'^agle  of  I.iberty, 
the  Priming- Press,  and  the  Tribute  to  America.  Their  names  sufficiently 
describe  t!icm. 

In  the  diversification  of  the  various  fires,  lampblack,  or  stroiitia  nitrate  or 
carboii.Ue,  is  used  to  i)roduce  a  very  red  color,  such  as  is  employed  in  the 
theatres  at  times,  or  for  a  simple  colored  fire  Different 
in  street  processions,  as  well  as  tor  fireworks,  colon,  how 
Willi  nitre  in  excess,  these  substances  produce  ''"'  '"^'  " 
a  pink.  Nitre  and  sulphur  make  a  white  fire.  Yellow 
an  Ik-  made  by  common  salt,  resin,  or  amber.  A  violet 
is  proiiiued  by  jjotassa  salts,  chlorate,  and  carbonate 
mixed ;  a  blue,  by  potassa  salts  and  ammonia,  copper 
sulphate  and  antimony  sulphide,  or  copper  carbonate  and 
alum;  a  green-blue,  by  zinc-filings,  or  copper  sulphate 
and  sal  ammoniac.  A  good  green  is  obtained  from  ba- 
rium carbonate,  or  verdigris  with  copper  sulphate  and 
sal-ammoniac.  Iron -filings  give  bright  s|)arks;  and 
steci-filings  and  cast-iron-borings,  having  more  carbon, 
afford  a  more  brilliant  scintillation  with  wavy  radiations. 
Lycopociium  burns  with  a  rose-color  and  a  magnificent 
flame:  it  is,  therefore,  largely  used  for  flambeaux  in 
street-processions,  and  in  theatres  to  represent  lightning, 
or  flames  in  a  burning  building. 

Chemistry  has  thus  greatly  increased  the  resources  of 
the  pyrotechnic  art.     The  modern   fireworks   are   very 
much  more  brilliant  than  those  of  the  middle   ages ;    and   the   citizens   of 
republican  America  are  entertained  every  Fourth  of  July,  when  the   improve- 
cities  bestir  themselves,  with  more   beautifiil   displays  than  any  mentin  fire- 
which  ever  glorified  the  pomps  of  the   kings  of  Europe.     The  ^°'^'"- 
brilliant    spectacles    of   the   late   war    during   the   night   bombardments    of 
Sumter  and   of  the  works    before    Richmond    and    Petersburgh,  which  will 
never  be  forgotten   by  those  who  saw  them,  were  the   most   extraordinary 
scenes  ever  witnessed    upon   this   continent   at   the   time   they  took   place. 
They  have  been  surpassed  since  the  war,  however,  just  as  the  royal  fetes  of 
Europe  in  the  middle  ages  have  been,  by  the  splendors  of  recent  j)yrotechny. 
The  scene  in  the  city  of  New  York  at  night,  for  instance,  from  any  tower  which 
overlooks  that  vast  community,  spreading  over  the  country  for  miles,  —  into 
Long  Island  on  the  one  side,  and  New  Jersey  on  the  other,  —  during  the 


478 


IND  US  TRIA  L    HIS  TOK  Y 


discharge  of  anniversary  fireworks,  is  something  which  surpasses  the  siil'c- 
tacular  effects  of  the  late  war.  The  thousands  of  rockets  ascending  into  tlio 
air  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  the  parachute-stars  floating  away  softly  on 
the  wings  of  the  breeze,  the  volleys  of  Roman  candle-balls  in  every  direction 
the  flash  of  colored  fires,  and  the  inevitable  conflagration  of  a  Ijuildini-  litre 
and  there,  —  all  these,  outlined  against  the  night,  are  the  eleuicnla  of  a 
strange  and  impressive  picture. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


m 


CHAPTER  X. 


INDIA-RUBBER    MANUFACTURES. 


CAOUTCJHOUC  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  vaUiable  products  of  the 
East  Indies  which  the  ancients  entirely  overlooked.  It  was  not  until 
this  substance  was  discovered  in  practical  use  among  the  savages  of  the  conti- 
nent of  America  that  the  civilized  world  took  cognizance  of  it,  and  turned  to 
account  the  magnificent  rubber-trees  of  India.  Caoutchouc  was  unknown  to 
scicnct'  until  1735.  In  that  year  an  observing  Frenchman  who  had  just  come 
down  the  Amazon,  and  who  had  noticed  that  the  natives  were  Discovery  of 
making  l)()ots,  bottles,  and  water-proof  cloth,  of  the  gum  of  a  «:"«>"tehouc. 
strange  and  magnificent  tree,  related  the  facts  to  the  French  Academy  of 
Sciences.  The  natives  of  South  America  called  the  gum  cahuchu  ;  and  Con- 
(ianiinc  brought  the  sound  of  the  name  to  France,  and  introduced  the  new 
gum  to  the  world  as  caoutchouc.  In  1 75 1  Condamine  again  called  attention 
to  this  "  elastic  resin,"  and  announced  that  it  had  been  found  in  the  trees  of 
the  Fren(  h  province  of  Cayenne.  Public  curiosity  was  then  excited  about  the 
new  substance.  Small  quantities  of  it  v^re  obtained  from  the  East  Indies  and 
South  America  ;  and  the  chemists,  who  alone  for  a  long  period  were  interested 
in  it,  began  a  series  of  experiments  to  find  out  what  it  could  be  made  useful 
for.  Herissant  and  Macquer  published  the  result  of  their  investigations  in 
1763  to  show  that  caoutchouc  could  be  dissolved.  Priestley  mentioned  the 
gum  in  1770  as  very  meritorious  for  the  purpose  of  erasing  lead-pencil  marks. 
A  cube  of  it  about  half  an  inch  on  the  side  cost  three  shillings  at  that  time,  or 
about  as  much  as  two  pounds  of  the  crude  gum  costs  now.  A  great  many 
experiments  were  made  with  this  interesting  gum  during  the  next  fifty  years  ; 
but  not  until  the  end  of  that  period  was  it  used  for  any  thing,  except  to  erase 
lead-pencil  marks.  In  1823  Mackintosh  made  the  first  practical  application 
of  it  to  industrial  dbjects  by  starting  a  factory  at  Glasgow  for  the  water-proof- 
ing of  cloth  with  caoutchouc,  the  gum  being  dissolved  for  the  purpose  in  oil 
of  turpentine  and  alcohol,  or  coal-tar  naphtha. 

From  this  small  beginning  caoutchouc  has  risen  in  fifty  years  to  occupy  a 
position  in  the  arts  second  hardly  to  that  of  rosin  and  of  glass.     It  is  now  so 


Il 


I. 


lift  II^DUSTRIAL    IIISTOKY 

important,  that  it  seems  stranj;o  how  the  world  ( oiild  ever  hav  ({ot  alon-  with- 
importanct  oiil  it.  It  performs  a  hiin(lri<l  o(h(  es  wiiidi  no  other  kiunMi  ^i,i,. 
oidticovtry.  stance  toiild  fuHil.  Its  elasticity,  ailliesiveness,  ami  impenioiisncsj 
to  water,  arc  al)soluteIy  iminue.  Siuii  are  its  (|iialities,  that  it  is  now  exten- 
sively woven  into  ta|)es  and  elastic  tissues.  It  is  applied  to  cloth  as  a  w.iter 
proof  varnish ;    and  il  cements  any  number  of  pieces  of  cloth  toj,'!.ilui  into 

thick  plates,  so  iIku 
it  can  be  used  lor 
valves  of  iuiin|)s 
and  steam  enj;ines. 
and  for  i».i(kin),', 
l>eltinK,  fire-hose, 
tubing,  hfe-jireserv- 
ers,  overshoes, 
boots,  gas-l)aj,'s, 
),'loves.  and  s<()rcs 
of  other  kindred 
purposes.  .\s  a 
marine  cement,  it 
joins  wood  so  tight- 
ly, that  a  mast  or 
yard  will  break  in 
a  new  pl:i<  c  ratiicr 
than  where  cenunt- 
cd.  Such  are  its 
powers  in  this  di- 
rection, that  it  was 
once  i-ri)i)osed  to 
dispense  with  iron 
bolts,  and  use  this 
extraordinary  mate 
rial  for  fastenings  instead.  It  is  an  insulator  and  protector  of  telegrajili  wire  ; 
and  it  can  be  fashioned  into  light  and  serviceable  objects  for  every-day  use, 
such  as  inkstands,  buttons,  combs,  penholders,  rulers,  jewelry,  syringes,  (ancs, 
cups,  toys,  bottles,  pails,  &c.  A  patent  has  actually  been  taken  out  for  ein- 
ploying  this  substance  for  railroad-rails.  The  visitor  at  Philadelphia  in  1876 
would  have  discovered  rails  of  this  description  on  exhibition  there  by  a  live 
Pennsylvanian,  who  was  expecting  to  make  his  many  millions  by  the  gen- 
eral adoption  of  his  ingenious  idea ;  the  merit  of  it  residing  in  the  fact,  that 
the  wheels  of  the  locomotive  will  not  slip  on  a  track  made  of  rul)l)cr, 
and  the  whole  power  of  the  engine  will  therefore  be  saved,  —  a  considera- 
tion of  immediate  importance  to  every  railroad-manager  in  the  world. 
The   fact  that  so   many  uses   could   have   been   found   for  India-rubber  in 


CUTTA-rCRCIIA  TUB. 


OF    THE    i'XlTKn    STATES. 


481 


the  ^iiort  space  of  fifty  years  indicates  groat  |K)ssil)ilitie»  in  reference  to  it& 
ftituri'  a|i|ili<atioii,  Wiu-n  tin-  <  iienustry  of  liie  Kiun  is  better  understood, 
It  is  lidievcd  that  its  applications  tan  be  niore  than  douliied  in  number  and 
\aliic. 

riie  Indianil)ber-tree  grows  only  in  the  hottest  regions  under  the  ef|uator. 
In  Inilia  it  is  (ailed  the  I'lctis  clit^tica.  It  is  a  colossal  tree  in  that  country. 
Ill  A^-i.uu  there  is  a  forest  of  these  trees,  containing  forty-three  tn(iiB-rub< 
iliDuvuul  in  a  tract  thirty  miles  lyng  by  eight  broad.  The  diameter  »>er-tree. 
ol  one  tree  has  been  found  to  be  twenty-four  feet,  and  its  height  a  hundred 
Icct.  The  tree  is  a  sort  of  banyan,  and  grows  l)y  the  rooting  of  the  branches. 
Ill  Soutii  America  it  is  ( ailed  the  Si[>honia  clastica,  or  Siphonia  cahuchu.  It 
j;r()tt^  in  the  |)ro\inces  of  I'ara  and  Ama/onas  chiefly,  lying  along  the  Amazon, 
and  is  lound  all  the  way  from  the  seaboard  to  a  point  nineteen  hundred  miles 
in  the  interior.  Its  regular  cultivation  has  not  yet  been  undertaken.  The 
n.itives  MK'rely  hunt  up  the  trees  where  they  happen  to  grow  in  the  forests, 
and  t.ip  tiiem  at  the  proper  seasons,  'i'he  extent  of  the  area  covered  by  these 
priceless  trees,  and  the  reaily  response  the  soil  and  vegetation  of  Brazil  make 
to  ( ultivators,  are  a  guaranty  that  the  supply  of  rubber  is  practically  inex- 
haustible. Nothing  ex(  ept  some  such  extraordinary  demand  for  it  as  would 
lic  ( rcaled  by  its  general  introduction  for  the  tracks  of  railroads  (should  such 
an  event  ever  take  place)  would  ever  severely  tax  the  resources  of  Brazil  for 
till'  K""i-  1  hi^  K""i  's  taken  from  the  trees  in  the  Kast  Indies  by  making  a 
niinilRT  of  cuts  through  the  bark  to  the  wood  all  over  the  trunk  and  branches 
ami  exjjosed  roots.  The  juice  is  richer  the  higher  the  cut.  A  thick  sap  , 
riscmljling  cream  flows  from  the  wounds  of  the  tree,  and  in  twenty-four  hours  X^ 
alioiit  forty  pounds  are  obtained.  The  tree  can  safely  be  tapped  once  a 
fortniglit.  The  col<l  season  is  usually  chosen  for  these  operations,  because 
the  jiiii  e  is  richer,  and  the  tree  less  liable  to  be  injured.  In  South  America 
the  natives  make  a  perpendic  ular  cut  in  the  bark  of  the  tree,  and  lateral 
<:iits  leading  to  it.  '["he  thick,  white,  creamy  sap  flows  into  the  central  cut, 
and  at  the  bottom  of  it  is  conducted  by  a  banana-leaf  into  a  vessel  placed  to 
receive  it. 

When  examined  under  the  microscope,  caoutchouc  is  seen  to  consist  of 
a  clear  liquid,  in  which  float  a  large  number  of  spherical  globules  Appearance 
of  from  7j„(5^^  to  ^Tshxsjs  of  an  inch  in  diameter.     Water  produces  under  the 
no  ciiange  on  the  juice,  and  can  be  used  to  wash  it  without  dimin-  •"'"<••«*'?«• 
ishing  its  volume.     Alcohol  does  not  change  the  globules,  but  causes  groups 
of  needle-shaped  crystals  to  appear.    The  juice  is  dried  by  the  natives  of 
South  .America  over  a  fire,  when  it  becomes  black  with  the  smoke.   Procett  of 
It  is  dried  on  moulds  of  clay,  in  the  shape  of  boots  or  bottles,  coUecting  it. 
on  wooden  lasts  (imported  for  the  purpose  from   the  United  States,  and 
mounted  on  the  end  of  sticks),  and  on  paddles.     The  moulds,  or  paddles, " 
are  dippped  into  the  juice  and  dried,  and  dipped  again  and  again,  until  the 


'Vrrfjyffff .  :? 


i*r  4 


'■'.\    :        ^*'kh 


IllBII 


.  i 


I 


i 


482 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


required  thickness  is  obtained.  The  clay  mould  is  broken  or  washed  out 
after  use.  Sometimes  the  gum  is  coagulated  by  solar  heat.  A  film  forms 
over  tiie  surface,  which  is  removed  as  fast  as  it  forms,  until  the  whole  (jf  tiw. 
juice  has  hartlened.  Tlie  several  sheets  are  then  pressed  together  witli  ilic 
hands  into  rolls  and  masses.  'l"he  gum  is  then  light  colored.  In  Nicaragua 
the  caoutchouc  is  coagulated  with  the  juice  of  the  bejiica-vine.  The  mass 
is  pressed  into  cakes  by  hand,  and  rolled  into  a  sheet  with  a  wooden  roller 
The  sheets  are  called  "  tortillas,"  and  are  two  feet  wide  by  two  inches  tlii, !; 
When  once  coagulated,  the  caoutchouc  can  never  be  restored  to  its  ori"iiKi! 
condition  of  a  saj).  The  purest  rubl)er  of  commerce  comes  from  I'an'i  and 
Amazonas.  It  is  in  bottles  and  tiiick  i)lates.  The  gum  from  Carthanena  is 
in  large  black  lumps  or  sheets  weighing  a  hundred  pounds.  The  Masl-liulia 
gimi  is  in  light  and  dark  reddisii  masses,  and  is  mingled  with  bits  of  wcjod 
and  bark,  leaves,  gravel,  &:c. 

India-rubber  was  first  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  in  the  form  of  erasers  of  pencil-marks  (brought  from  luigland),  and 
First  use  of  ^°°"  afterwaril  in  the  form  of  clumsy  water-proof  shoes,  wlii(  h  the 
India-rubber  traders  imported  from  Para  along  with  the  oilier  produce  of  that 
h>  United  tropical  region.  These  shoes  continued  to  be  imported  down  to 
within  thirty  years  ago.  The  substance  did  not  fail  to  attrai  t 
attention.  A  great  many  experiments  were  made  to  determine  what  could 
be  done  with  it.  Shortly  after  Mackintosh  got  started  in  Scotland,  some 
water-proofing  of  cloth  was  done  here  with  rubber,  the  solvents  used  being 
turjjentine,  naphtha,  benzole,  and  caoutchoucine ;  the  latter  being  i^rodnced 
by  evaporating  rubber  at  a  heat  of  600°,  and  condensing  the  vajjor.  Means 
were  also  found  to  work  rubber  into  a  thread  ;  in  which  form  it  was  sjjun 
into  tissues  of  extraordinary  elasticity  with  silk,  cotton,  wool,  and  flax,  and  be- 
came rapidly  the  universal  material  for  suspenders,  garters,  &c.  In  those  early 
years  of  the  manufacture,  however,  only  pure  rubber  was  used  ;  and  in  this 
form  the  material  was  found  liable  to  rapid  deterioration.  It  became  ri^^id 
and  inflexible  in  cold  weather,  and  soft  and  inert  in  hot  weather,  it  was 
very  soluble.  Whenever  it  was  touched  by  oil  or  grease  it  would  dissolve, 
and  it  could  not  even  resist  perspiration.  Though  useful  for  overshoes,  it 
was  so  soft  as  to  soon  wear  out.  It  lost  its  elasticity  by  use,  had  an  mi|)leas- 
ant  odor,  and  was  so  adhesive,  that  two  surfaces  of  rubber  applied  to  each 
other  were  always  sure  to  stick.  Tiine  would  fail  to  tell  the  tribulations  which 
befell  the  early  manufacturers  of  India-rubber  in  the  United  States  in  their 
eflbrts  to  cure  the  defects  of  this  valuable  but  then  intractable  material. 
They  could  not  master  tlic  substance.  The  i)ublic  at  length  accjiiired  a 
distaste  for  its  use  ;  and  several  factories  which  had  been  started  in  lioston, 
South  Boston,  Chelsea,  Woburn,  and  Framingham,  Mass.,  and  on  .Staten 
Island  and  at  Troy,  N.Y.,  with  capitals  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  five  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars,  failed  in  the  business.     In  1840  it  looked  decidedly 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


485 


as  though  the  applications  of  India-rubber  were  destined  to  be  confined  to 
water- proof  clotli  and  erasers.  'Die  exportation  of  the  gum  from  Para  at  that 
time  amounted  to  only  800,000  pounds  a  year,  owing  to  the  small  demand 
for  it ;  anil  nearly  all  of  that  went  to  (Ireat  Britain.  It  has  since  risen  to  about 
15.000,000  pounds  annually  from  Para  alone, 

just  at  the  moment  of  supreme  despair  in  the  industiy,  two  Americans 
hit  iijion  separate  tliougli  kindred  discoveries,  which  coripletely  changed  the 
wliolc  aspect  of  affairs,  and  made  the  manufacture  of  India-rubber  one  of  the     ^ 
great  pt-.rsuits  of  the  age.     In  1.S3S  Charles  Goodyear  of  Massa-   ooodyear      ^ 
chusctts  became  actiuaintcd  with   Nathaniel   Hay  ward,  who  had   and  Hay- 
been  tlic  foreman  of  tlie  I-iagle  Company  at  Woburn,  where  the  "'"''■ 
latter  had  made  use  of  sulphur  by  impregnating  the  solvent  with  it.     From 
him  Mr.  (lor  'year  first  became  acciuaintcd  with  the  properties  of  sulphur  as 
a  drier  of  ;,    111-elastic.     (loodyear  bought  Hayward's  claim  ibr  the  use  of 
siilpiiur,  an  1  made  it   the  basis  of  his  patent  of  Feb.  24,  1839,  by  which  he 
hoped  to  make  tlie  manufocture  of  rubber-goods  successful.     He  made  a  lot 
of  i,'()0(ls  witli  sulphur,  but  found,  alas  !  that  they,  too,  soon  decomposed,  just 
as  ail  the  manufactures  of  rul)ber  had  done  before  them.     Goodyear,  who  had, 
si)ent  nearly  twenty  years  in  a  diligent  study  of  the -properties  of  rubber,  was 
at  his  wits'  end  to  know  what  to  do.     B'lt  he   di;l  not  give  up  the  battle. 
While  experimenting  one  day,  the  idea  occurred  to  him  to  try  the  effect  of 
extreme  heat  upon  India-rubber.     The  stuff  would  melt  at  a  low  heat :  what 
would  it  do  at  a  high  heat?     He  touched  a  piece  of  it  containing  sulphur  to 
the  stove.     To  his  surprise,  be  found  that  it  charred  like  leather.     This  was- 
something  new.     He  tried  it  again,  with  the  same  result ;  and  the  inference 
came  like  a  flash,  that,  if  the  heat  was  stopped  at  the  right  point,  the  rubber 
mij,'ht  he  divested  of  its  adhesive  qualities,  and  liability  to  rapid  deterioration, 
and  made  hard  and  dry.     He  put  some  rubber  into  boiling  sulphur,  and  found 
that  it  did  not  melt,  as  it  would  have  done  when  exposed  to  a  low  heat,  but 
that  it  again  charred  like  leather.     On  heating  another  piece  before  the  fire, 
he  found,  between  the  i)art  which  charred  and  the  part  unaffected  by  the  fire, 
a  jiortion  which  was  hard,  but  not  charred.     The  discovery  was  complete.     It 
only  remained  to  perfect  a  few  details  ;   and  Good)  ear  soon  introduced  to 
the  ])ul)Iic  his  elastic,  non-adhesive,  vulcanized  Indi.i-rubber,  —  a  substance  as 
different  from  the  pure  gum  as  gold  from  copper.     This  was  the  foundation  of 
the  moil  rn  industry.     In  his  subsequent  manufacture  Goodyear  soon  learned  ^  C 
to  iniorporate  a  variety  of  substances  with  his  raw  material  in  order  to  save 
the  latter  as  much  as  i)ossil)le  ;  and,  as  now  made,  his  rubber  is  prepared  with 
one  part  of  sulphur,  fourteen   of  whiting,  two  and  a  half  of  white-lead,  and 
two  of  litharge,  to  sixteen  of  rubber,  and  exposed  to  a  temperature  from  265° 
to  270°  I'ahrenheit  for  several  hours. 

The  next  step  in  the  line  of  progress  was  the  invention  of  hard  rubber,  or 
vulcanite.    There  is  some  dispute  about  priority  in  this  discovery ;  but  Professor 


1 


7 


't*''>'"?*/-rffft'y»     fi 


484 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


ii 


C.  F.  Chandler  awards  the  palm  to  Austin  G.  Day  of  Connecticut.  The  dis- 
invention  of  covcry  is  claimed  by  Nelson  (ioodyear,  who  filed  a  cai^cat  Dec.  31, 
^vulcanite.  1849,  and  obtainetl  a  patent  May  6,  185 1,  for  a  hard,  inflexilile 
compound  composed  of  rubber,  sulphur,  ma^'nesia,  iScc.  'l"he  material  ulitained 
by  this  process  was  useful  for  certain  ])urposes ;  but  it  was  too  brittle  to  he  ot 
great  value.  Day  obtained  his  jjatent,  Aug.  10, 1858,  for  a  compound  coniijosed 
of  two  parts  of  rubber  to  one  of  sulphur,  which,  when  heated  from  275"  to 
300°  Fahrenheit,  became  hard,  flexible,  and  elastic.  This  product  superseded 
the  other,  and  is  the  vulcanite  of  commerce.  It  came  into  rapid  and  extensive 
use,  and  is  one  of  the  valuable  materials  of  the  modern  arts.  Day  afterwards 
invented  a  modification  of  vulcanite,  which  he  called  "  kesite,"  and  applied  it 
to  the  coating  of  telegraph-wires. 

These  discoveries  made  a  great  change  in  the  India-rubber  manufacture  of 
the  United  States.  It  having  become  apjjarent  that  there  was  now  some  hij|)e 
Effect  of  ^°'"  ^^  industry.  Congress  took  cognizance  of  it  in  1842  for  the 
these  first  time,  and  gave  it  the  protection  of  a  thirty-per-cent  iluty  on 

•cover  es.  importations  of  manufactures  in  the  comprehensive  Clay  tariff.  A 
number  of  companies  were  soon  formed  under  (loodyear's  patents  in  Con- 
necticut, New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  elsewhere.  The  progress  was  very  rapid, 
and  in  1850  rubber-goods  were  made  in  the  United  States  to  the  value  of 
^3,024,335.  In  i860  the  manufacture  had  become  centred  in  fewer  and 
larger  establishments,  and  the  product  was  $5,642,700.  In  1870  there  were 
fifty-six  factories  in  operation,  employing  6,025  people,  and  making  $14,566,- 
374  worth  of  goods  annually.  Of  the  fifty-six  factories,  ten  were  in  New  York. 
twelve  in  New  Jersey,  thirteen  in  Connecticut,  and  sixteen  in  Massachusetts. 
Since  that  time  there  has  been  a  large  increase.  The  extent  of  it  cannot  be 
accurately  stated ;  but  it  is  somewhere  about  fifty  per  cent.  The  import  of 
gum,  mostly  from  South  America,  is  now  from  10,000,000  to  12,000,000 
pounds  a  year.  The  ability  of  the  United  States  to  import  and  manuf;;cture 
the  crude  article  seems  limited  only  by  the  capacity  of  the  natives  of  the 
3  (  Amazon  to  collect  and  export  it.  The  crude  gum  costs  us  at  this  time  forty 
l^  cents  a  pound.  During  the  first  twenty  years  after  Goodyear's  discovery  the 
export  of  rubber-goods  from  the  United  States  was  considerable,  amountinj;  to 
i^ 1, 000,000  worth  a  year  on  the  average.  Since  i860  Europe  has  gone  into 
the  manufacture  very  largely  upon  (^oodyear's  plan,  and  the  exportations  since 
then  have  only  been  $200,000  or  $300,000  worth  a  year.  If  the  exports  are 
ever  increased  again,  it  will  only  be  by  means  of  superior  and  cheaper  protcssci 
of  manufacture  and  new  inventions. 

The  processes  of  manufacture  are  peculiar.  The  gum  in  its  crude  state  is 
extraordinarily  elastic  and  tenacious  ;  and  it  can  only  be  worked,  therefore,  with 
the  most  powerful  machinery.  The  cakes  and  sheets  are  first  cleaned  by 
being  cut  up  in  a  mill  into  small  pieces,  under  water,  by  means  of  knives  and 
iron  teeth.    The  resistance  of  the  ruober  generates  heat  enough  to  make  th2 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


485 


water  boil.  It  is  then  again  ground,  cut,  pressed,  and  treated  in  various 
ways,  and  finally  compressed  into  a  cake  by  being  subjected  to  pmcegg  of 
enormous  pressure  in  cast-iron  moulds  under  a  scrqw.  Its  adhe-  manufac- 
sivencss  asserts  itself,  and  unites  the  mass  perfectly.  It  is  left  in  '""' 
the  mould  for  several  days.  In  some  mills  the  cleaned  pieces  of  gum  are  rolled 
bv  machinery  into  sheets,  in  which  shape  the  gum  is  conveniently  adapted 
for  conversion  into  thread  for  weaving.  The  sheets  are  sliced  into  thread 
by  means  of  sharp  knives,  which  are  kept  constantly  wet  to  prevent  tnem 
from  sticking.  The  machine  for  this  purpose  was  invented  in  Europe  by 
Ratlier  in  1826.  The  fibres  of  thread,  as  they  are  reeled  off,  are  stretched 
to  six  or  eight  times  their  original  lengtl;  by  hand.  Being  moistened  and 
cooled  in  the  operation,  they  are  deprived  of  elasticity,  and  can  then  be 
woven  readily  into  webs  and  tissues  of  any  degree  of  fineness.  This  stretch- 
ing of  the  rubber-threads  has  been  carried  so  far,  that  they  have  been  elon- 
gated to  16.625  times  their  original  length.  A  pound  of  caoutchouc  makes 
from  eiglit  thousand  to  thirty-two  thousand  yards  of  thread.  When  the  woven 
tissue  is'  finislicd  it  is  pressed  with  a  hot  iron,  and  thie  rubber  immediately 
regains  its  elasticity.  Threads  are  sometimes  made  from  vulcanized  rubber. 
They  constitute  the  warj)  of  the  tissue,  and  are  kept  stretched  by  weights. 
Sometimes  thread  is  made  by  reducing  the  gum  to  a  paste  by  maceration 
with  some  solvent,  and  by  forcing  it  through  a  line  of  small  holes.  The 
threads  are  arried  off  through  the  air  six  hundred  or  seven  hundred  feet  by 
a  wel),  durin.;  which  process  the  solvent  evaporates,  and  the  thread  becomes 
dry  and  hard.     The  threads  are  then  deposited  in  a  receiving-cup. 

The  thick  sheets  into  which  the  gimi  is  rolled  after  the  process  of  cleansing 
are  usually  laid  away  in  the  warehouse  for  several  months  to  come.  Being 
tiien  l)rought  back  to  the  factory,  the  rubber  is  mixed  with  various  materials 
whicli  tlie  manufacturers  find  they  can  advantageously  incorporate  into  it. 
The  mixing-maciiines  are  very  i)owerfiil.  They  are  great  hollow  revolving 
cylinders  heated  by  steam.  The  slieets  are  rolled  slowly  between  them,  and, 
as  they  soften  with  the  heat,  are  supplied  with  the  white-lead,  sujphuj;,  and 
otiier  materials,  by  means  of  a  brush.  Tiie  cvlinders  knead  tliese  substances 
togetlier.  tlie  rubber  giving  out  a  scries  of  pistaldjhot  explosions  meanwhile. 
owing  to  the  bursting-out  of  the  heated  air  confin'*d  in  the  sheets.  Pieces  of 
reftbe  rubber  or  of  fabrics  of  rubber  and  cloth  can  be  kneaded  into  the  mass 
during  this  process.  The  rubber  comes  from  this  machine  in  a  thick,  soft, 
sticky  slieet.  It  then  goes  to  the  calendering-machine,  where  the  process  is 
substantially  repeated,  and  the  sheet  rolled  out  into  a  thin  mat.  The  mixture 
can  tlien  be  incorporated  into  cloth  or  canvas  by  rolling,  or  by  the  aid  of 
solvents.  In  the  manufiicture  of  belting,  cotton-duck  of  double  strength  is 
impregnated  with  the  soft,  sticky  rubber  fresh  from  the  mixing-rolls,  and  is 
then  calendered  into  perfectly  smooth  sheets.  The  cloth  is  then  taken  to  the 
belting-room,  where  it  is  laid  out  on  tables,  and  cut  into  strips  of  the  proper 


9i 


#'• 


■■■^t"  i.-,"  .■  -.  j 


I 


1 

I 


486 


IND  US  TRIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y. . 


widths.  If  extra  strength  is  desired,  two  or  more  strips  are  placed  together 
and  united  by  rolling.  The  belting  is  then  sent  to  be  steamed  in  a  tinunber 
made  for  the  purpose,  and  in  eight  or  ten  hours  is  thoroughly  vul(  anizcd. 
Belting  thus  made  has  greater  strength  than  leather,  and  adheres  to  tlie  dnini 
with  a  tenacity  which  prevents  slijiping.  In  the  making  of  hose  a  diiiorciu 
process  is  employed.  A  long  iron  tube  of  the  right  diameter  is  covered 
with  a  sheet  of  rubber:  this  is  then  covered  with  webs  of  stout  clotli  woven 
for  the  purpose.  When  a  sufficient  number  of  folds  have  been  a])plie(l,  an 
outside  covering  of  pure  rul^ber  is  put  on,  cementing  the  whole  t",il)ric. 
The  pipes,  with  the  hose  still  on  them,  are  then  jjlaccd  in  the  stcain-lieatcr 
and  the  hose  is  vulcanized.  Very  stout  hose  is  thus  made  :  it  is  far  j-npe- 
rior  to  leather,  and  will  stand  a  i)ressure  from  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  pounds  to  four  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds  to  the  square  inrli. 
The  cloth  can  be  preserved  from  i.ie  re-action  of  tiie  rubber  by  means  of 
carbolic  acid. 

In  the  making  of  overshoes  the  cloth  is  first  prepared  by  mixing,  rolling, 
and  calendering,  and  is  then  cut  up  and  fashioned  into  shoes  of  tiie  desired 
Overshoes,  patterns.  The  joints  are  united  by  means  of  rubber ;  and  tiie 
how  made,  sticky  shoe,  being  lined  with  flannel,  stamped,  and  otherwise 
finished,  is  then  sent  ofl"  to  be  vulcanized.  The  manufacture  of  shoes  and 
boots  is  one  of  the  largest  branches  of  the  business. 

One  of  the  useful  applications  is  for  the  valves  of  steam-engines  and  for 
steam-packing.     Rubber  preserves  its  elasticity  when  exposed  to  steam,  and 

consequently  follows  the  expansion  and  contraction  of  liie  cylinder 
oM^cHa-rub-  ^"^^  metal  parts  of  the  engine  perfectly  ;  so  that  the  fitting  is  always 
ber  to  valves  exact.  Valves  of  five  feet  in  diameter  are  often  made  from  rubber. 
o  steam-        Car-springs,  and  springs  for  coaches  and  carriages,  are  now  made 

of  rubber  very  largely  indeed.  The  substance  never  loses  its  elas- 
ticity (thanks  to  (ioodyear),  and  the  springs  last  a  long  time.  It  answers 
also  for  door-mats,  for  paving,  and  for  bed-springs. 

The  hardened  rubber,  or  vulcanite,  is  fast  sujjplanting  bone,  shell,  and 
Su  rem  c  'vory  for  its  greater  beauty,  and  the  ease  with  w'nich  it  can  be 
of  rubber        moulded  into  any  form.     Its  only  rival  is  grtta-percha,  a  kindred 

product  of  the  creamy  sap  of  another  tropical  tree.     This  latter 

substance  was  discovered  in  1S42,  and  it  is  now  largely  imported 
from  South  America  and  other  tropical  regions  for  the  same  uses  to  which 
Gutta-  vulcanite    is   applied.      It  is  very  serviceaole  for  speaking-tubes, 

percha.  fancy  articles,  dentists'  tools,  &c.,  and  for  the  insulation  of  tele- 

7  ^  graph-wire.  (Jutta-percha  was  first  applied  to  the  purposes  of  insulation  by 
Samuel  J.  Armstong  of  New  York.  Machinery  was  built  to  coat  wires  witii  it 
in  1848;  and  the  first  wire  in  the  world  thus  prepared  was  laid  across  the 
Hudson  River  in  1849,31  Fort  Lee.  The  idea  was  carried  to  England,  and 
used  in  the  construction  of  the  Atlantic  cables.     It  is  saic*  that  this  (jriginal 


over  bone, 
sheU,  ftc. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


machinery  was  also  carried  over  then.     Gutta-percha  and  vulcanite  are  both 
prepared  by  the  same  process  for  use  in  the  arts. 

There  has  been  a  vast  amount  of  litigation  among  the  inventors  and  manu- 
llicturers  of  India-rubber  and  gutta-percha.     An  invention  which  clearly  works 
for  the  good  of  mankind  is  eagerly  seized  upon  by  those  who  have   Liti„tj„n 
capital,  as  likely  to  be  the  source  of  great  fortunes  to  those  who  over  India- 
employ  it  in  the  manufacture.     Those  who  have  experimented  in  a  ''"''''f'^  '"■ 
certain  direction,  and  invested  their  all  in  mills,  machinery,  and 
I'oods,  are  strongly  tempted  to  the  piracy  of  inventions  when  they  observe  a 
more  fortunate  contemporary  hit  upon  a  better  way  than  that  they  have  them- 
selves followed ;  and  the  conseijuence  of  it  all  is,  that  a  lucky  inventor  often 
finds  liimself  obliged  to  fight  long  and  hard  to  maintain  his  right  to  profit 
by  the  property  created  by  the  activity  and  ingenuity  of  his  own  brain.     Good- 
year was  one  of  these  men.     The  litigation  in  which  he  became  involved  was 
enormous.     It  is  gratifying  to  record  the  fact  that  the  inventor  of  this  priceless 
product  of  vulcanized  rubber  was  able  to  maintain  his  rights,  and  to  profit  by 
them ;  and  that  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  all  inventors. 


^  \'U! 


1^4  #■: 


I  ) 


I  i 


488 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


to  manufac- 
turet. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


CHEMICAL   MANUFACTURES. 

THE  mechanical  department  of  manufacture  is  the  one  which  alone 
catches  the  attention  of  the  untechnical  observer.  To  his  eye  ninety 
Application  "'"^  hundredths  of  all  the  processes  of  industry  appear  to  lie 
of  chemistry  the  mechanical  manipulation  of  raw  materials,  and  the  applica- 
tion of  heat  and  force  to  effect  changes  of  form  and  contlition. 
But  furnaces  and  machinery  do  not  cover  the  ground  so  exclu- 
sively as  that.  Chemistry  plays  a  more  important  part  in  industry  than  ap- 
pears upon  the  surface  of  things.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  very  atmosphere  of  life  in 
which  industry  breathes  and  exists  :  it  is  at  least  the  twin-brother  of  machinery. 
Not  a  metal  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  not  a  mineral  (except  common  day), 
not  a  textile  fibre,  and  scarce  a  vegetable  or  animal  substance,  which  is  fabri- 
cated for  any  human  purpose,  reaches  its  final  state  of  a  perfected  product 
without  having  been  subjected  to  one  or  more  chemical  processes  whicii  are 
absolutely  necessary  for  its  manufacture.  Every  metal  must  be  prepared  for 
working  up  by  being  first  refined.  Cotton,  wool,  silk,  flax,  and  hemp  must  be 
bleached,  fermented,  purified,  or  stained,  or  subjected  to  all  four  processes. 
Leather,  rubber,  soap,  and  various  kinds  of  food,  must  be  deprived  of  the 
liability  to  decay.  Wooden  buildings,  ships,  carriages,  and  cars  must  be  jiro- 
tected  from  the  corrosion  of  the  elements.  Salt  and  sugar  must  be  purilieil. 
Sand  and  clay  are  required  to  be  converted  into  durable  and  serviceable  disles. 
None  of  these  things  can  be  accomplished  by  mechanical  means  alone.  Chein- 
istry  is  called  in  to  participate  in  the  achievement  of  them  all ;  and  crude  and 
barbaric  indeed  would  the  triumphs  of  man  over  the  forces  of  nature  still  i)c, 
were  it  not  for  the  help  of  this  powerfiil  art  to  second  his  efforts.  It  has  been 
well  said  that  to  take  away  chemistry  from  industry  would  be  like  taking  away 
gravitation  from  the  universe.     The  result  would  be  chaos. 

The  manufacture  of  chemicals  in  the  United  States  began  as  early  as  1 7(^3, 
when  John  Harrison  started  his  factory  of  sulphuric  acid  and  lead-paint  in  the 
city  of  Philadelphia.  It  was  carried  on,  however,  to  a  very  limited  extent  in- 
deed, for  more  than  sixty  years.    The  genius  of  our  civilization  was  not  favor- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


489 


able  to  the  patient  study,  and  quiet,  persistent  experiment  in  the  laboratory, 
which  are  required  of  those  who  engage  in  this  department  of 
effort.    The  taste  of  Americans  was  for  mechanical  invention,  and  tu"" ofVui. 
for  tlu'  bustle  and  excitement  of  active  pursuits.     Neither  science  phuric  acid 
nor  literature  could  flourish  in  a  marked  degree  among  a  people     y^^°  "    "' 
with  such  propensities ;  and  accordingly,  during  the  last  and  for 
the  first  half  of  the  present  century,  the  chemical  industry  made  slow  progress. 
Lead  and  zinc  paints,  sulphuric  and  nitric  acids,  dyes  and  saleratus,  the  most 
ordinary  and  necessary  of  chemical  materials,  were  made  here  and  there  in 
Eastern  cities  on  a  small  scale  ;  and  they  comprised  about  all  the  manufactures 
of  tliis  class  which  were  produced.     Congress  endeavored  at  times  to  encour- 
age tlie  industry  by  imposing  a  duty  on  manufactured   chemicals,  and  by 
providing  that  the  raw  materials  —  sulphur,  nitrate  of  soda,  dye-woods,  crude 
saltpetre,  argols,  &c.  —  shoukl  be  admitted  free,     ''."he  professors  in  charge  of 
the  scientific  departments  at  Yale,  Harvard,  Columbia,  Hamilton,  and  other 
Eastern  colleges,  did  something  towards  turning  attention  to  the  matter  also 
by  their  researches  in  regard  to  the  minerals,  alkalies,  and  salts   progreis 
of  the  different  portions  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States.     It  within 
has  only  been  within  the  last  thirty  years,  however,  that  the  manu-   *  "^^  ye»«. 
factiire  of  chemicals  can  be  said  to  have  attained  any  eminence  whatever  in 
the  I'nit'jd  States  ;   and  probably  one-lialf.  if  not  more,  of  the  establishments 
now  in  existence,  or  at  least  of  the  branches  of  the  industry  now  pursued,  are 
the  creation  of  the  tariff  of  1S61. 

Industrial  chemistry  has  had  its  largest  development  in   France  and  Eng- 
land, where  general  manufacturing  has  also  attained  its  largest  growth ;  and 
Germany  has  also  made  marvellous  strides  in  this  fiekl  of  progress.   Develop- 
In  Trance  alone  the  annual   production    of  chemicals   has    now  """"*  °*^  '"- 
reached  the  great  value  of  $250,000,000.     By  the   side   of  this   chemistry  in 
giaiit  (leve!()j)ment  the  chemical  manulacture  of  the  United  States   France  and 
seems  mere   boy's  play,  amounting,  as    it  did   in    1870,  only   to      "^^ "" 
$19,417,000  of  chemicals,   dyes,   and   drugs,   and  $5,800,000   of  fertilizers. 
Nevertiieiess,  tlie  [)rogress  of  the  last  twenty  years  in  the  United  States  has 
heei.  striking.     'I'lie   manufacturers    have   ventured    to   undertake   something 
besides  tiie  stajjle  products  of  sulphuric  acid,  soda,  vegetable  dies,  and  medi- 
cines ;  and  they  have,  within  the  period  named,  entered  upon  the  production 
of  a  large  variety  of  the  rarer  chemicals,  and  have  evidently  planted  the  founda- 
tions of  a  great  industry.     In  1870  there  were  301   chemical  flxctories  ui  the 
United  States,  concentrated  chiefly  in  the  vicinity  of  the  large  Eastern  cities, 
and  125  factories  of  fertilizers,  these  latter  being  largely  in  the  Southern  States. 

A  large  part  of  the  raw  materials  consumed  by  the  American  chemical 
factories  is  imported  from  Europe  and  South  America,  although  it  is  a  fact 
that  they  might  be  obtained  from  our  own  soil.  There  are  enormous  supplies 
of  alkalies,  for  instance,  on  the  plains  and  in  the  mountains  of  the  Far  West, 


490  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

and  all  the  materials  that  a  chemist  could  wish  for  the  production  ot"  sul- 
Importation  phuric  acid  (that  most  necessary  and  extensively  made  of  diciuj. 
of  raw  cals)   in  the  valley  of  the  Mississii)pi.     Salt  and  lime  exist  in  ilm 

mater  a  ■.  Unit^jfj  States  in  unparalleleil  abundance  ;  sour  oranges  go  tu  \s.\i\^ 
in  Florida  every  year  by  the  thousands  of  busiiels  :  yet  the  crude  ciiL-mii  als 
which  are  obtained  from  these  things,  and  large  quantities  of  the  manufacuiicd, 
as  well  as  a  great  (luantity  of  these  very  raw  materials  besides,  are  imported 
yearly  from  abroad.  The  extent  to  which  this  importation  has  grown  may  he 
seen  by  the  statistics  of  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1877.  The  imports 
were  as  follows  :  — 

Argols,  Ills 9,025,54: 

Medicinal  barks,  lbs 1,976,016 

Camphor  (crude),  lbs 1,022,565 

Chloride  of  lime,  or  blcaching-powdcr,  lbs 47,642, (••,3 

Cochineal,  lbs. 1,324,165 

Cutch  and  tcrra-japonica,  lbs. 22,992,973 

Dye-woods,  cwt 1,195,071) 

Gums,  lbs 9>''*73.5i5 

Indigo,  lbs 1,504,7X3 

Madder,  lbs 3,178,988 

Sulphur  (crude),  tons 43.-(4J 

"        (refined),  cwt -9.039 

Salt,  lbs 901,209,894 

Nitrate  of  potash  (saltpetre),  lbs 13,846,670 

Soda,  nitrate  of,  lbs 54,2aS,334 

"      bicarbonate,  lbs 4,298,906 

"      carbonate,  lbs 217,360,808 

"      caustic,  lbs 36,000,895 

"      other  salts  of,  lbs 507. 3J^' 

Chemicals,  dyes,  drugs,  and  medicines,  n.  e.  s.,  dols.      .        .  8,816,804 

In  all,  our  purchases  amounted  to  about  §25,000,000  worth  of  drugs, 
dyes,  and  chemicals ;  and  yet  $20,000,000  could  have  been  produced  from 
the  materials  which  exist  in  unlimited  abundance  in  our  own  soil.  This  fact 
points  to  the  possibilities  of  the  increase  of  the  industry  in  the  United  States, 
when  the  manner  of  extracting  the  acids,  alkalies,  and  salts  of  commeac, 
from  American  minerals,  is  better  understood. 

The  most  important  of  the  products  of  the  chemical  factories  is  Svilpiiuric 
acid.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest  known  of  acids,  having  been  in  use  among 
Sulphuric  the  proto-chcmists  of  ancient  Arabia.  Professor  Chandler  calls 
""''•  it  one  of  the  pillars  of  science,  on  account  of  the  number  and 

the  value  of  the  uses  to  which  it  is  now  applied.  It  is  used  to  convert  com- 
mon salt  into  soda,  and  hence  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  glass  and  soap 
industries.  It  is  the  necessary  agent  by  means  of  which  nitric  and  hydro- 
chloric acids  are  obtained,  the  two  solvents  upon  which  the  refining  of  gold 
and  silver,  and  electro-plating  and  photography,  depend.     It  is  employed  in 


\  :■- 


OF    TflF.     UNITED    ."STATES. 


491 


the  production  of  alum,  ammonia,  nearly  all  the  vegetable  acids  and  alkaloiils, 
the  aniline  colors,  ultramarine,  the  chrome  compounds,  bleaching-powder, 
(hloriiliirin,  ether,  phosphorus,  and  fertilizers,  anil  is  a  constant  resource  of 
the  lalioratory  ;  and  hence  is  truly  the  pillar  of  a  thousand  great  industries 
mil  o(  (  upations.  This  substance  was  anciently  made  by  distilling  iron  sul- 
phiti.'.  In  1720  Dr.  Roebuck  of  Kngland  suggested  that  it  could  Dr. 
lie  made  by  burning  sulphur,  either  in  the  form  of  pure  brim-  Roebuck. 
stone,  or  as  metallic  pyrites.  The  manufacture  has  ever  since  been  conducted 
upon  tho  plan  thus  suggested.  In  the  U.iited  States  brimstone  is  used.  The 
Milphur  is  burned  in  a  draught  of  air,  which  carries  the  fumes  into  a  large 
chaml]cr  completely  lined  with  lead,  wliere  they  are  precipitated  by  a  pecul- 
iar process  in  the  form  of  acid.  'I'he  acid  enters  the  chamber  in  the  form 
ol'  sulphurous  oxide  gas :  it  is  there  mixed  with  steam  and  nitrous  fumes 
cvolviil  from  saltpetre  with  sulphuric  acid.  The  oxygen  of  the  nitrous  fumes 
combines  with  the  sulphurous  oxide  to  make  sulphuric  acid  ;  while  the  nitrous 
oxide  uas  left  in  the  air  absorbs  oxygen  afresh  from  the  atmosphere,  and  trans- 
mits it  again  to  the  sulphurous  oxide  in  a  process  of  unbroken  continuity.  S. 
I'liiited  (juantity  of  the  nitrous  fumes  is  sufficient  to  keep  up  a  constant  jire- 
cipitation  of  oil  of  vitroil  upon  the  leaden  sides  and  bottom  of  the  chamber. 
The  a(  id,  being  dilute<l  with  water  hx)m  the  steam  present  in  the  air,  must 
now  lie  condensed.  'I'his  is  done  by  boiling  in  lead  i)ans.  When  the  acid 
bciomcs  sufficiently  concentrated  to  attack  the  lead,  it  is  transferred  to 
platinum  stills,  and  there  given  a  final  condensation.  In  Kngland  the  more 
common  raw  material  is  the  pyrites  of  iron  or  copper.  It  seems,  that,  in  1S38, 
the  Kiui;  of  Nai)les  gave  a  monojjoly  of  the  sulphur-trade  to  Taix  &  Com- 
panv  of  Marseilles,  as  a  result  of  which  suli)hur  rose  in  London  from  twenty- 
fne  dollars  to  seventy  tloUars  a  ton.  'i'he  Englishmen  immediately  patented 
fifteen  different  processes  for  making  sulphuric  acid  from  pyrites  within  a  year 
al'turward,  and  have  ever  since  largely  employed  the  material.  They  make 
over  a  hundred  thousand  tons  of  vitriol  a  year.  The  only  drawback  of  the 
acid  obtained  in  h'.ngland  from  pyrites  is,  that  it  contains  arsenic,  and  is  con- 
seipiently  unfit  for  fertilizers,  the  making  of  which  is  one  of  its  most  extensive 
applications.  In  t!ie  United  .States  the  utilization  of  the  mineral  sulphides  has 
made  little  or  no  headway.  Professor  Chandler  has,  however,  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  a  marked  feature  of  the  tjuality  of  the  American  sulphides  is 
the  absence  of  arsenic  ;  and  he  has  declared  for  many  years,  that  the  highly  sul- 
phurous coal-seams  of  the  valley  of  the  Upi)er  Monongahela,  in  West  Virginia, 
alone  would  supply  the  whole  Mississii)pi  Valley  with  sulphuric  acid  for  agri- 
cultural purposes  for  centuries  to  come.  Professor  Sterry  Hunt  has  also  urged 
the  utilization  of  the  enormous  beds  of  pyrites  in  the  Carolinas  and  Kast 
Tennessee,  which  are  useless  for  any  other  purpose.  The  suggestions  of  these 
eminent  gentlemen  wiU  no  doubt  yet  be  heeded.  The  mechanical  power  of 
sulphuric  acid  as  a  .solvent  and  re-agent  is  something  enormous,  and  is  the 


'.Tt.'ftr*'  f 


I  • 


■' 


49* 


l\'DUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


I 


' 


cause  of  its  great  value.  It  lias  a  great  appetite  for  water,  absorbing  it  rapidly 
from  tiic  air  ;  and  an  illustration  of  its  power  can  be  given  by  rLinarlviii"  that 
the  aciil  causes  the  water  which  is  poured  into  it  to  shrink  in  volume  troiu  i8 
to  1 1.4.  When  one  reflects  upon  the  trcnendous  mechanical  force  which 
it  would  recjuire  to  compress  water  to  that  extent,  the  power  of  siilijhuric 
acid  will  be  imderstood. 

Nitric  and  muriatic  or  hydrochloric  acids  are  made  with  the  aid  of  ii^^i 
sulphuric.  'I'he  former  is  made  by  distili!..g  saltpetre  witii  sul[)hiiri(  ;i(iii 
Nitric  and  ^  '^^'  **''^''  "^'-''^  '^^  "°^^''  bowever.  more  generally  nitrate  of  soda  iiom 
muriatic  South  .America,  as  l)eing  cheaper,  anil  richer  in  nitre.  This  sail 
comes  chiefly  from  the  i)rovince  of  'larapaca  in  I'eru,  wlurc  it 
exists  in  a  natural  state  in  beds  which  cover  hundreds  of  s(iuare  niiks  of 
ground.  It  is  by  some  misnomer  popularly  called  "C'hilian  salti)etrc."  jlv- 
drochloric  acid  is  made  by  treating  common  salt  (chloride  of  sodium)  with 
sulphuric  acid.  The  chloride  of  hydrogen  which  passes  off  is  con(hiiii(l 
into  water,  where  it  is  eagerly  absorbed.  The  water  takes  up  460  tinus  its 
own  volume  of  the  gas,  and  increases  one-th'rd  in  bulk,  and  seventy  live  jKr 
cent  in  weight,  in  the  ojieration.  Some  very  large  Victories  of  these  acids  have 
been  established  in  Philadelphia  ;  tliat  city  being,  by  the  way,  the  print  ipal 
chemical  centre  of  the  country,  manufacturing  nearly  half  of  the  dyes,  drugs, 
acids,  salts,  and  medicines  produced  in  the  I'nited  States. 

The  different  manufactures  of  salts  of  soda  are  very  numerous,  but  not  so 
extensive  as  the  industrial  development  of  the  United  States  demands.  Nearly 
Salts  of  all  the  carbonate  of  soda,  for  instance,  —  a  material  used  in  L;lass- 
"°'''-  making,  in  the  production  of  caustic  soda  for  soai)-niaking,  ami 

for  other  purposes,  —  comes  from  I'aigland.  It  is  easily  made  from  common 
salt  by  converting  the  latter  into  a  sulphate  with  sulphuric  acid,  and  ihtii 
treating  it  in  a  furnace  with  charcoal  and  carbon.ite  of  lime,  which  jirodnccs 
carbonate  of  soda  mixed  with  suljihide  of  calcium,  the  former  being  then 
separated  from  the  ash  by  leaching  with  hot  water.  All  the  materials  exist 
in  unlimited  abundance  in  this  country  for  the  extensive  mauufai  ture  of 
carbonate  of  soda ;  but  the  .American  chemists  a])pear  to  have  been  afraid  to 
compete  with  the  cheap  labor  and  large  capital  of  I'.ngland  in  any  consid- 
erable production  of  it.  Caustic  soda  is  now  largely  made  at  Plii!a(lel|)hi.i 
and  elsewhere,  although  the  importation  is  still  very  large.  It  is  i)re|)ared 
from  three  parts  of  the  crystallized  carbonate  of  soda,  dissolved  in  '.vater,  and 
one  part  of  quick-lime,  slaked,  and  mixed  with  water  to  the  consistency  of 
cream,  'l.ie  caustic  solution  is  then  decanted,  and  boiled  down  raimlly, 
melted,  cast  into  sticks,  and  preserved  in  bottles.  The  purest  caustic  soda  is 
dissolved  from  the  residue  obtained  by  boiling  down  with  alcohol,  the  latter 
being  then  driven  off  by  heat.  Soda  for  baking-powder  is  also  largely  made 
at  the  .American  factories.  One  concern  in  California  has  been  making  it 
since  1875,  in  San  Francisco,  from  native  salts  obtained  at  the  warm  sjjrings 


OF    THE    UNJTKD    STATES. 


493 


in  Cliiirc  hill  County,  Nevada.  This  factory  is  the  pioneer  in  the  attempt  to 
use  till'  alkaline  treasures  of  the  Kar  West ;  and  it  is  making  such  pruj^res-^  in 
the  piiiiluetion  of  carbonate,  bicarbonate,  and  otlier  salts  of  soda,  that  prol)- 
.il,|v,  ill  .1  tew  years,  it  will  begin  to  supply  the  eastern  part  of  the  republic  with 
itsgoitds.  Soda  is  now  made  to  a  limited  extent  in  Philadelphia  from  crycjiite, 
—  iiiniiK'ral  found  in  dreenland,  containing  sodium,  aluminum,  and  fluorine. 

One  of  the  new  manufactures  is  that  of  ( itric  acid,  —  a  chemical  used  by 
the  silk-iiyers  to  heigliten  the  colors  of  cochineal  and  safflower,  and  by  the 
calico-printers  to  discharge  mordants  from  the  cloth.  'l"he  industry  began  in 
rhil.i(lrli)hii  in  1X74.  .\t  present  the  crude  material  is  obtained  from  abroad, 
mainlv  Irom  Sii  ily.  It  consists  of  the  jui<;e  of  lime-^,  lemons,  and  sour  (jranges. 
The  ^Dur  oranges  of  Florida  will,  in  the  future,  be  utilized  in  this  manufacture  ; 
but  lluv  do  not  yet  enter  into  it  largely.  The  acid  is  obtained  l)y  fermenting 
the  sour  juice.  Chalk  is  added,  and  citrate  of  lime  precipitated.  This  is 
trciti'il  with  sulphuric  acid,  which  forms  sulphate  of  lime,  leaving  the  acid  in 
solution. 

One  of  the  large  features  of  the  imports  of  crude  materials  is  called  argols. 
This  substance  is  not  yet  jjroduced  in  the  United  States  to  any  extent.  It  is 
the  salt  deposited  in  crystalline  crusts  on  the  sides  and  bottoms  of  importation 
wine-liarrels.  Heing  less  soluble  in  alcohol  than  in  water,  it  leaves  "'  ■''bo'*- 
the  wine  as  the  proportion  of  alcohol  increases.  Chemically  this  deposit  con- 
sists of  |)()tassic  bitartrate,  with  a  small  intermixture  of  calcic  tartrate  and  of 
coloring  an<l  mucilaginous  matters.  Commercially  it  is  of  the  highest  im- 
portance. The  lees  of  the  wine  are  dissolved  in  hot  water,  and  clarified  by 
means  of  clay,  and  then  recrystallized.  The  process  is  repeated  j  and  the 
result  is  a  white  crystalline  substance  called  cream  of  tartar,  which  is  sold  with 
liicarhonate  of  soda  for  bread-making.  'I'he  high  cost  of  the  article  has  led 
<lealers  to  i)ractise  the  most  shameful  adulteration  of  cream  of  tartar ;  and  half 
of  that  found  in  the  market  contains  flour,  gypsum,  &c.,  exceeding  two-thirds 
of  its  bulk.  From  argols  are  also  made  Rochelle  salts,  tartaric  acid,  and 
salt  of  tartar.  The  wine-protlucing  regions  of  the  United  States  promise  in 
the  future  to  be  the  means  of  creating  a  partial  supply  of  argols  at  home. 

Among  the  very  recent  branches  of  cheiriical  manufiicture  in  the  United 
States  is  that  of  the  aniline  colors.  The  discovery  of  these  intense  and  bril- 
liant (lyes  has  completely  revolutionized  the  art  of  dyeing  and  print-  Aniline 
iiig  textile  fabrics  within  the  short  space  of  twenty  years  :  it  has  «^°'°''»' 
increased  the  resources  of  the  dyer  immensely,  and  has  made  the  processes  of 
<lycing  more  comjjlicated  and  elaborate.  Aniline,  so  called  from  anil,  indigo, 
was  discovered  in  1826  by  a  German  chemist  by  the  name  of  Unverdorben, 
who  got  it  by  distilling  indigo.  It  crystallized  readily  ;  and  he  called  it,  accord- 
ingly, crystalline.  It  attracted  much  attention  in  laboratories.  A  great  .deal 
of  study  was  given  to  it,  and  the  range  of  chemical  knowledge  greatly  increased 
in  the  course  of  the  researches  of  those  interested  in  it.     No  commercial 


I 


It> 


494 


AV'/J  rs  TKIA  I.    Ills  TOK  Y 


importanro  was  attarhod  to  it  until  iS)^6,  when  \V.  II.  IVrkin  I'rodncod  fr,„n 
it  tlic  bfaulitiil  inirplt-  dye  called  maiivi'.  That  set  dyers  and  <  liciniNS  j,,  ., 
flame,  and  liic  whole  scries  of  remarkable  tints  which  aniline  is  (.ipahlc  of 
producing'  were  soon  discovered.  The  presence  of  the  article  itselt  wis  ;i|so 
soon  detected  in  other  tilings  than  indi^'o.  .\niline,  like  many  ollur  •  hcinicl 
Matiuiac  prodmts  of  value,  is  obtained  comniercially  from  refuse  <ir  worth- 
tureanduM.  |^,j,>j  siibstances.  It  is  anioni;  the  products  of  distillation  of  (,,,i|. 
tar,  peat,  bones,  iVc.  It  is  usually  made  for  the  trade  from  ben/ole,  oin'  of  ih, 
elements  of  < o.il-tar,  the  process  bein.i,'  as  follows  :  Iten/ole  is  treated  with  njtri( 
acid  to  form  nitro-l)en/ole,  and  this  is  (handed  by  the  action  of  ferrous  .ini.itc 
(made  from  iron-filings  and  acetic  acid)  into  a  compound  from  whii  ii  miiiurc 
aniline  is  obtained  by  distillation.  A  second  distillation,  with  a  slight  e\(  iss  of 
lime  or  soda,  gives  crude  aniline.  The  product  is  a  colorless,  mobile,  oi|\,  and 
very  poisonous  liipiid,  jjoilmg  at  1S2",  ami  possessing  an  aromatic,  biirnin.;  i.isic. 
l-'or  the  trade  it  is  generally  converted  into  what  is  called  rosani- 
line,  which  is  itself  a  dye,  and  from  whi(  h  ne.uiv  all  the  otl^.r 
dyes  can  be  made.  One  i)art  of  aniline  oil  is  treated  with  one  and  a  half  lurts 
of  a  seventy-(ive-per-cent  arsenic  acid  in  a  closed  iron  still.  The  prodnc  t  is 
boiled  with  water,  and  fdtered.  Upon  adding  conunon  salt  in  excess,  c  rude 
hydrochlorate  of  rosaniline  is  precipitated.  This  is  dissolved  in  boilini;  water. 
filtered,  and  allowed  to  crystallize  ;  and  the  salt  thus  i)btained  is  called  rosani- 
line. The  dye  is  also  ;)repari(l  in  other  ways,  by  treatment  and  distillation. 
It  varies  in  color  from  a  beautilul  cherry-red  to  a  rich  crimson.  Rosanaline  is 
known  by  the  names  of  aniline-red,  magenta,  st)Iterino,  fuchsine,  roseine. 
a/aleine,  ^kc.  :  it  is  soluble  in  water  and  alcohol.  .\  great  deal  of  the  anilinL- 
in  the  general  market  appears  there  fir.  f  in  tlie  form  of  this  salt.  In  tin.' 
United  States,  although  coal-tar  is  distilli.  "  'ere,  and  benzole  is  one  of  the 
regular  articles  of  exjjort,  all  the  crude  a-iiline  used  is  imported  :  the  arti<  le 
comes  ]»rincipally  from  Germany,  where  it  is  most  largely  maiiufac  tured.  Ro- 
saniline contains  three  atoms  of  re])laceal)le  hyilrogen.  liy  treating  it  with 
iodide  of  methyl,  ethyl,  amyle,  and  otlier  radicals  of  alcohol,  and  recovering 
the  iodine  by  boiling  in  caustic:  potash,  .salts  are  jirecipitated,  ranging  in  color 
from  red,  violet,  and  |)uri)le  to  the  jMirest  blue,  according  to  the  amount  of 
hydrogen  which  has  been  re|)lacecl.  (Irays,  browns,  m.aroons,  blacks,  greens, 
and  yellows,  all  of  the  rarest  beauty  and  greatest  intensity,  are  obtained  by 
different  processes.  The  manufacture  of  these  colors  is  carried  on  jirinc  ijially 
at  Philadelphia,  though  they  are  often  prei)ared  in  the  laboratories,  of  the 
textile  factories  themselves.     Many  of  them  are  very  easily  prepared. 

Space  forbids  the  enumeration  of  all  the  ])roducts  of  the  .American  laho- 
ratorics  ;  but  a  few  sul)stances  may  be  referred  to  as  showing  what  jewels 
modern  science  finds  in  unattractive  quarters,  and  how  the  refnse 
of  our  cities  is  made  to  contribute  to  the  welfare  of  the  people. 
One  of  the  very  large  products  of  Cincinnati  and  Philadelphia  is  glycerine. 


Glycerine. 


OF    TlfE    CXITin    STATES. 


491 


Thii  article  is  obtained  from  the  refuse  of  candle-factories.  Another  is 
niiiiiuiiiia,  extracted  from  tlie  gas-lii|iii)r  of  tiie  j,'as-wi)rk^,  Still  another  is 
Itniiiiidi'  of  potash,  wliic  li  is  j,'aliicn.tl  from  the  refuse  of  salt-works.  It  has 
aln  I'lv  iicen  relate<l  how  (ream  of  t.irtar  is  made  from  tiie  lees  of  wine.  This 
in\.ilii,ilile  substance  is  also  largely  produced  from  beef-bones,  which  a  few 
vtMi-;  ago  were  thrown  away  as  \isek'ss. 

Cliloriile  of   lime,   thoii^'h   in  immense   req\icst   in   the   cotton   and  linen 
factories  anil  other  textile  establisluuenls  of  the  country,  is  nude  in  the  United 


1 


Tins   M)li.\-W.M>Ii   Idl'NTAlN. 

Slates  to  a  smaller  extent  than  tlie  mngnitiuie  of  tlio  consumption  of  the 
article  would  seem  to  reiiuire.  It  is  easily  prejiared.  Ciilorine  gas  is  first 
produced  by  means  of  tlie  re-action  of  hydrociiloric  acid  on  binoxidc  of 
inanj^anesc,  —  a  mineral  abundantly  supplied  in  all  parts  of  the  chloride  of 
world,  and  always  eagerly  sought  after.  In  some  factories  the  ''"""• 
{;as  is  ol)tained  by  the  re-action  of  sulphuric  acid  on  common  salt  and  bi- 
noxiilc  of  manganese.     Hy  whatever  process  it  is  made,  it  is  stored  away  in 


I 


1  ;  H\ 


I 


f 


1  i!J''  Uiii 


mv^ 


\i  ' 


n 


r^.:^l:^ 


V.    l:\i 


■ftl 


r^ 


\^^--  im-. 


if 

i 


I 


496 


INDUSTKIAI.    HISTORY 


slaked  lime  by  tlic  simple  means  of  briiif^ing  the  two  substances  toijother 
in  a  closeil  chamber.  I'he  lime  is  spread  about  seven  inches  deep  ()n  the 
floor,  and  the  gas  forced  in.  It  is  slowly  absorbed  by  the  lime,  the  process 
consuming  al)out  four  days. 

One  of  the  most  prominent  chemical  manufactures  in  this  country  is  soda- 
water,  so  called,  and  its  kindred  beverages,  —  i)oi)-beer  and  artiluial  miiuial- 


Manufac- 


water.     The  first-named  is  nothing  more  than  pure  wat 


cr  mi|iivn; 


tureofsoda-  nated  with  carboriic-acid  gas.  When  lemon,  ginger.  sar>a|i.irilla, 
"'"  "'  or  other  flavoring-extracts,  are  added,  and  it  is  sold  in  bottles,  it  is 

known  as  pop-beer  ;  and  when,  instead  of  sm  h  sirups,  certain  mineral-Nilts 
are  adtled  to  the  carbonic-acid  water,  corresponding  to  the  analysis  of  i  citain 
natural  mineral-waters,  thev  are  sokl  for  consumjjtion  by  the  bottle,  m  for 
distribution  by  the  "  fountain."  The  idea  of  making  such  preparations,  esjie- 
cially  the  last-named  class,  originateil  in  Germany  and  Sweden.  Mxiieriments 
began  as  early  as  the  sixteenth  century  ;  but  the  foundation-i)rini  iples  were 
not  discovereci  for  a  long  time  :  indeed,  it  is  only  within  sixty  years  that  the 
art  has  been  brought  to  perfection.  In  1810-20  herzelius  founded  in  Stock- 
holm, and  Struve  in  Dresden,  artificial  spas.  Faraday  and  Liebig  jironouiKed 
the  hitter's  imitations  of  mineral-waters  perfect,  and  equally  wholesome  with  the 
original.  The  apparatus  for  the  manufacture  consists  of  a  large  copi)er  gener- 
ator, in  which  the  gas  is  evolved  by  a  mixture  of  sulphuric  acid  antl  carbonate 
of  lime,  certain  i)ipes  and  reservoirs  for  purifying  it,  a  receptacle  in  whicli  the 
gas  is  mingled  with  water  (fresh,  flavored,  or  impregnated  with  mineral-salts, 
as  the  case  may  be),  and  a  device  for  filling  bottles  or  larger  receivers  tor 
"  fountains."  Valuable  improvements  have  been  made  by  Mr.  John  Matthews 
of  New  York  to  the  process.  One  consists  of  a  safety-valve  to  the  generator 
to  prevent  explosions,  and  another  is  the  practice  of  lining  the  fountains  anil 
connections  with  block-tin  to  prevent  corrosion  and  poisoning.  There  are 
no  less  than  ten  thousand  of  his  fountains  in  use  in  this  country,  and  both  of 
his  devices  have  come  into  extensive  use  in  Europe. 


Ot    THE    UAJTED    STATES. 


497 


CHAI^ER  XII. 

WOOD   AND   OTHER   MANUFACTURES. 

Ir  i>  now  proposed  to  coiisitler  a  variety  of  industries  wiiich  Iiave  grown  up 
ill  the  United  States,  wliicli  are  devoted  to  the  manufacture  of  the  vegetable 
imKlm  ts  of  tile  soil  and  of  the  minerals.  Some  of  these,  which  General 
(ouid  not  he  well  treated  witii  brevity,  iiave  been  discussed  in  »''«*=•'• 
special  chapters.  In  tlie  majority  of  cases,  these  industries,  though  now 
severally  employing  millions  of  capital  anil  su])porting  lumdreils  of  thou- 
simls  of  peoi)Ie,  are  capable  of  being  treated  concisely  ;  and  they  are,  there- 
tore,  f,'rinipeil  as  miscellaneous  manufactures  in  the  present  chapter.  Stime 
(if  these  are  of  very  ancient  date,  taking  their  origin  as  far  back  almost  as 
tlie  se'tlement  of  the  country  :  some  are  of  very  recent  date,  many  having 
tome  into  existence  within  the  last  forty  years.  Whether  old  or  young,  they 
are  ail  profitalile  to  the  country,  and  form  an  essential  jiart  of  its  strength  and 
wealth.  The  I'nited  States  have  not  always  manufactured  a  very  considerable 
p.irt  iif  the  raw  products  of  her  soil  and  fields,  —  not  even  a  very  large  share 
ot  that  portion  of  those  products  consumed  in  manulitctured  form  by  her  own 
;ieii|)le.  In  the  early  ages  of  the  country  nearly  all  the  r.iw  materials  —  the 
Imles,  the  grain,  the  bark,  the  tobacco,  the  cotton,  and  the  metals  —  were  sent 
ahroatl.  and  the  things  made  out  of  them  were  brought  back  again  from  the 
lands  to  which  the  original  products  were  sent.  Old  Beverly,  in  1705,  impa- 
tiently loniarked  of  the  -olonists  (a  hundred  years  after  the  first  settlement,  be 
It  iiiiteil),  "Nay,  they  are  such  abominable  ill  husbands,  that  though  their 
(iiuiitry  he  overrun  with  wood,  yet  they  have  .all  their  wooden-ware  from 
I',nj,'land,  —  their  cabinets,  chairs,  tables,  stools,  chests,  boxes,  cart-wheels,  and 
all  other  things,  even  so  much  as  their  bowls  and  birchen  brooms, — to  the 
eteii,,.!  reproach  of  their  laziness."  It  was  not  to  be  expected,  however,  that 
so  free  and  active-minded  a  people  as  the  Americans,  living  in  such  an  invigor- 
mwvi  climate,  would  long  continue  to  send  their  raw  products  abroad  to  be 
manufactured,  after  they  had  freed  themselves  from  that  great  obstacle  to 
imiiistry,  a  tyrannical  government,  and  after  they  iiad  so  fairly  subjugated  the 
soil  as  to  have  an  abundance  of  food  ;   anil  accordingly  we  find  that  they 


IJid 


I 


^^ 


■m- 


498 


/ND  US  TRIA  I.    HIS  TON  V 


si        \iil.\ 


ms\^m 


began  to  manufacture  their  raw  products  largely  for  themselves  alter  their 
independence,  and  "  the  eternal  reproach  "  was  quickly  wiped  out.  It  has 
already  been  related  what  the  Americans  have  done  in  manufacturiiu'  their 
crude  metals.  The  history  of  manufacturing  the  more  important  vegetahle  and 
mineral  products  of  the  United  States  has  been  nearly  coinpletcd.  A  tl^ 
more  pages,  however,  are  needed  to  finish  this  portion  of  our  work.  W  hil  ■ 
seeking  to  make  this  chapter  as  brief  and  at  the  same  time  as  complete  as 
possible,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  imi)ortant  fact  relating  to  the  develoiiineiu 
of  the  industries  herein  considered  has  been  omiited. 

LUMUKK. 

The  business  of  lumbering  is  one  which  the  European  settlers  on  Uiis 
continent  were  obliged  to  begin  before  any  other.  Two  necessities  faced 
Lumbering  ''i*-'""  ^^''^'^"  ^'^^'V  ''UHlcd,  —  the  ueeil  of  sJK'Iter  from  the  weather. 
among  the  and  cleared  land  whereon  to  cultivate  food.  Nearly  tiie  whole 
CO  onistB.  country  was  covered  with  vast  and  ancient  forests  :  tiiese  yielded 
the  material  for  houses  and  barns,  but  rendered  the  work  of  prei)ariiu;  the  soil 
for  tillage  highly  laborious,  liut  there  were  energy,  courage,  and  enthusiasm  m 
the  hardy  Anglo-Saxon  stock  which  occupied  the  coiuitry  from  \()\a  Siotia  to 
Florida,  and  scarcely  less  in  the  Dutchmen  and  Swedes  who  broke  the  line  oi 
English  settlements  for  a  time  from  the  liodson  to  the  Delaware  River;  so 
that  the  axe  and  saw  were  vigorously  plied  from  the  very  first  oct  njjation  of 
America.  The  early  dwellings  were  of  logs,  imitated  ever  sin(-c  by  pioneer^  in 
new  sections  of  the  country  ;  and  the  few  boards  and  shingles  used  were  hewn 
out  with  an  admirable  dexterity.  Forts  for  defence  against  tho  hostile  bidians. 
bridges  across  the  streams  along  which  the  first  settlements  we  e  planted,  docks 
for  the  little  shipping  which  afforded  communication  with  the  (Jld  World,  logs 
for  corduroy  roads  over  poor  s])ots  in  the  needed  highways,  and  firewood  for 
cooking  and  comfort,  all  called  for  fiirthcr  labor  ;  and  later  —  much  later  than 
should  have  been  the  case  —  there  was  some  demand  for  material  for  (altie- 
pens  and  barns. 

A  rare  and  timely  piece  of  good  fortune  for  the  American  colonists  was  the 
invention  of  the  saw-mill,  which  first  made  its  appearance  in  this  country  in 
1633,  or  shortly  before,  jjreceding  the  first  establishment  of  it  in 
the  mother-coiuUry  many  years.  .Although  the  saw  was  known  in 
I'^gyjit  in  the  time  of  Moses,  yet  a  mill  in  which  it  was  o|)erated  by  nachine- 
ry  was  scarcely  known  in  F-urope  before  the  discovery  of  America,  (lerniany 
had  sawmills  in  the  fourth  century;  the  Island  of  Madeira,  in  1420;  .Nor- 
way, not  till  1530;  France,  as  early  as  1555  ;  and  Fngland,  not  until  \M)7,. 
This  last-named  mill  was  torn  down  to  gratify  a  hostile  popular  prejndiee. 
Fears  of  like  demonstration  prevented  the  erection  of  another  in  1700,  and 
the  populace  destroyed  one  as  late  as  i  767.     Prior  to  the  introduction  of  the 


Saw-mill. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


499 


sawmill,  planks  were  hewed  out  or  sawed  by  hand  ;  which  explains  the  jireva- 
liiic c  of  clay  floors  and  the  scarcity  of  plank  floors  in  iMirope  in  the  olden 
lime. 

Saw-mills  located  on  some  eligible  stream,  and  nm  by  water-power,  were 
credi-il  at  a  very  early  date  in  the  first  colonies,  and  thereafter  made  their 
aijpcaiance   in  each  new  colony  and  settlement  which  afforded  the   motive- 
|ii)\vcr ;    indeed,   the   location   of  many   settlements  was   determined  by  the 
iircstiKx  of  a  good  mill-stream.     The   first  saw-mill  that  is  known  to  have 
hccn  (.rected  in  New  luigland  was  on  Salmon- l''alls   River,  near   First  saw- 
ihc  jjrcsent  city  of  Portsmouth,  N.H.  ;  and  it  was  built  there  soon   """• 
after  the  land  was   grantetl   in   1631    to  .Mason  and  (lorges,  the  g"*?at    pro- 
|irictarit.s  of  that  region.     It  is   known   to   have  been  in  operation  in  1635, 
and  mifilu  have  been  up  a  year  or  two  at  that  time.     It  is  a.sserted  that  a 
>att-inill  was  in  existence  in   Massachusetts  as  early  as  1633  ;  but  no  evidence 
of  it  exists,  although  one  was  proposed  for  the  colony  in  a  letter  of  instruc  - 
tion^  sent  to  (lov.  Kndicott  in  1629.     \  patent  for  an  improvement  in  saw- 
mills was  granted   Joseph  Jenks  of  I  Ann   in    1648;    but   it   is   impossible   to 
liiul  anv  record  of  a  saw-mill  in  Massachusetts  before  the  one  built  in  Scituate 
ill  1656,  and  burned  by  the  Inilians  in  1676.     .\nother  existed,  near  Duxbury, 
,b  carK  as  1664.     Worcester  had  one  in  1684;  and  Groton,  in  Middlesex,  in 
idSo.     Neither  Vermont  nor  Rhode  Island  appears  to  have  had  any  sav.-mills 
lutore  the  Revolution.     The  younger  Winthroj),  afterwards  governor  of  Con- 
iKctieiit,  brought  a  millwright  to  New  London,  and  put  up  a  sasv-mill  in  1651. 
ill   superintendent,  John  Klderkin,  was  for  thirty-five  years  the  principal  con- 
iraitor  for  the  building  of  meeting-houses,  dwellings,  bridges,  iVc,  in  Eastern 
('(mne(  ti(  lit.      Two  more  were  built  near  Hartford  in  1671  and  1680.     Several 
iiuire  were  lonstructed  in  the  colony  within  the   next  few  years.     Saw-mills 
ii|icrate(l  by  wind  instead  of  by  water  were  erected  by  the  Dutch  on  Manhat- 
tan bland  as  early  as  1633.     These  were  the  first  on  this  continent,  but  were 
very  iiiiprufitable,  according  to  jirovincial  documents.     Others  were  soon  built 
111  tile  vicinity,  however,  and  up  the  river,  near  .Mbany.     The  t'atskill  region, 
ami  several  points  on  the  east  side  of  the  Hudson,  followed  these  examiiles. 
lilt  French  had  saw-mills  near  Ticonderoga  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
aiilury.     West  Jersey  led  the  eastern  side  in  the  erei  tion  (Z  saw-mills.     The 
first  one  on  the  Delaware  was  put  up  in  1682.     .\niboy  built  her  first  ones  in 
16S;,.     They  rapidly  multiplied  in  that  colony,   however.      The   Dutch    and 
Swedes  anticipated  William   IVnn  in  this  direi  tion.     I  )elawaie  had  a  sawmill 
ill  165S,  another   in    166?.  and   a   third   in   1678.     Pemi   found  sawmills  in 
Pennsylvania   in    1683   already  in    ojieration.      They  were    long    scarce   near 
Philadelphia,  however  ;  and  not  one  was  to  be  found  in  the  adjacent  county 
"I  Hacks  as  late  as  1731.     They  multiplied  in  the  interior,  though,  especially 
where  the  (lermans  setded.      There  is  no  record  of  Maryland's  first  saw-mill  ; 
l)ut  she  had  corn-mills  run  by  water  as  early  as  1639.     Virginia  made  great 


^4m 


r  ■  i 


ii  U;( 


:ir:-lii.tff 


iimM. 


500 


/A'D  C/S  TRIA  I.    HIS  TOR  Y 


$ 


j,  :l'. 


account  of  hewing  clapl)oards  and  masts  in  lior  very  earliest  days.  'I'liorc  \va> 
talk  of  saw-mills  in  1620  ;  hut  nothing  was  done  toward  their  erection  lor  full 
thirty  years.  The  C'arolinas  and  (Jeorgia  had  magnificent  pine-forests,  whidi 
one  wonld  think  would  have  early  invited  the  lumhennan  ;  Init,  in  |ire-R(.\o|ii. 
tionary  days,  saw-mills  were  scarce  in  that  region.  As  late  as  iSoS  South 
Carolina  had  hut  sixty-five,  and  (Jeorgia  hut  one.  Within  the  present  (inturv 
though,  the  C'arolinas  and  other  Southern  States  have  sent  some  fuie  lumbir 
North.     But  there  was  a  shocking  waste  in  North  Carolina  after  the  wilue  of 

the  cotton-] ilani 
was  reali/cil. 
Splendid  fmot^ 
were  linriuMJ 
down  til  dear 
tile  land,  ami  tho 
only  use  niaili.' 
ot  the  s(nian- 
dered  inatorjal 
was  to  nianufai  - 
tuiv  a  little  jiot- 
asii  out  of  tlif 
asiies.  'I'nriicn- 
tiue  ami  resin 
lia\'e.  iiowtvcr. 
since  been  ob- 
tained in  jireat 
quantities  from 
that  section,  in 
addition  to  the 
)unii)er. 

Krom  tliL^c 
heginninu"^  the 
local  luniberinj;- 
business  iKvd- 
oped  all  (ivc'thc 

country.  Mills  were  erected  wherever  the  settlers  located  near  good  streams. 
New  Hampshire  and  Maine  went  into  the  business  more  largely  than  some  of 
the  other  colonies.  lUit  the  saw-mill  followed  the  i)ioneer  wherever  lie  went ; 
and  this  remark  holds  true  of  the  post-colonial  as  well  as  the  colonial  period 
of  our  history.  As  the  .-Xtlantic  States  filled  up.  and  the  Western  States  were 
occupied,  the  saw-mill  was  regarded  the  first  essential  of  civilization.  Thih 
we  find  the  New-Knglander  who  o(  (  u])icd  Ohio  building  a  aw-mill  in  17S9 
on  Wolf  Creek,  sixteen  miles  from  Marietta.  The  fact  that  ...  »^anton  (Mass.) 
alone  from  a  hundred  and   fifty  to  two  hundred  saw-mills  were  niantifacturcil 


^AW-MII.L   1>N     I  UK    CDNK.MAlIliH. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


5o» 


.mnuallv  about  1 790  is  significant  of  the  development  of  the  lumber-business 
ihruimli  this  important  instrumentality  all  over  the  country. 

riic  abundance  of  pine-forests,  the  improved  facilities  afforded  by  saw- 
mills, and  the  natural  hardihood  and  enterprise  of  the  colonists,  led  many  of 
them  to  embark  in  the  lumber-trade,  not  simjjly  for  their  own  ueveiop- 
neiessities,  but  for  puq^oses  of  trade,  domestic  and  foreign.  Saw-  mem  of  in- 
mill?  were,  to  a  great  extent,  run  like  grist-mills,  the  proprietor  ""'y- 
tikiiiL'  toll  from  his  many  patrons,  and  selling  the  stock  thus  accumulated,  and 
even  engaging  in  the  cutting  of  trees,  in  order  to  keep  his  mill  going,  and 
(.nlaru'i.'  iiis  profits.  The  projjrietary  lumber-business  thus  had  an  early  start : 
It  bet,'.!!!  in  New  Hampshire  and  Maine,  which,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
both  liulonged  to  Massachusetts.  Many  mills  were  erected  on  the  Piscata(iua, 
S;u(i.  Kennebec,  and  other  rivers.  Mason,  (lorges,  and  the  Pepperelis, 
iirigiiKil  jiroprietors  in  New  Hampshire  and  Maine,  engaged  extensively  in  the 
iiiisincss.  There  was  a  deal  of  ship-building  done  too,  in  those  colonial  days, 
at  Kittery,  and  elsewhere  along  the  coast ;  and  lumber  was  largely  consumed 
in  this  way.  There  was  a  large  export  of  partially-manufactured  lumber  to  the 
Wtst  Indies,  and  of  masts  and  knees  for  shipping  to  Kngland.  New  England 
( arricil  on  a  large  sugar-trade  with  the  Indies,  and  was  obliged  to  ship  thither 
large  (luantities  of  staves  and  shooks  for  barrels.  In  the  eighteenth  century 
the  C'ham])lain  tlistrict  exported  lumber  extensively  to  Montreal  and  Quebec, 
and  after  the  Revolution  a  large  business  sprang  up  in  the  western  counties  of 
New  \  (irk.  New  Jersey  became  conspicuous  for  her  lumber  exports  early  iiir 
(Colonial  days,  and  prohibiteil  the  carrying  of  any  timber,  planks,  boards,  oak- 
bolts,  staves,  heading,  hoops,  or  even  hop-poles,  e.xcept  in  her  own  shipping. 
Hiiue  rafts  of  lumber  were  floated  down  the  Delaware  to  l'hila<lelphia,  and 
iluwii  tlie  Sus(|uehanna  to  Baltimore.  Philadelphia  exported  783,000  feet  of 
iuinher  in  1765,  and  in  1731  a  liritish  publication  mentioned  the  importations 
"'  X'5t<J""  worth  of  lumber  annually  from  Virginia  and  Maryland.  The 
oitii  ial  value  of  the  different  kinds  of  lumber  exporteil  from  all  the  colonies 
\\\  1770  was  ^154,637  :  this  embraced  boards,  plank,  scanUing,  timber  for 
masts,  spars,  and  buildings,  staves,  heading,  hoops,  and  poles.  In  1792  the 
e\|)()rts  of  lumi)cr  were  65,846.024  feet,  including  80,813,357  shingles,  1,080 
tedar  and  oak  ship-knees,  and  191  house-frames. 

W  ithin  the  present  century,  however,  and  especially  within  the  past  thirty 
year>,  the  lumber-business  has  attained  a  deselopment  compared  with  which 
that  (if  the  pre- Revolutionary  age  was  insignificant.  The  needs  of  Lumbering 
the  (ountryhave  vastly  increaseil,  and  the  facilities  for  handling  during  inst 
ami  ;nan\ifacturing  lumber  have  improved  to  a  remarkable  extent.  '  """  "'^" 
Fony  and  fifty  years  ago  we  had  a  large  ship-building  industr)'.  which  has 
ile(  lined  ;  and  we  are  using  iron  rather  more  than  wood  in  our  modern  bridges. 
lint  when  it  is  remembered  that  our  i)opulati<)n  has  increased  from  three  to 
forty  live  millions,  and  that  but  one  man  in  fifty  has  a  house  of  brick  or  stone, 


' 


I 


m._  r  I 


Wl^A'-'^ 


-IP     r:  . 


'1.4^ 


■If  •  '- 

.r  .t    '.'    I       ■    •  ;'  - 


'   '.  X 


502 


/JVD  US  TRIA  I.    HIS  TON  Y 


it  can  be  seen,  that,  for  building-purposes  alone,  our  demand  for  luinlxi  hi 
multiplied  exceedingly.  Then,  too,  within  forty  years  we  bn-e  iniilt  thousiinU 
of  miles  of  railroad  and  telegraph,  re(iuiring  ties  and  j)oies  all  along  tin.'  ioiul' 
The  timber  thus  employed  ih  of  an  inferior  sort ;  but  the  (piantity  is  iniiiKiisc 
Woollen  pavements  in  our  large  (-ities  'Iso  consume  large  (juantiiics  of  thi^ 
material.  The  invention  of  wood-working  machinery  and  the  devclopmcin  oi 
various  manufactures  have  necessarily  increased  the  demand  ;  while  the  aiipli- 
(ation  of  the  steam-engine  to  the  saw,  and  the  arrangement  of  saws  in  lmiil'-, 


so  as   (()  cut  several  planks  from  one  log  sinuiitancously,  have  enlar.4i(;  the 
capacity  of  the  mills  wonderfully,  and  so  increased  the  sup|)ly. 

If  one  will  but  compare  the  value  of  the  lumber  sawed  and  planeii,  and  thi.' 
numl)er  of  establishments  engaged  in  the  business,  in  1850,  i,S6o,  and  iSjo, 
Centraiiza-  '"'•-'  ^^''"  <'i!^i<>ver  that  tile  increase  in  ])n)duct  is  very  rcniarkahk', 
tion  of  but  that  the  increase  in  the  number  of  mills  is  not  iJniportionati' ; 

us  r>.  ji^  other  words,  the  business  is  becoming  centralized.  W'iiile  there 
are  a  great  many  little  local  .saw-mills  all  over  the  country,  the  main  Ixisincss  i^ 
conducted  by  a  {c'k  large  ones,  which  <  ut  fifty  or  a  hundred  times  as  hmk  h 
in  one  season  as  any  mill  of  half  a  century  ago.     Thus  in  1X50  the  prodiK  l  ot 


for  hiinher  h,,, 

l>iiilt  thousand, 

ilong  the  nmtu. 

't'ty  is  i'uincnsf 

uantitics  of  thj, 

(ieVL'lopUK'IU  ()| 

while  iIk-  apjilj. 
f"  saws  ill  ^aii),', 


'■^^ 


c  cnlarm'i!  the 

ilaiu'ii,  ami  thr 
.S6o,  anil  i.S;o. 
.TV  rc-markalilc, 
linipdrtionati' ; 
.  Wliik'  there 
ain  l)iisines!i  is 
imes  as  niiuh 
the  product  of 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


503 


n,89S  ni'lls  was  $58,520,966  ;  in  i860,  that  of  20,165  mills  was  $104,928,342, 
or  nearly  double  that  of  ten  years  before  ;  and,  in  1870,  that  of  26,930  mills 
was  ?^52,032,229,  or  more  than  double  that  of  i860.  The  inciease  since 
then  has  not  been  at  quite  the  sume  rate  ;  but  it  is  very  large. 

Half  a  century  ago  the  State  of  Maine  was  the  great  producer  of  surplus 
lumber  for  the  rest  of  the  country.  At  times  the  States  of  New  York  and 
IVnnsvlvania  equalled  her  in  product,  and  in    i860  considerably 

1    •  Maine. 

exceeded  her.  But  while  the  Champlaui  region,  the  western  part 
of  New  York,  the  Delaware,  C!hesapeake,  Schuylkill,  and  Alleghany  regions, 
were  ^reat  producers,  the  population  of  tho;;e  States  was  so  large  as  to  nearly 
or  ijiiite  consume  their  home-supplies ;  I'hiladclphia  even  importing  from  the 
Hanuor  district.  Maine  was  lightly  populated,  and  exported  to  all  New  Eng- 
himl,  and  even  flirther  south  on  the  .Atlantic  coast.  Hy  i860  the  saginaw 
Cireen-May  region  in  Wisconsin,  and  the  Saginaw  district  in  Michi-  '*'»*'■'<='• 
gan,  had  assumed  considerable  prominence  in  the  business  ;  and  they  both 
eclipsed  Maine  during  the  next  decade.  Thus  while  Maine's  product  of  sawed 
liiinber,  including  laths,  shingles,  and  staves,  in  that  inter\-al,  only  increased 
from  .^7,167,760  to  ;?i  1,395,747,  Wisconsin's  rose  from  ;f!4, 616,430  to  $15,130,- 
;i9.  and  Michigan's  from  $7,303,404  to  S31  ;;;46,396.  New  York's  product 
had  increased,  meantime,  from  $10,597,595  to  $21,238,228.  and  Pennsylvania's 
from  $10,994,060  to  $28,938,985  ;  but  cxccjit  a  good-sized  export  from  New 
York  to  Canada,  and  a  moderate  one  from  Pennsylvania  South,  those  two 
States  did  little  more  than  provide  for  themselves.  The  Siiginaw  region  con- 
tinuetl  to  increase  its  product  until  18;  ivhen  its  climax  apjiears  to  have  been 
reached.  The  (Irecn- Hay  region  has  continued  to  increase  its  product.  The 
same  great  belt  of  dense  white-pine  forest  which  starts  in  Maine,  and  runs 
through  to  the  head  of  the  (Ireat  Lakes,  also  crosses  Minnesota;  which  State 
has,  within  the  past  eight  or  len  years,  risen  into  great  prominence  as  a  lumber- 
producing  State.  The  saw-mills  about  the  Falls  of  St.  .Anthony  arc,  perhaps, 
more  numerous  than  in  any  other  one  locality  in  the  United  States.  The 
jirineipal  lumber  of  Maine  and  the  North-West  is  the  white  or  soft  pine,  with 
considerable  spruce  and  hemlock  :  the  hard  pine  comes  chiefly  from  North 
Cariilina,  (leorgia,  Florida,  and  Alabama.  The  Dismal  Swamp  in  Virginia  is 
also  (piiie  a  ])r()du(  cr  of  i)ine,  spruce,  and  hemlock.  Ohio  and  Michigan  yield 
(onsii!  Table  black  walnut,  cherry,  ash,  and  white-oak,  although  these  woods 
are  also  found  elsewhere.  Louisiana  and  Mississippi  arc  also  coming  to  be 
large  Ituiiber-producers.  The  Pacific  coast  and  Roi  ky-Mountain  region 
abounds  in  a  sort  of  fir,  or  red-wood,  which  is  \ery  serviceal)lc  :  this  is  the 
])rincipal  lumber  of  Oregon.  The  city  of  Chicago  is  now  the  greatest  lumber- 
mart  of  the  world,  her  supplies  coming  chiefly  from  the  shores  of  Lake  Michi- 
gan. It  might  be  remarked  in  this  connection,  that  Chicago  and  other  lumber- 
markets  now  send  to  the  pioneer,  all  prepared  for  use,  mu(  h  of  t!-.e  building- 
material  needed  by  him.    Indeed,  to  such  a  degree  of  pcrfec  lion  is  this  science 


.1 


1^ 

ii 


!il 


■  ■■  \.-l 

■     It!'    'V 


III 


Sit' 


n 


11 


5  "4 


M7J  f '.9  TA'/A  L    II IS  TOR  Y 


carried,  that  thousands  of  ready-made  he  ises  are  sold  and  shipped  ui  their 
destinations  every  year;  the  timber  being  •.  j  cut  and  nunil)ered,  tii.u  a  -ikiltnl 
carpenter,  provided  with  tiie  pro[)er  accompanying  designs,  can  lasily  c-rect 
the  proposed  edifice  in  a  very  short  space  of  time. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  magnitude  of  the  lumhcriii^-busiiKss 
carried  on  by  individuals  and  separate  companies ;  yet  it  is  not  Ki-ncrallv 
DcBcription  realized  ;  nor  is  the  exciting,  laborious,  and  almost  romaini(  i-xp^- 
of  industry,  riencc  of  the  lumbermen.  Kvery  iixll  the  mill-owner  or  ( oiitrador 
arranges  for  a  winter's  campaign  in  the  woods.  If  the  land  be  iiis  own,  hu 
provides  equipments  and  sujiplies  for  the  men  himself;  or,  if  tiic  land  he 
another's,  he  arranges  with  the  proprietor  to  cut  the  wood  for  so  uuuh  i 
thousand  feet,  or  so  much  per  tree.  .An  eligible  neighborhood,  where  i|\(.Te 
are  plenty  of  trees,  and  a  stream  of  water  near  by,  with  perhaps  a  more  or 
less  sloping  bank,  is  selected  ;  and  thither  a  gang  of  able-bodied  woodsmen 
are  despatched  ere  snow  flies.  Rude  log-huts  called  "  camijs  "  arc  erei  idh 
with  wooden  chimneys,  and  beds  of  hemlock-boughs  ;  and  here  they  slav  fur 
the  season.  The  .staple  of  their  diet  is  salt  pork  and  rum.  .\t  niglu,  ( ards. 
story-telling,  and  general  hilarity,  beside  a  blazing  fire,  form  a  marked  (ontrast 
to  the  hard  toil  of  the  day  and  the  loneliness  and  t  heerlessness  of  a  forest- 
winter.  Such  adventures,  too,  as  the  encountering  of  wolves  and  catamounts. 
the  occasional  skating  upon  a  frozen  river,  and  the  sharj)  competition  tlirough 
the  day  with  neighboring  gangs  of  workmen,  lend  excitement  to  this  wild, 
strange  life.  Through  the  day  the  toil  is  of  the  hardest.  The  trees  are  ( ut. 
stripped  of  their  branches,  sawed  with  great  cross-cut  two-hand  saws  into  logs 
of  the  desirable  size,  and  hauled  into  convenient  localities  for  ilrawing  lo  the 
water-side.  Then,  by  means  of  a  chain,  a  skid,  and  an  ox-team,  the  logs  are 
loaded  upon  huge  sleds,  —  sometimes  only  one  end  of  the  log  being  placed 
upon  the  bob,  —  and  are  hauled  down  to  the  river  and  emptied  in,  the  ice- 
crust  serving  to  keep  them  from  floating  ofl".  I-^ach  owner's  logs  are  jiroperly 
marked  in  order  to  distinguish  them,  inasnnich  as  a  number  of  different  con- 
tractors are  at  work  often  on  the  same  .stream.  This  is  the  case  especially  in 
such  great  lumber-regions  as  the  Kennebec,  the  Penobscot,  Saginaw  River, 
(Ireen  Bay,  and  Rum  River  (Minn.).  The  season  begins  in  December,  and 
generally  ends  in  March.  Kvery  thing  de])ends  on  the  snow.  Sometimes  this 
is  so  deep,  that  the  oxen  cannot  break  paths ;  and  again  there  is  so  little,  that 
it  has  to  be  scraped  vip  at  nightfall,  and  made  into  a  road  to  be  used  onl\  u 
night ;  for  even  the  winter  sun  and  the  mildness  of  day  would  so  soften  the 
bed,  that  the  sleds  would  cut  it  all  up  ar  !  destroy  it.  Much  of  the  work  of 
hewing,  sawing,  loading,  and  hauling,  is  c  ane  in  the  stormiest  and  coldest  of 
weather. 

From  the  time  when  operations  cease  in  the  woods,  until  the  rivers  open, 
there  is  generally  a  season  of  about  two  months.  Few  of  the  hands  stay  in 
the  woods  during  this  period,  although  a  few  are  needed  to  keep  watc  h  against 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


505 


thefts.  When  spring  cornea,  the  logs  are  floated  clown  stream  in  an  immense 
ni;b>  I  ailed  a  "  drive."  (lencrally  this  branch  of  the  work  is  carried  on  by 
a  (liilLrcnt  set  of  men  from  those  who  cut  the  logs.  Here,  again,  great 
,kill  and  muscle  are  recinircd,  and  great  excitement  is  afforded.  'I'he  logs  are 
accuimilated  by  millions ;  the  streams  are  swollen  and  rapid ;  and  the  scene 
resembles  an  immense  herd  of  furious  cattle,  such  is  the  confusion,  and  leaping 
of  logs  upon  one  another.  I')vcry  now  and  then  occurs  a  "jam,"  where  two 
iiriiiDrc  logs  in  the  van  catch  against  obstructions  on  opposite  shores,  become 
ioikcil,  and  so  check  the  progress  of  the  whole  drive,  which  now  piles  itself 
u|)  like  an  ice-pack.  .\t  this  juncture  some  bold  and  dexterous  "  driver  "  runs 
out  \\\w\\  the  floating  mass,  (jiiickly  finds  by  his  practised  eye  where  the  difti- 
ciiitv  is,  and  pries  the  obstructing  logs  apart  with  his  pole  ;  then  the  whole 
drive  gives  way  with  a  tremendous  rush,  tiie  foremost  logs  shooting  away  like 
rorkcts.  and  the  heaj)  in  tiie  rear  suddenly  subsiding.  Only  with  the  utmost 
agility  is  the  adventurer  able  to  reach  the  shore.  A  whole  gang  of  men  is 
eng;ii;e(l  in  this  labor,  and  it  takes  several  days  to  reach  their  destination: 
a((tir(lingly  a  cook  accompanies  them  on  a  raft  with  their  clothing  and 
provisions,  and  ministers  to  then      ;  in  the  logging-camp. 

Finally  the  dam  is  reached  wi  re  the  mills  are  located.  Here  a  "boom," 
or  scries  of  logs  bound  together  with  strong  chains,  and  sometimes  stayed  by 
great  piers,  cat<  lies  the  drive,  from  the  confusion  of  which  the  property 
of  different  owners  is  laboriously  and  tediously  se})arateil.  Then,  through  the 
Slimmer  and  fall,  the  logs  are  forced  through  the  mills,  and  converted  i'  lO 
liimlier. 

Tlic  following  description  of  a  mill  and  mill-site  in  the  Saginaw  region, 
where  salt-boihng  is  carried  on  in  connection  with  the  sawing  of  lumber,  as 
is  elsewhere  described,  will  afford  an  excellent  idea  of  the  mayni- 

.  °  Description 

tiiile  of  this  business,  not  only  in   Michigan,  but  in  all  the  other   of  miu  and 
jiniK  ipal  lumber-regions  already  designatetl,  just  as  the  description   salt-works 

1  1-  11  11       •  ••,»!,■'  Saginaw. 

j,'ivt.ii  al)ove  applies  ecjually  to  all  winter  operations  m  the  North. 
Says  a  writer  in  "The  New- York  Tribune,"  of  an  establishment  at  Bay  City, — 
••  The  mill,  salt-works,  and  other  buiklings.  cover  a  very  large  area.  The 
rivLT-front  and  slii)s,  from  which  the  lumber,  lath,  shingles,  and  salt  can  be 
jikued  on  steam  anil  sailing  vessels,  are  a  mile  and  a  (piarter  in  extent. 
The  motive-powers  of  the  saw-mill  and  other  works  are  one  engine  of  760 
horse  power,  and  four  smaller  engines  uscil  for  various  purposes.  There  are 
225  men  eni|)loyed  in  and  about  the  mill,  salt-works,  anil  yard.  There  have 
been  265,000  feet  of  lumber  sawed  in  the  mill  in  one  day  of  eleven  and  a  cpiar- 
ter  working-hours.  The  capacity  of  the  mill  is  from  25,000,000  to  30,000,000 
feet  of  lumber  when  the  machinery  is  running  on  ordinary  time,  from  May  to 
November ;  but  the  results  can  be  doubled  in  busy  seasons  when  the  men  are 
emplcjyed  night  and  day.  In  this,  as  in  all  other  large  mills,  gang-saws  are 
used  in  addition  to  the  large  circular-saws.     The  gang-saws  are  set  upright  in 


iVi 

191 

■'] 


If 


r^\i 


)_■;       11 


u'.'l.,./  .. 


5o6 


Ii\D  US  TKIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


I 


Displace- 
ment of 
manual 
labor  by 
machinery 


frames.  There  are  two  pairs  of  gang-saws  in  this  mill :  the  largest  of  thuse 
contains  fifty-four  saws.  The  large  circular-saws  are  used  in  jiroducinj^  timlicr 
of  varying  widths,  the  log  being  adjusted  by  machinery,  so  that  any  thickiics', 
can  be  obtained.  'I"he  furnaces  are  fed  with  sawdust,  which  is  carried  liv 
means  of  endless  belts  from  below  the  saws  to  the  mouths  of  the  lonj,'  row  oi' 
furnaces.  All  of  it,  however,  is  not  needed  for  this  purpose  ;  and  the  surplus, 
together  with  a  considerable  amount  of  other  refuse,  is  conveyed  by  simiik' 
machinery  to  an  opening,  into  which  it  is  being  continually  dischar^'cd  when 
the  machinery  of  the  mill  is  in  motion,  'I'his  opening  leads  to  a  large  turnaic, 
twelve  or  fifteen  feet  in  diameter,  into  which  the  refuse  is  thrown  aial  con- 
sumed.    It  was  constructed  for  this  purjiose  alone." 

\VOOI)-\VC)KKlNti    MACIIINICRV. 

During  the  last  fifty  years  mechanical  labor  has  taken  the  place  of  manual 
labor,  in  the  sawing  up  and  shajiing  of  wood,  to  an  extraordinary  extent.  The 
greatest  i)rc)gress  has  been  made  in  the  United  States,  where  ma- 
chines have  been  absolutely  necessary  to  supi)lement  the  limited 
amount  of  human  lal)or  which  manufacturers  have  been  alilc 
to  command,  and  where  there  has  been  a  general  iin])ressi()u. 
among  workmen  and  employers  alike,  that  all  the  country  needs 
to  obviate  debt,  taxes,  anil  bail  weather,  and  to  make  the  men  handsome  and 
the  women  lovelier,  and  give  everyboily  a  thousand  dollars  in  tiie  bank,  is  tiie 
use  of  plenty  of  machinery  and  a  liberal  issue  of  ])ateiit-rights.  The  spirit 
with  which  new  maciiines  have  been  received  in  the  I'liiled  States  has  been 
very  different  from  that  wiiich  formerly  prevailed  in  luiropc,  and  is  still  mani- 
fested there  from  time  to  time.  The  result  is  a  larger  use  of  meclianii  a! 
inventions,  and  a  corresponding  imi)roveineut  in  the  jjosition  of  working-men, 
who.  from  manual  laborers,  have  risen  to  be  ilireitors  of  maciiines,  and  maste's 
of  shops. 

Since  1867  one  of  the  most  interesting  de[)artments  in  every  one  ol"  the 
world's  tairs  has  been  that  in  which  .American  woodworking  iikk  hinery  has 
been  exhibited.  'I'he  first  show  which  attracted  sjjecial  attenHon 
■^li-^axv.-  ^^'^^  ^^  Vax'm,  in  1867.  .\t  the  exhibitions  of  1S51,  1S55.  and 
ing  machine-  1862,  the  ICnglish  had  been  almost  without  rivals.  In  uSO;  tho 
fairs  ^°^^^  *  United  States  appeared  u)>on  the  scene  both  with  wood-working 
anil  metal-working  machines,  and  made  a  show  which  was  a  veri- 
table surprise  to  the  English  makers.  The  .American  exhibit  was  specially 
commented  upon  in  the  reports  made  to  all  the  governments  whose  people 
were  represented  in  the  fair.  Professor  Rcauleaux,  director  of  the  Industrial 
Academy  at  Berlin,  was  especially  ijiterested  in  the  American  machines ;  and 
he  reported  to  his  government :  "  Upon  the  whole  it  may  be  said,  that,  in 
machine-industry,  Kngland  has  partly  lost  her  formerly  undisputed  leadership, 


OF    THE    UNlTEIi    STAII-.S. 


507 


or  tli.il  slie  IS  at  least  about  to  lose  it.  ^^he  healthy,  young,  trans-Atlantic  in- 
dustry, wliith  continually  withdraws  fiom  us  energetic  and  intelligent  heads  and 
robibt  hands,  makes,  with  the  aid  of  her  peculiar  genius,  the  most  sweeping 
progress ;]  so  iliat  we  shall  soon  have  to  turn  our  front  from  Kngland  westward." 
l)i.'s(  riliTng  the  distinguishing  traits  of  .American  machines,  I'rofessor  Reau- 
Ica'ix  said,  "They  are  distinguished  from  us  by  more  direct  and  rapid  concej)- 
tiii'i.  ri'he  American  aims  straightways  for  the  needed  construction,  using  the 
inc.ui^  tTiat  appear  to  him  the  simplest  and  most  effective,  whether  new  or  oUKj 
Our  liistorically  heai)ed-up  material,  and  the  cautious  character  of  the  (lerman, 
arc  so  inseparably  interwoven,  that,  among  the  number  of  known  means,  we 
often  forget  to  ajjk  whether  they  arc  the  simi)lest,  or  whether  new  ones  might 
not  1h'  lietter.  ("rhe  American  really  constructs  in  accordance  with  the  severest 
tlu'(iriti(  al  abstraction,  observing  on  the  one  side  a  distinctly  marked-out  aim, 
wci^'hiu^  on  the  other  the  already  available  means  or  creating  new  ones,  and 
then  proc  ceding,  regaidless  of  precedents,  as  ^straight  as  possible  for  the  ub- 
jed.")  ('.  H.  Rogers  i\:  Company  of  Norwich,  Conn.,  ojjtained  the  gold  medal 
at  tiiis  iair.  .\t  I'hiladelphia,  in  iiSyG,  the  department  of  machines  and  tools 
for  \v(ir;ing  wood  was  almost  exclusively  oc<ui)icd  by  tiie  United  States.  Can- 
ad.i  >ent  a  few  machines,  dreat  IJritain  had  one  exiiibitcr,  and  tiic  rest  of  the 
worlil  perha])s  a  do/cii.  The  I'nited  States  had  attained  to  undisputed  emi- 
miu  f  in  the  originality,  variety,  and  c\(  ciicncc  of  her  wood-working  contriv- 
an<  e^ :  and  not  a  rival  tVoui  the  Old  World  dared  really  to  compete  with  her. 

Hie  sawmill  (the  pioneer  wood  working  machine)  came  into  use  in  the 
vtrv  earlv  days  of  this  country  :  but  not  till  recently  has  it  reacheil  any  thing 
like  .1  perfect  state.  Kven  yet  tiu"  saw-mill  is  not  all  that  it  should  The 
lie;  for  the  mechanical  appliances  for  handling  the  log.  for  hold-  »»w-miii. 
iiij;  it  in  place  on  the  iron  frame  wlii(  h  ( arries  it  forward  to  the  saw,  and  for 
ailjusting  the  guides  of  the  circ  ular  saw,  are  still  somewhat  crude,  and  make 
the  manufacture  of  lumber  a  dangerous  occupation.  It  is  claimed  that  more 
persons  are  maimed  and  injured  in  the  Cnited  States  from  the  use  of  circular 
saws  as  now  employed  than  from  any  other  cause,  wars  and  accidents  not 
exeepted.  If  dangerous  to  careless  sawyers,  the  mill  has  at  any  rate  become 
very  efficient  in  cutting  up  the  logs  into  jjlanks,  boards,  and  scjuare  beams,  with 
1,'reat  rajjidity,  and  little  waste  of  material.  (>ne  of  the  devices  of  the  saw- 
mill to  which  a  good  deal  of  attention  is  paid  is  the  "  dog,"  —  a  sharp  iron 
tiHith,  projecting  from  the  uiiright  iron  standard  against  which  the  log  is 
plued,  to  hold  it  steady  while  it  is  being  sawed  lengthwise.  The  "  dog  "  is 
worked  by  a  lever,  which  causes  it  to  sinV-  down  into  the  log  with  a  tight 
gri]),  and  draw  the  log  tightly  against  the  standard.  .'\  great  many  "  ilogs  "  are 
maiie  for  the  trade,  having  various  tenacity  of  grip  ;  and  every  few  years  a 
"boss  dog,"  or  a  "  boss  dog,  jun.,"  or  some  other  species  of  the  canine,  is 
Ijroiight  out  to  take  the  ])lace  of  the  inventions  which  have  jjreccded  it,  and 
are  sujiposed  not  to  do  the  work  as  well. 


I 


irr'.!> 


!..^:^''v^ 


H   r!ii' 


.|-:!1i;t   '"-''ft 


nMlf? 


808 


INDVSTKIAl.    IIISTOKY 


Saws,  of  course,  arc  used  all  the  way  upi  in  the  shai)ing  and  iiiaimt;u  lurc 
of  wood,  from  forest-work  to  <  ahiiiet-work.  Sc  an  e  a  shop  of  any  s\ix-  is 
without  its  circular  saw  for  cutting  up  wood  rapidly  ir.to  e(|nal  Icngtib,  ami 
circular  and  the  haiul-saw  is  universal.  Within  the  last  twenty-live  yi,ir->  x\\\- 
other  lawi.  bon-saws  have  come  into  use  also  for  the  inanufa.  ture  i>i  .una 
mental  work,  such  as  brackets,  j)ieces  of  irrej{ular  form  for  furniturr,  iiiii.iiiuiii^, 
for  staircases,  &c.  'i'he  ribbon-saw  is  of  two  kinds  :  it  is  eitiier  .in  indk^N 
band  of  steel,  which  passes  over  two  wheels, — one  above,  the  other  lalow,  the 
table  on  which  the  piece  of  wood  to  be  sawed  is  lai<l,  —  oi  it  is  a  straight,  slen- 
der blade,  which  works  up  and  down 
with  a  re(  iprocatiiiK  motion.  UK- 
band-saw  was  the  slowest  in  arriving 
at  i)erfection.  'I'he  blades  were  lia- 
ble to  break  with  a  sudden  stnnn. 
'l"he  blades  for  these  saws  are  miw, 
however,  of  excellent  make,  and  the 
machinery  upon  which  tluy  are 
mounted  is  of  the  most  solid  and 
non-vibrating  des(rii)tion.  I'lie  saws 
are  a  valual)le  aid  to  the  Inrnilnre- 
niaker  and  architects,  .'hey  are  re- 
sponsible for  a  great  deal  of  the 
gingerbread  ornament  put  upon  the 
eaves,  porches,  bal< onies,  and  win- 
dows of  our  modern  woiKJen  cot- 
tages ;  but  they  have  sui)stantial  ami 
valuaiile  uses,  and  are  the  orij;in  of 
su<  h  beautiful  and  inexpensive 
brackets  and  wooden  ornaineiits  lor 
interiors,  that  we  can  forgive  tlieiii 
for  wiiat  they  have  done  for  exte- 
riors. 'I'he  ileniand  for  these  s.iws 
has  been  very  large.  Exhibited  first  at  fairs  as  ( uriositics  for  (iittiiii;  up 
blocks  of  wood  into  complicated  Chinese  puzzles,  tiiey  soon  <  ame  into  j,en- 
cral  use  in  all  practical  work.  A  great  many  of  the  general  machine-shoiis  ot" 
the  United  States  are  devoted  to  their  manufacture.  The  saws  are  workeil 
either  by  steam-power  or  by  means  of  a  treadle.  The  reciprocating  saw  ( an 
be  given  a  speed  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  cuts  a  minute  by  means  of  a 
treadle,  the  saw  working  so  easily  that  the  workman  is  in  no  resjjcc  t  embar- 
rassed with  the  action  of  his  foot. 

Some  very  ingenious  improvements  have  been  made  in  the  United  States 
upon  that  most  universal  of  wood-working  machines,  the  turning-lathe.  TIk' 
machine  -  lathe   originally   was   devoted    only    to   the    jiroduction   of  straii,ht 


HAND-SAW. 


Oh     Till:     r XI TED    STATES. 


509 


rDund  ^ti»•ks  for  l)room-luuitlli.'s,  hanistL-rs,  parts  of  chairs,  ttc,  and  other  simple 
roiiiiil  nbJLTts.  'I'hc  chisels,  which  cut  away  tiic  wood  as  the  rough  .sticks 
rcvolviil  at  fjreat  speed,  were  (  arried  alon^'  inmi  one  end  of  the  Turning. 
sti(  k  til  the  other  l)y  tool-posts,  which  were  operated  by  ioiij,'  feed-  '"**"• 
mru^.  If  it  was  desired  to  turn  the  lianister.  ciiair-len.  or  other  ol>je(  t.  in 
,inv  inttern.  tiie  chisel  had  to  lie  ap|)lied  by  hand,  and  guided  l)y  the  eye  of 
ilu'  workman.  .About  twenty  five  years  ago  the  lathe  was  iniprosed.  so  as  to 
|iiitiirin  the  whole  business  of  carving  a  chair-leg  of  any  pattern.  The  slid- 
iii)itiHil  carrier  w.is  siipjilied  with  two  tools.  One.  a  chisel,  was  fixed,  and 
w.b  iiiide  to  rough  off  the  work  ;  the  second,  a  V-shaped  cutter,  cut  out 
i1r'  |i.illern.  being  guideil  by  a  template  fixed  to  the  bed  of  the  lathe.  A 
kiiilc.  whose  edge  was  fashioned  according  to  the  form  to  be  produced,  was 
inuk  lo  move  vertically  in  a  frame  behind  the  lathe.  .\s  the  tool-carrier 
|i,b^L(l  along,  this  knife  was  made  to  descend,  and  smooth  olT  the  pattern. 
Ilv  thi^  apparatus  it  became  jiossible  to  turn  out  chair  legs  with  the  accuracy 
.ut.imeil  by  hand,  and  with  increased  s|)eed.  The  lathe  was  also  so  improved 
IS  to  permit  the  tiirning  out  of  wood 
111  elliptical  and  sipiare  forms.  The 
Milk  was  given  two  motions.  It  re- 
\olvud  rapidly  ujion  its  axis,  and  at  the 
\iiiu'  time  received  a  motion  from  side 
111  side  by  means  of  eccentrics.  i"vc..  in 
till.'  yearin^:  ;  so  that  it  approached  and 
receded  from  the  cutting-tool  sufti- 
I  iently  to  give  it  a  scpiare  or  elliptical 

siirt.u  e.  This  style  of  machine  has  proved  useful  in  turning  out  wood  for 
|iatteriii ;  and  it  has  been  adoptetl  by  the  brass,  silver,  and  gold  smiths  in  the 
"s|)inning-up  "  of  llat  sheets  of  metal  into  hollow-ware,  in  which  process  a 
lilock  iif  a  certain  shape  anil  a  flat  disk  of  niet.al  are  put  into  the  lathe,  and 
tlie  metal  is  made  to  lie  down  ujuin  and  take  the  shape  of  the  block  by 
jiressing  it  with  a  smooth  steel  tool,  both  revolving  rapiiUy  iluring  the 
proi'ess. 

I'laning-machincs  were  introduced  at  a  very  early  day.  I'hey  are  of  two 
kinds.  In  one  style  cutting-blades  are  mounted  upon  a  cylinder,  and  the 
jilank  or  strip  of  wood  to  be  planed  is  passed  through  between  pianing- 
tlie  ])]aiier  and  a  he,ivy  roller,  which  are  fixed  the  right  distance  ""Chines. 
apart  by  means  of  screws:  in  the  other  style  the  cutting-tools  are  chisels, 
mounted  at  right  angles  upon  two  spokes  of  iron,  and  made  to  revolve  in  a 
( ireie  at  enormous  speeil.  These  machines  are  made  to  plane  horizontally  or 
vertically,  and  to  deal  with  wood  across  the  grain,  with  knotty  wood,  and 
Iilanks  and  beams  of  all  descriptions. 

Tile  sash,  blind,  and  door,  and  the  hand-plane  industries  have  given  rise  to 
a  variety  of  machines   for  cutting  out   mortises,   tenons,   grooves,   slots,  and 


ri.ANEB  ANU  MATellIN(iMACIIlNK. 


I 


>..i!:!: 


510 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Machinery 
for  making 
sashes, 
blinds,  and 
doors. 


joints  of  all  kinds.  The  work  is  generally  clone  in  these  machines  by  means 
of  chisels  anil  saws.  This  class  of  machines  has  miiltiiiiicd  verv 
fast  since  1861 ,  and  has  concentrated  in  factories  a  large  amount 
of  work  which  was  formerly  carried  on  by  hand,  and  scattered  lar 
and  wide  among  small  shops.  It  has  also  greatly  lessened  tlie 
art  of  production.  The  machines  are  all  very  simple,  \\\wyA\ 
frequently  very  ingenious,  and  work  with  great  precision.     The  framing,  sliaii- 

ing,  and  panelling  of 
windows,  doors,  and 
blinds,  is  now  done 
entirely  by  machine- 
ry ;  and  the  apjilica- 
tion  of  mec'  'nil  al  la 
bor  in  this  industrv 
has  gone  so  lar,  that 
even  the  \s\:c  stajiles 
which  fasten  the  rod 
of  the  window- blind 
tt)  the  slats  are  all 
driven  by  machine, 
and  with  incrediMe 
sjjced.  If  a  ma(  bine 
were  invented  to 
brush  on  the  green 
l)aint  Vj  the  window- 
blind,  sash,  or  door,  there  woidil  be  nothing  more  to  do  in  the  constnu  lion 
of  tliose  ol)jects  which  could  be  tlone  by  machine,  'i'hat  a  device  of  that 
character  could  be  made  is  apparent  '  oth  by  the  aiti  of  the  unassisted  reason, 
and  froni  the  fact  that  f.ngland  ex- 
hibited a  i)ainting- machine  at  Phila- 
delphia in  1S76,  It  was.  in  fa(  t.  her 
only  wood-working  machine  shown. 

One  of  the  comparatively  recent  in- 
ventions is  a  set  of  machines  for  making 

Barrel-  ^'^'-'    'liffi-'ri-'llt    ])arlS    of    bar- 

making-  rels.      In    these   the    staves 

machines.  ,        ,    ,        .    •    •    .     i 

are  sawed  out,  bent,  jointed, 
and  prepared  for  the  barrel,  with  scarce- 
ly the  aid  of  any  hand-tool  whatever. 

The  heads  of  the  barrels  and  the  wooden  hoops  are  also  sha])e(l  by  appro- 
Carving  and  priatc  inventions.  There  are  also  now  in  use  machines  for  carving, 
engraving.  engraving  and  jiortrait  engines,  lathes  for  cutting  and  boring 
spools,    box-inortising-machines,    stair-jointers,    hub-boxing-machines,    cork- 


TWKNTV-FdlK-lNtH    I'l.ANHR. 


M()1'1.I)1N(.-MA(  IIINR. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


5" 


cutters,  sliingle  and  lath  saws,  a  variety  of  apparatus  for  bending  wood  for 
carriages,  &c.,  and  shoe-peggers.  The  latter  are  often  made  so  as  to  drive  a 
peg  into  the  shoe  the  moment  it  is  made  from  a  ribbon  of  hard  wood,  coiled 
lip  like  a  spring  in  tiie  machine,  and  fed  forward  as  it  is  wanted.  Peg.-;  are 
also  made  by  the  bushel  by  means  of  it,  and  supplied  to  the  trade  for  hand- 
pegging.  It  is  said  that  shoe-pegs  are  made  on  such  a  scale  in  Connecticut, 
,111(1  so  cheaply,  that  they  are  sometimes  sold  for  oats,  —  a  legend  whicii  will 
■lo  now  to  be  placed  on  the  shelf  with  the  kindred  tjle  of  the  fortunes  made  by 
'unnecticut  jjeddlers  in  retailing  wooden  machine-made  nutmegs.  A  great 
■leal  of  machinery  is  also  used  in  cutting  out  and  jointing  wooden  Toy-making 
•iiys  and  automatons,  such  as  snakes,  clog-cLncers,  dolls,  furni-  """chinery. 
•lire,  mechanical  playthings,  wooden  pipes,  tenpins,  boats,  puzzles,  blocks,  &c. 
Franc  e  formerly  had  almost  a  monopoly  of  tlie  manufacture  of  toys,  and  her 
nigenuity  in  devising  new  ideas  is  still  unexcelled.  Hut  her  toy^  have  been 
marlv  ail  hand-made,  and  .American  machine-made  wooden  toys  are  proving 
a  Ibrmidahle  rival  to  the  product  of  her  factorie.-).  'I'hey  have  become  so 
wiihin  tiie  last  ten  years. 

Wood  is  one  of  the   raw  ])roducts  which    enter   into   the    manufacturing 
industries,  whose  cost  is  generally  so  small,  compared  with  the  labor  expended 
upon  it.  tliat  it  does  not  usually  form  any  material  part  of  the  cost   Extensive 
(if  tiu'  article  made  from  it.     Houses  and  bridges  which  contain  a   "se  of  wood 
^ireat  de.ii  of  lumber  are,  of  course,  exceptions.     Usually  the  cost  '"   "'    '"*" 
of  wooden-ware  is  attributable  chiefly  to  the  wages  of  the  men  employed  in 
it^  nianntac  ture.     Nino  tenths  of  the   sellin;,'-price   of  carriages,   toys,  ships, 
fiirniiinc,  tlie  minor  parts  of  a  house,  brackets,  picture-frames,  &:c..   Houses  and 
h  labor.    This  being  the  case,  and  labor  being  so  high  in  this  '"■'''eeS' 
(diintry,  the  public  necessity  for  an  extensive  employment  of  time  and  labor 
saving  nKU  hinery  in  the  manufacture  of  wood  is  apparent.     Congress  has  given 
pr()te(  tion  to  the  making  of  wooden-ware  by  a  heavy  tariff,  steadily   Wooden- 
maintained  ;  but,  without  the  aid  of  machinery  to  cheapen  proiluc-   ware. 
tion,  it  is  doubtful  whether  half  the  manufacturers  of  wood  in  this  country 
eotiid  hold  tiioir  ground  againit  foreign  competition.    Witii  this  protection,  and  a 
plenty  of  maciiinery,  they  are  able  to  outstrip  all  rivals  in  supplying  the  Ameri- 
can market  with  all  wooilen-ware  in  common  use  ;  and,  to  some  extent,  they  are 
now  able  to  export  common  goods.     They  have  long  been  able  to  export  ware 
lahricaled  from  peculi.ir  American  woods,  such  as  l-,ickory,  and  peculiar  inven- 
ti(iii>.  like  the  cabinet  organ ;    but    it    is   only  recently,  and   by  the   aid  of 
liiadiinery,  tiiat  ware  made  of  common  woods  has  been  made  by  them  a 
leature  of  any  interest  in  the  export  tiade.     Coods   upon  which  machinery 
cannot  be  employed,  and  which  requi.e  the  expenditure  of  a  great  deal  of 
l.ilior,  wc  still  buy  of  other  nations  ;    such  as  lac(iuered  ware,  carved  wooden 
docks,  carved   paper-knives,  elaborately-carved   cabinets   and   inlaid   tables, 
curious  sets  of  chess-men.  fe-.  : 


'"^'r^nfrrrfrf^ff]  '{•{  I 


m 


512.  INDUSTRTAL    N/STOA'V 

The  numlier  of  establishments  in  the  United  States  employing  wooil  work 
ing  machinery  to  any  extent  in  1870  was  about  57,000.     They  were  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

'^'•*'S.  NO.  OP  FACIDlMKq. 

,          Agricultural  implements o^q-c, 

Boats ,  - . 

Moxes ,_04,, 

Brooms (j,- 

..     .  Wagons l^^cyy^ 

Cars ,7-, 

Cooperage 4,00, 

Cork-cutting 

Furniture 5,ijt>o 

Hubs,  spokes,  and  fellies jo> 

Kindling-wood -■o 

Lumber  (planed) 1,1 1^ 

Lumber  (>>a\ved) 25,817 

Lumber  (staves,  &c.) 15 

Musical  instruments 340 

Oars. 25 

Sashes,  doors,  and  blinds i,6or; 

,     Slii|)-I)uilding 763 

,        Shoe-jiegs .  26 

Wishing-niachines 64 

Wheelbarrows 23 

Wheelwrights 3,613 

Wooden  brackets 65 

Wooden-ware 269 

Wood  (turned  and  carved) 733 

These  establishments  employed  steam-engines,  wind-mills,  an<l  water. 
wheels  which  had  a  capacity  of  850,000  horse  power  :  and  it  is  e>lini;ite(l, 
moderately,  that  the  number  of  wood-working  machin' s  in  operation  in  thi' 
factories  and  mills  was  120,000.  Ten  years  ago  it  was  estimated  tliat  thi. 
total  number  of  wood-working  machines  in  France  was  only  10.000.  Tiic 
difference  is  partly  explained  by  the  circumstance  that  America  is  a  ,i,'reai  ibr- 
esting  country,  and  not  only  obtains  from  her  own  woodlands,  and  works  uji 
in  her  own  shops,  all  the  co.nmon  timber  she  consume.^,  but  a  vast  amount  ol 
lumber  is  sawed  and  planed  for  exportation  ;  whereas  France  is  oi)liK<-(l  to 
import  a  large  amoimt  of  timber  which  comes  to  her  already  prepared  lor 
consumption.  .Mlowing  for  this  difference  in  the  foresting  products  of  the 
two  countries,  the  comjiarison  in  the  amoimt  of  wood-working  machiner\ 
employed  by  each  is  stil'  remarkable.  \  comparison  ecjually  (iivorable  to  the 
Americans  could  be  made  with  every  other  coimtry  in  the  world.  To  liuilil 
the  machinerj'  required  by  the  American  shojis  devoted  to  wood-working,  and 
supply  that  which  is  required  to  replace  the  worn-out  and  antifjuated,  call>  for 
the  services  of  several  hundred  machine-shops  and  the  labor  of  thousands  ot 
our  countrymen. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


513 


FURNITURE. 

The  furniture-industry  had  no  definite  beginning,  as  did  some  of  the  other 
trades  of  the  country ;  though,  hlce  the  mushroom  which  came  in  one  night 
through  a  tar-walk,  it  had  a  definite  debut  in  society  as  a  full-  ^^^^  „{•  fy^. 
I'rown  fiutory-industry.  It  grew  up  (juietly  in  the  carjjenter-shops  niture-man- 
scattered  through  the  land  in  every  village  and  hamlet,  beginning 
in  a  modest  way  with  simple  hard-wood  chairs,  benches,  dining-tables,  and 
bedsteads,  all  plain- 
ly !)iit  strongly 
made,  and  without 
anv  pretence  of 
stvle.  riie  carpen- 
ter, wlien  out  of  a 
jol)  of  house-build- 
ing, fdled  np  the 
dull  days  with  fur- 
nitiire making,  not 
as  a  regular  trade, 
but  as  a  moans  of 
saving  his  time. 
The  chairs  were 
straight-backed  af- 
fairs, often  with 
bent  hickory  arms. 
They  were  general- 
ly uiK  ushioned,  but 
they  supported  the 
form  admirably; 
and  so  well  did 
tluy  |)erform  their 
imrposc,  that  nine- 
tentlis  uf  the  heav- 
ily upholstered  and 
drajied  chairs  of  the  *  chmk. 

present  era  t)f  fash- 

ionaliie  arl  are  far  less  comfortable  and  healthful  to  the  occupant  than  the 
(luaint  hickory  chairs  which  come  down  to  us  in  ancient  homes  from  a  hundred 
years  ago.  The  tables  were  simple,  but  heav\ .  Ihcy  generally  had  hinged 
leaves  in  order  to  economize  the  space  of  the  ajiartment  when  not  in  use. 
Sometimes  they  were  made  so  that  the  whole  top  revolved  on  a  hinge,  and 
toukl  he  turned  up  perpendicularly,  anil  the  table  pushed  ui)  close  against  the 
wall.     Oftentimes  the  tables  were  hinged  to  the  wall  of  the  room,  so  as  to  turn 


/ 


'A= 


I 


SM 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


up  flat  against  it  when  not  in  use,  the  leg  of  the  table  hanging  down  against  it 
when  thus  raised,  but  swinging  tlown  into  its  proper  position  when  tiic  table 
was  lowered.  The  bedsteads  were  often  as  .strongly  built  as  a  house.  There 
was  no  grudging  of  material  in  them.  The  four  posts  were  huge  and  hji-h 
and  the  sides  and  the  head-boards  almost  as  thick  as  the  side  of  a  shji 


A  framework  was  built  over  them  for  the  curtains  of  .the  bed.  Less  fur- 
niture was  used  in  that  age  than  at  jiresent,  and  the  wants  of  the  <  olonists 
were  amply  .supplied  by  this  desultory  manufacture  in  the  cariK'iitcr-sliops. 
Besides,  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  a  great  deal  of  furniture  was  im- 
l)orted  from  Europe.  Mahogany  furniture,  which  was  then  very  iuik  h  m 
fashion,  was  almost  exclusively  imported. 

.\fter  the  Revolutionary 
war,  ornamental  woods  were 
Mahogany  freely  iin|i()rte(l 
furniture.  from'  tile  West 
Indies  and  South  .America. 
Carpenters  then  l)e^an  ti, 
make  mahogany  furniture,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  nioi^  com- 
mon \V()(o(ls.  Tlic  wood  was 
generally  worked  uji  solid. 
The  chairs,  bedsteads,  (ahi- 
nets,  chests,  and  tal)ks  into 
wh'  li  it  was  fasiiioned.  were 
all  made  by  hand  ;  and  the 
workmen  lavished  upon  tlieni 
an  amount  of  loving  ( arviii^' 
and  dccoraticjn  which  showed 
that  their  hearts  were  in  the 
work.  I'ieccs  of  this  mas- 
sive old  furniture  arc  still  preserved  in  many  old  families  as  heirlooms ;  and 
when  they  stray  into  the  general  market,  as  they  (x casionally  do,  thev  are 
eagerly  snapjied  u])  by  wealthy  families  at  fabulous  prices.  There  was  not 
very  much  of  it  made,  however,  owing  to  its  cost  and  the  limited  demand  lor 
it.  It  was  hard  to  make  it,  also,  in  competition  with  the  luiropean  makers ; 
f(jr  France,  Knglanil,  and  (lennany  had  great  factories  employed  in  tiiis  (ia.ss 
of  manufactures,  and  furniture  could  be  turned  out  at  very  much  less  ((jst 
than  here. 

The  industry  first  began  to  differentiate  itself  from  the  general  carpenter- 
Furniture-  business  in  1812.  ("ongress  imposed  a  tax  of  thirty  per  (  cut  upon 
mailing  in  all  imported  articles  of  furniture,  and  maintaineil  a  duty  of  about 
'*"■  that  weight,  by  the  way,  imder  all  subsecpient  tarifls,  free  or  pnjlec- 

tive,  steadily.     The  two  or  three  years  of  war  following  181 2  were  an  additional 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


515 


protection  to  the  furniture-makers,  and  by  1815  -u  large  number  of  them  were 
rci^tilarly  engaged  in  the  business  in  all  principal  cities.  From  R^pjj  deveu 
that  period  the  rise  of  the  industry  has  been  rapid:  it  has  mv>re  opment until 
than  kept  pace  with  population.  Soon  after  181 5  Amercan  ideas  '  **" 
ami  vigor  began  to  manifest  themselves  in  the  business,  especially  in  the  pro- 
(liK  tion  of  furniture  for  common  use.  The  rocking-chair,  a  purely  American 
idea,  was  largely  manufactured.  Straw,  cane,  wicker,  and  rattan  seats  and 
backs  to  chairs,  were  introduced.  New  woods  were  put  to  use,  such  as  cherry, 
liiittcrnut,  ash,  and  black-walnut.  Wicker-work  chairs  were  made.  Machinery 
was  constnicted  to  produce  the  parts  of  chairs,  beds,  bureaus.  &c.,  in  whole- 
sale lots.  The  art  of  veneering  was  adopted,  which  was  to  furniture  what 
silver-plating  was  to  table-ware.  A  variety  of  charming  anil  serviceable  forms 
were  invented,  and  all  furniture  was  made  lighter,  handsomer,  and  cheaper. 
Ihe  use  of  machinery  cheapened  furniture  immensely,  and  brought  within  the 
rea(  h  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people  that  profusion  of  <:hairs,  tables, 
bureaus,  &c.,  which  had  abounded  on'y  in  wealthy  houses.  The  country  was 
growing;  in  wealth  too  rapidly.  The  sale  of  furniture  grew  enormously.  Families 
bought  a  vlozen  i)ieces  of  it  where  they  had  bought  one  before,  and  furniture- 
making  soon  became  one  of  the  most  diffuseil  and  most  tlourishing  forms  of 
native  industry.  Hy  1850  the  American  makers  had  almost  entire  possession 
ol'  the  market :  indeed,  they  had  possession  of  it  for  all  except  a  certain 
lier(entage  of  the  more  fashionable  and  costly  varieties.  The  (piantity  of 
(Dinmon  furniture  imported  was  a  mere  leaf  floating  on  the  surface  of  the 
stream  of  native  imnluction. 

The  growth  of  the  bus'..iess  since   1H50  will  be  illustrated  by   Growth 
the  following  figures  :  —  »'""  '^^o- 


TS50 
iSoo 
lS-0 


Iiuliidinj;  iron  bedstead,  refrigerator, 
iS;o  '     picture -frame,    and     looking -j^l  ass 
'     makers 


s 


Ol'IiKATIVUS. 


3.594 
5,981 

6,312 


22,010 
27,016 
S3.2'>'< 

57-09' 


VAUIH  OF 
I'KODUCT. 


;p  1 7,663,000 

25,632,000 
69,082,000 

75,539,000 


Within  the  last  twenty  years  the  business  has  become  subdivided  greatly. 
\ery  tew  makers  now  attem])t  to  produce  all  the  artic:les  needed  to  equip  a 
house  for  occupancy.     In  the  thickly-wooded  districts   many  fac-    YLtzKnx  tub- 
tories  confine  themselves  simply  to  getting  out  furniture  in  the   division  of 
rough  by  means  of  machinery,  sending  it  to  the  large  cities  to  be     "■'"'■»• 
finished  ft)r  the  market.     'Ihere  are  now  so  many  special  styles  of  chairs  mufle, 
—  office,  dining-room,  cane-seat,  wicker,  camp,  upholstered,  bent-wood,  and 


5'6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


SO  on,  —  tliat  large  numbers  of  makers  devote  themselves  to  one  specialty  in 
chairs.  Some  factories  make  a  specialty  of  sofas,  some  of  ottomans,  otlu-rs 
of  tele-i-tetes  and  divans.  There  are  a  large  number  who  make  special  st\ks 
of  tables,  —  dining,  ironing,  card,  billiard,  extension,  library,  carved,  jnl.ud 
and  centre  tables.  Some  make  bedsteads  alone  ;  though  the  common  plan  is 
now  to  make  l)edroom-furniture  in  sets,  the  sets  including  a  bed,  bureau,  ( om 
mode,  washstand,  table,  and  three  or  four  chairs.  One  class  of  makes  now 
confine  themselves  to  gilded  or  enamelled  furnaure  ;  others  to  solid,  ( arvcd, 
and  inlaid  sets.  'i"he  most  fashionable  makers  keep  a  corps  of  desigiurs,  iinl 
make  sets  for  parlor,  bedroom,  dining-room,  &c.,  to  order,  often  takiiii;  ilic 
measure  of  a  room,  and  adapting  the  pieces  to  it. 

It  is  only  within  the  last  ten  or  (iftecn  years  that  American  makers  luivc 
begun  to  pay  any  especial  attention  to  a  foreign  trade.  As  furniture  is  a  ( lass 
Cultivation  "^  products  into  the  making  of  which  art  ideas  largely  enter,  and 
of  foreign  the  artistic  is  the  special  field  ii\  which  Americans  have  Ijcen 
"""  "*'■  behind  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  furniture-dealers  have  i)een  afraid 
to  venture  into  the  foreign  markets.  At  the  Paris  l\xhibition  in  1X67  iIr- 
United  States  were  represented  by  so  insignifi<  ant  a  display  of  furniture,  that  the 
visitor  would  not  have  known  that  they  were  represented  at  all.  The  display 
consisted  of  a  few  camp-chairs,  a  few  rocking-chairs,  an  inlaid  table  trom 
Wisconsin,  and  a  laurel-wood  door  from  California.  Our  manufacturers  have 
gained  confidence  since  1867.  In  1876  they  were  represented  at  i'liiladel- 
phia  most  creditably  :  they  made  a  splendid  and  showy  display.  In  all  ( 0111 
mon  fiirniture  their  styles  were  original,  and  their  workmanship  of  siiiierior 
description.  In  elegant  furniture  their  carving,  finish,  gilding,  ^:c.,  were  ail 
that  could  be  desired,  and  were  fully  equal  to  those  of  foreign  makers.  That 
exhibition  was  a  great  en<;oiiragement  to  .\mcrican  makers,  and  they  are  now 
exporting  their  goods. 

The  one  weak  point  in  .American  furniture  is  the  ku  k  of  originality  ol  |iat 
tern  in  the  more  artistic  pieces.  Kvery  thing  is  borrowed  fron^  the  iileas  of 
Lack  of  the  French  or  the  English.     Whatever  hapjjcns  for  th    time  to  he 

originality,  popular  abroad  —  whether  it  is  the  style  of  "Louis  XIV.,"  the 
"  Louis  XV."  patterns,  the  '"  renaissance,"  the  "  rococo,"  the  "  (^ueen  \nne,"  the 
"Eastlake,"  or  what  not  —  is  copied  immediately  and  slavishly  by  the  .\nie.iran 
designers.  This  fact  is  both  a  source  of  regret  to  their  countrymen,  and  is  the 
reason  why  so  much  costly  fiirniture  has  always  been  imjjorted.  No  adiiiirable 
American  style  has  been  developed  ;  and  buyers  of  artistic  fiirniture  depend 
on  Kurope  for  their  styles,  and  prefer,  when  possible,  to  buy  the  furniture  really 
made  in  the  workshops  which  set  t'le  style,  rather  than  the  imitation  by  the 
American  workman.  Nothing  remains  to  be  desired  in  the  way  of  ( onunuii 
furniture  ;  but,  in  the  line  of  artistic  fiirniture,  every  thing  is  to  be  desired.  A 
gleam  of  the  dawn  of  a  better  order  of  things  was  seen  at  the  Philadelphia 
Exhibition  in  two  or  three  pieces,  bedsteads  all  of  them,  which  were  carved  in 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


m 


a  truly  American  style,  deriving  its  inspiration  from  a  study  of  the  plants  of 
our  own  soil,  and  from  a  study  of  American  ideas.  One  was  carved  with  the 
symbolic  ornaments  of  the  lily,  the  poppy,  and  the  Virginia  creeper.  Here 
was  ;i  suggestion  of  an  American  style.  When  the  idea  shall  have  been  devel- 
opeil,  and  American  pattern-makers  shall  fill  their  heads  with  ideas  taken  from 
the  suggestions  of  our  own  beloved  land  and  reproduce  them  in  their  furni- 
lure,  they  will  occupy  a  position  inferior  to  none  aiaoag  civilized  nations. 

STAKCH. 

When  Mr.  Tilden,  after  his  defeat  for  the  Presidency  in  1877,  got  back  from 
his  subseciuent  trip  to  Juirope,  he  made  a  speech  from  his  residence  in  (Ira- 
mcrcv  Park,  New-York  City,  of  which  the   newspapers  made  a 

,,     ,     ,  r  1  •       1  •      Uses  of  corn. 

great  deal  of  fun.  He  alluded  to  the  variety  of  products  in  this 
country  which  are  not  yet  manufactured  and  utilized  for  the  foreign  trade  to 
the  extent  of  which  they  are  capable.  "  Ks|)ecially  cereals,"  he  said.  He 
then  went  on  to  specify  Iniiian-corn,  which  can  be  prepared  in  so  "  many 
delicious  forms  for  human  food."  Acting  on  the  suggestion  that  Europe  needs 
to  be  riviiized,  and  life  there  made  joyous  by  imparting  to  its  people  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  mysteries  of  cooking  this  succulent  grain  into  pudding,  corn-cake, 
iiuish,  &c.,  Mr.  Abram  S.  Hewitt  of  New  York  proposed  in  Congress  that  a 
(orn  kit'hen  should  be  established  at  Paris  at  the  Kxhibition  of  1878,  in  order 
ti)  I  reute  a  demand  in  Europe  for  Indian-corn  by  showing  the  natives  how  to 
1  uok  it.  This,  in  turn,  made  sport  for  the  newspapers,  and  the  sky  was  dark- 
ened with  the  ( louds  of  lurid  paragraphs  and  bad  jokes  which  filled  the  air. 

In  spite  of  th'-  American  propensity  for  looking  at  the  funny  side  of  every 
thing,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  Mr.  Tilden's  remarks.  The  United 
States  do  not  yet  utilize  their  grains  for  export  to  the  extent  of  which  they  are 
capable,  and  there  is  a  va.st  field  here  open  for  profitable  effort.  The  success 
of  one  single  branch  of  the  manufacture  of  cereals  is  indicative  of  what  may 
vet  be  (lone  in  other  directions. 

Corn-starch  is  purely  an  American  invention.     Its  birth  dates  from  1842. 
Previous  to  that  year,  all  the  starch  known  to  commerce  was  made  from  wheat, 
barley,  rice,  and  i)otatoes,  princijjally  from  the  first  and  last  named.  corn-»t«rch 
I'otato-starch  was  introduced  into  the  United  States  in  1802  by  John  »n  American 
liiddis  of  Pennsylvania  ;  and  a  large  number  of  factories  were  built  '"'""*"'"• 
to  make  the  article,  especially  in  the  cotton-factory  districts,  the  factories  being 
their  principal  customers.     A  number  of  wheat-starch  fiictories  were  also  built. 
Abroad  wheat  was  the  principal  material  used.     The  consumption  of  starch 
made  from  it  was  enormous,  especially  in  England  and  France,  whose  cotton- 
factories  took  a  large  part  of  the  whole  product.     In  1842  Thomas  Thomai 
Kingsford,  while  superintending   the  wheat-starch  factory  of  W.   Kingsford. 
Colgate  iV  Company  in  New  Jersey,  made  experiments  with  corn,  and  satisfied 


j 


r.'l 


■it 


«ti 


5'8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


himself  that  corn-starch  would  be  a  better  commercial  article  in  some  respects 
than  any  other.  In  1848  a  factory  was  built  for  him  at  Oswego,  N.V,,  1,.. 
gentlemen  living  in  the  city  of  Auburn  in  the  same  State,  the  location  licinu 
selected  on  account  of  the  ease  of  obtaining  large  shipments  of  corn  iVoni 
the  West  at  Oswego  by  an  all-water  rout.,*,  an<l  on  account  of  the  nearness  of 
Oswego  to  the  large  commercial  cities  and  manufacturing  States.  'I'lie  (;ii  lory 
was  a  prosperous  concern  from  the  outset ;  and  it  has  grown  so  fast,  that  it 
occupies  ten  acres  of  land,  and  has  machinery  for  treating  950,000  bushels  of 
com  a  year.  Its  product  is  now  about  10.300  tons  of  starch  a  year.  In  iSc8 
another  great  concern  was  started  at  (lien  Cov.  L.I.,  by  the  seven  .Messrs. 
Duryea.  The  two  establishments  Te  now  the  larj; -st  starch-factories  in  the 
world.  After  i860,  when  the  two  concerns  had  fairly  develoijcd  their  caijahiii- 
ties,  they  put  an  end,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  to  the  importations  of  starch 
to  the  United  States.  They  followed  this  iij)  by  an  em])hatic  l)id  for  foreij^n 
patronage.  They  sent  their  starch  all  ov»'r  the  world.  'I'hey  made  it  in  tiiree 
forms,  —  'or  cooking  (in  which  form  it  is  called  "maizena"),  for  laundry-use, 
and  for  cotton-factory  purposes  ;  and  they  got  gold  medals  for  it  everywhere, 
Bxport«of  and  enormous  orders.  In  1864  the  export  was  scarce  1,000,000 
•t«rch.  pounds:  in  1877  it  was  barely  short  of  10,000,000.      ThesiKiess 

of  the  two  great  concerns  named  has  led  others  into  the  business,  whic  h  is 
Corn-ttarch  '^rK^  ^i"*'  prosj)ering.  C'orn-starch  has  not,  however,  superseded 
v*.  wheat-  the  manufacture  of  wheat-starch,  and  that  branch  of  the  Inisiness 
is  also  continued  on  a  large  scale.  In  1870  the  total  niiinl)er  of 
starch-factories  in  the  United  States  was  195,  the  number  of  operatives  2,072, 
and  the  product  worth  55,995,000.  The  business  is  destined  to  have  a  j,'re,it 
future  develo])ment. 

The  proportions  of  native  starch  in  the  different  grains  is  as  follows  :  Corn, 
from  sixty  to  eighty-five  jjcr  cent  ;  wheat,  sixty  l)er  cent  ;  rye,  sixty  ;  oats,  forty- 
six  ;  barley,  fifty-seven  ;  rice,  sixty-one  ;  pease,  thirty-seven  ;  and  beans,  tliirty 
eight  ;  and  the  percentage  in  potatoes  is  sixty-two.  There  is  no  reason  why 
corn-starch  — so  delicious  for  food,  and  so  vaiiial)le  .is  sizing,  and  so  (heap  — 
should  not  supersede  all  others,  and  why  the  United  .States  should  not  supply 
the  greater  part  of  the  world  with  it.  Its  use  as  food  is  rai)idly  increasing. 
It  needs  only  to  be  known  to  1)C  embraced  as  a  regular  |)art  of  the  l)ill  of  fare. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  pity  that  the  corn-kit(-hen  of  Mr.  Hewitt  was  not  added  to  the 
F^xhibition  of  1878,  after  all,  as  one  of  the  attractions  of  the  American 
department. 

W'INF,,    .SI'IRIT.S,    AND    UKKR. 

One  of  the  forms  in  which  the  grains  and  fruits  and  other  raw  products  of 
the  United  States  are  utilized  for  commerce  is  in  t  le  manufacture  of  stiniiilat 
ing  beverages.  Mr.  Tilden  did  not  refer  to  this  class  of  manufactures  when 
he  commended  the  idea  of  bringing  the  things  whicii  can  be  made  out  of  tlie 


OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 


S»9 


cereals  of  the  land  to  the  attention  of  foreign  nations.     There  has  been  ample 
(levtlDpment  in  that  direction  already. 

Nearly  all  the  colonists  of  America,  especially  those  living  south  of  (lon- 
nectic  lit,  brought  with  them  to  this  country  a  taste  for  wine,  beer,  and  whiskey. 
The  latter  two  beverages  were  pojjular  among  the  middle  and  laboring  classes 
in  Kn^land  and  the  Netherlands,  and  the  former  among  the  gentry.  g,,,y  ^^  ^^ 
Wine  was  a  luxury  which  almost  all  who  came  to  this  continent  itimuianti 
had  to  do  without  for  a  long  period  ;  but  the  population  began  to  ''''  •="'"'"'•*•• 
makf  beer  and  whiskey,  and  to  import  what  they  couhl  not  make,  almost  as 
soon  as  they  landed  from  their  ships.  In  every  large  company  of  artisans  sent 
out  to  the  jolonies,  a  few  brewers  were  regularly  included  among  the  rest. 
P'or  a  long  period,  however,  the  majority  of  the  colonists  brewed  their  own 
k'cr  at  iiome,  just  as  many  farmers  do  still,  in  this  present  age  of  coionitu 
huge  breweries  and  cheaj)  lager,  in  the  country-towns  in  the  hay-  brewed  beer. 
ing  and  harvest  season.  In  1649  it  is  reported  that  Virginia  had  "six  public 
brew- houses ;  but  most  brew  their  own  beer,  strong  and  good."  Virginia  gave 
a  warnicr  welcome  to  luxuries  of  this  descri|)tion  than  some  of  the  other  colo- 
nies ;  but  the  condition  of  things  was  about  the  same  in  all  the  neighboring 
pfoviiK  OS.  'There  were  public  breweries  here  and  there  ;  but  most  people 
made  their  own  beverages.  In  New  Knglaiul  alone  was  there  no  welcome  to 
stimulating  drinks. 

By  the  time  of  tlie  Revolution,  the  distillation  of  whiskey  from  corn  and 
other  grains  had  begun,  and  was  practised  to  a  very  wide  extent.  The  stills 
were  small ;  but  there  were  a  great  many  of  them.  They  were  Distillation 
scattered  all  through  well-settled  and  sparsely-settled  districts  "'  whiskey. 
alike.  The  whiskey  made  was  a  purer  article  than  that  put  upon  the  market 
at  present,  and  could  be  drunk  in  greater  (juantity  without  danger.  It  was  so 
cheap  and  so  common,  that  those  who  made  it  carried  it  about  in  pails  to  sell 
to  men  at  work  on  buildings  and  public  improvements,  and  handed  it  out  in  a 
dijjper.  'I'he  old  records  of  the  county  clerk's  offices  show  that  the  owners 
of  stills  in  various  States  accpiired  a  great  deal  of  property  by  bartering  whiskey 
for  real  estate.  It  was  often  stipulated  in  ileetls  that  the  land  should  be  paid 
for  in  so  many  barrels  of  whiskey  down,  and  such  or  such  a  (juantity,  to  be  paid 
in  the  form  of  a  pint  a  day,  to  be  dnink  at  the  still. 

Spirits  and  beer  were  so  extensively  consumed  at  that  early  day,  that,  when 
Congress  took  up  the  first  tariff  bill  in  i  789,  the  tax  on  this  class  of  luxuries 
was  very  carefully  considered,  as  being  a  thing  which  affected  the 
l)eople  closely,  and  which  would  be  likely  to  yield  a  large  revenue. 
Jamaica  rum  was  very  extensively  consumed  among  the  other  varieties  of 
stimulating  beverages.  The  bad  effects  of  spirits  on  the  morals  and  health  of 
the  people  were  spoken  of  by  several  congressmen,  and  it  was  universally 
resolved  to  tax  them  as  high  as  there  was  any  probability  whatever  of  collect- 
ing a  duty.    Alexander  Hamilton's  report  on  the  finances  in  1 790  stated,  "  The 


Tariff  of  1789. 


'.r  :'^T't7ftrf^''-,H 


n 


520 


INDU.ITRIAL    HISTORY 


,,K' 


.t^,' ,   < ''. 


I'  ,!.  '-'■ 


,;fe'... '1- 


i**':'MrKv 


K-'  I 


•(..      f 


r    ''V. 


;  .i«i 


:.  !^'    ' 


S!'  .      V 


consumption  of  ardent  spii'ts,  n  )  (loul)t  very  umch  on  account  of  their  cheap- 
ness, is  carried  to  an  exircUit' ;  which  is  truly  to  he  regretted,  as  well  in  riTard 
to  the  health  and  Miorals  as  thi'  economy  of  the  community."  Mr.  liainilton 
recommended  .>.  tax  which  would  opcnte  in  favor  of  increasing  the  use  of 
cider  and  malt  .icjuors,  and  decreasing  that  of  whiskey.  Congress  assented  to 
the  principle,  and  taxed  spirits  heavily.  It  is  to  be  feared,  however,  thai  the 
result  was  only  to  increase  the  lome-manufacture  of  whiskey,  whidi  now 
iMicame  very  profitable.  As  a  moral  measure,  the  duty  had  little  effe(  t,  wnat- 
ever  result  it  may  have  had  as  a  source  of  revenue.- 

The  manufacture  of  whiskey  and  beer  has  kept  even  pace  with  the  inc  rease 
of  population  in  the  United  States.  A  strong  public  opinion  lus  excluded 
Growth  of  stimulating  beverages  from  several  of  the  States,  —  particularly 
manuf.jcture  those  o^  New  Kiigland,  —  and  it  has  limiteil  their  use  among  re- 
o  w  (key.  ^pectable  people  in  all.  excejjt,  peihajjs.  in  regard  to  ordinary  beer, 
which  is  a  comparatively  harmless  drink,  as  it  certainly  is  an  agreeable  one,  and 
which  is  increasing  in  use  constantly.  Hut,  in  sj/ite  of  public  opinion  and  of 
active  temperance  agitation,  thcie  has  been  so  far  a  steady  growth  in  the  iniiui- 
fai:ture.  The  lute  war,  with  its  |)aisionate  excitements  and  its  wearing  exjios- 
ures  in  the  field,  gave  a  great  imjjetus  to  the  consumption  and  manufac  lure  of 
whiskey ;  and  though  the  i)assion  has  died  out,  and  the  exjjosure  is  at  an  end, 
the  taites  acquired  in  the  field  still  linger,  and  maintain  the  demand  for  spirits. 
'I  h;  consumption  is  now  enormous.  Considering  how  large  a  jjroportion  of 
the  population  never  touch  a  stimulating  beverage,  ladies  and  children  particu- 
larly giving  spirits  a  wide  berth,  it  Is  an  extraordinary  thing  to  find  th.it  61,000- 
000  gallons  of  whiskey  are  low  annuall"  produced  in  the  United  States,  and 
7,000,000  barrels  of  beer ;  and  tliat,  in  addition  to  this,  about  400  fac  tories 
are  busily  engaged  all  the  time  in  i)roducing  wines,  branilies,  and  chanipaj^ne 
for  the  American  market.  In  1870  the  industry  presented  the  followinji 
statistics  :  — 


Cider 

.Spiriis 

Ale  and  beer   . 

Wine  and  brandy 


ESTAtlllSH- 
MKNTS. 


547 
710 

1.972 
398 


OPERATIVES. 


'.47^ 

5.'3< 

'2,443 

1,486 


VAI.I'R  OP 
P'ii)Ulil.T. 


$1,537,000 

36, 1 91, 000 

55,706,000 
2,225,000 


These  were  the  establishments  officially  reported.  To  these  must  be 
added,  however,  a  large  number  of  whiskey-stills  conducted  illicitly  in  the 
lUicitdu.  mountains  o*"  the  South  and  in  the  large  cities  of  the  North,  the 
tiiiint.  number  of  which  is  not  known.     There  are  a  very  large  number 

of  these  illicit  stills.     The  revenue-officers  are  constantly  breaking  them  up,' 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


Sa> 


hut  tlicy  spring  i.p  again  as  thick  as  frogs  after  a  siiower,  and  they  ackl  to  the 
total  |)ro(hict  of  t'le  country  in  spirits  millions  of  gallons  yearly.  'There  was 
great  temptation  toward  illicit  distilling  in  the  few  years  following  th.'  war,  when 
the  tariff  duty  on  imjiorted  whiskey  was  two  dollars  and  lif'y  cents  a  gallon, 
and  tlie  internal-revenue  tax  on  that  made  within  the  country  two  dollars  a 
gallon.  Since  the  tax  was  reduced  to  fifty  cents  a  gallon,  the  amount  of 
secret  distilling  has  very  much  decreased,  owing  to  the  removal  of  the  tempta- 
tion ;  Ixit  it  is  still  considerable.  Latterly,  distillt.-rs  in  the  North  have  added 
siirrei'titiously  to  the  real  produc  lion  of  the  country  by  managing  to  put  ui)on 
the  market  a  large  amount  of  whiskey  which  has  not  paid  the  govern:nent  ta.x, 
and  which,  conse(iuently,  made  no  figure  in  the  returns  of  the  total  amount  of 
whiskey  produced.  These  whiskey  frauds  created  a  great  jjublic  sensation  in 
1876  at  Chicago  and  St.  Louis,  and  in  1878  at  Cincinnati.  Prominent  and 
res|)e'  table  houses  were  engaged  m  them.  The  extent  of  these  evasions  of 
the  law  has  been  so  great,  counting  in  both  the  illicit  distillation  and  the  failure 
to  report  to  the  government  the  fiill  product  of  the  regular  distilleries,  that 
there  ought  to  be  added  to  the  figures  above  given  of  total  annual  j)roduct  of 
spirits  from  5,000,000  to  10,000,000  gallons  to  approximate  to  the  real  truth 
of  the  matter.  The  production  of  beer  is  probably  correctly  returned.  There 
is  less  temi)tation  to  deceive  the  government  in  regard  to  its  manufacture. 
l'rol)ali!y  7,000,000  barrels  is  the  real  annual  i)roduct. 

I'he  large  whiskey-making  States  are  New  York,  which  has  about  fifty  stills  ; 
Pennsylvania,  a  hundred  and  ten  stills ;  New  Jersey,  fifty-seven  stills ;   Ohio, 
seventy-five   stills;    Indiana,  thirty-six    stills;    Illinois,   fifty   stills;   chief whit- 
KentiK  ky,  a  hundred  and  forty  stills ;  Tennessee,  forty-four  stills,   key-produ- 
and  Virgu.ia,  forty-nine  stills.  ''"»  ^*'*"' 

The  large  brewing  States  are  New  York,  which  has  now  about  two  hundred 
ami  ninety  breweries;  Ohio,  two  hundred  breweries;  Pennsylvania,  about  two 
hiiiiilred  and  fifty  ;   Indiana,  a  hundred  ;  Illinois,  a  hundred  and   chiefbrew. 
fifty:  Michigan,  a  hundred  and  thirty;  California,  ninety;  Mis-   '"« states. 
smiri,  ninety  ;  Iowa,  a  hundred  and  five  ;  New  Jersey,  fifty  ;  and  Wisconsin,  a 
hundred  and  eighty. 

During  the  ilays  of  the  high  tarifi"  on  whiskey,  a  great  deal  of  sinuggling 
of  tiiis  article  into  the  country  was  done  from  ('anada.  Near  Toronto  there 
arc  a  lumiber  of  distilleries  of  a  sujierior  (juality  of  whiskey,  the  whiskey 
prodiK  t  of  which  many  prefer  to  buy  in  the  open  market,  paying  ""'"eB'ine- 
lariff  and  all,  rather  than  purchase  the  home  article.  The  profit  on  the  smug- 
gling of  Canada  whiskey  was  so  great,  that,  for  years,  the  whole  frontier  had  to 
lie  watched  with  imsleei)ing  vigilance  in  order  to  head  off  those  who  were 
bringing  in  the  untaxed  article  to  the  United  States.  It  was  brought  over  in 
wagons,  boats,  in  small  ([uantities  concealed  about  the  person,  in  tin  babies, 
and  in  a  thousand  other  wajs. 

Whiskey  is  made  by  distilling  a  fermented  mash  composed  of  com,  wheat, 


8" 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


barley,  rye,  or  oats,  or  a  mixture  of  them.  Mourbon  whiskey — so  oaliiMl 
from  Bourbon  County,  Kentucky  —  is  made  from  fifty  to  sixty  per  cent  of  ( om, 
ProciBi  of  and  forty  to  fifty  of  small  grain  ;  ten  per  t:ent  being  malt,  ami  iIk' 
dittiliing.  fgjjt  ,.yg  Monongahela  whiskey  —  named  aficr  the  (ouiity  in 
Pennsylvania  of  that  title  —  is  made  from  rye,  with  ten  per  cent  of  mall  added. 
Canada  whiskey  is  made  from  rye,  wheat,  ami  corn  mixed,  with  five  per  <  i-ni 
of  malt.  The  number  of  pounds  of  spirits  containing  forty-five  per  rent  oi 
alcohol  which  can  be  obtained  from  a  hundred  i)ounds  of  grain  is  as  Hil- 
Jows :  Wheat,  forty  to  forty-five  ;  rye,  thirty-six  to  forty-two  ;  barley,  lortv ; 
oats,  thirty-six  ;  buckwheat,  forty  ;  corn,  forty.  Pure  whiskey  contains  alHiiu 
fifty  per  cent  of  alcohol.  A  large  part  of  that  sold  in  the  market  is  noi 
whiskey  at  all,  however,  but  a  mixture  of  high  wines  (spirits  containing  more 
than  sixty  per  cent  of  alcoiiol)  with  various  substances  to  give  it  color  and 
taste.  The  ingredients  put  into  spirits  to  make  commercial  whiskey  are  oliin 
of  the  most  frightfiil  and  poisonous  descri|)tion  ;  it  has  been  rei)eatedly  enoiij;h 
proved  in  New  iMigland  to  make  a  man  reform  from  drinking  sinijily  by 
showing  him  just  what  the  whiskey  he  has  been  drinking  was  composed  ol. 
There  are,  however,  some  comparatively  harmless  mixtures  wlii(  h  are  sold  ib 
*'  pure  Hourbon,"  iSrc,  in  which  the  spirits  are  simply  flavored  with  peac  h  ami 
hickory  nut,  jiure  brandy,  oil  of  Cognac,  and  vinegar,  ameliorated  with  glyce- 
rine, and  colored  with  burnt  sugar.  A  great  deal  of  cheap  whiskey  is  exported 
to  Kurope  to  be  manufiutured  there  into  Holland  gin  and  good  Cognac. 
brandy  by  flavoring  and  redistillation. 

It  is  not  intended  here  to  go  into  the  moral  side  of  the  (juestion  f)f  this 
industry  in  the  United  States,  except  merely  to  say  that  the  moral  side  of  it, 
Moral  rank  which  cannot  be  entirely  ignored,  prevents  the  industry  from  being 
of  industry,  classed  among  those  which  are  beneficial  to  our  beloved  (ountry. 
It  would  be  better  for  the  land  and  for  our  countrymen  were  the  industry  tu 
decline.  Three-quarters  of  the  spirits  prodviced  can  be  spared.  Modern 
science  shows  that  the  temperate  use  of  alcoholic  beverages  is  not  l)a(l  tor 
certain  temperaments  ;  but  it  also  shows  that  even  the  temperate  use  is  liad 
for  the  majority  of  men,  and  that  vice,  pauperism,  discontent,  crude  'deas, 
and  disease  follow  in  the  train  of  its  use  invariably.  It  is  only  into  families 
which  refrain  from  the  consumption  of  ardent  spirits  that  variety  of  ideas, 
content,  and  the  gentleness  and  grace  of  life,  enter  and  take  up  their  aljode. 
Less  than  one-cjuarter  of  the  alcohol  and  distilled  spirits  now  manufat  tnred 
in  this  country  is  really  needed  as  chemical  solvents  in  the  arts. 

The  manufacture  of  wine  is  an  enterprise  of  recent  date  in  the  United 
States :  it  is  probably  not  over  twenty  years  old,  and  has  not  yet  reached 
Manufac-  special  development.  The  citizen  and  the  statesman  look  with 
tureof  greater  interest  on  this  branch  of  the  business  than  on  the  pre- 

**''"'■  ceding  two.     The  first  American  wines  were  really  a  sort  of  clari- 

fied cider,  which  was  sold  in  the  market  by  the  name  of  champagne  and 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


S»3 


really  was  not  a  bad  sul)stitute  for  it,  except  that  it  was  not  what  it  professed 
to  k',  ;intl  was  therefore  a  sham,  no  matter  how  |)leasant  a  l)everage  it  really 
was.  Wines  have  been  made  in  California  and  in  New  Mexico  for  a  long 
period,  i)iit  only  on  an  extremely  small  scale.  The  grapes  of  those  regions, 
ami  the  sunny  climate,  led  naturally  to  wine-making ;  antl  the  jjroduce  has 
lieeii  so  good,  that  the  Spanish  pojndation,  and  lovers  of  good  living  there, 
have  long  <hantc(l  the  praises  of  their  native  wines.  It  is  only  within  about 
twenty  years,  however,  that  there  has  been  any  special  manufacture  of  wine 
even  in  those  summery  portions  of  our  national  domain.  'I'he  wine-making 
States  are  now  Missouri,  which  in  1870  had  a  hundred  and  ninety  estab- 
iishnuiits  which  are  devoted  to  wines  and  brandies ;  California,  with  a 
hundred  and  thirty-nine  establishments  ;  Ohio,  with  thirty-eight ;  New  York, 
with  nine  ;  and  Illinois,  with  tive.  The  total  product  in  1870  was  worth 
Jlj, 225,000.  ihe  .American  wines  are  both  red  and  white,  and  comprise  many 
of  the  s|)arkling,  or  champagne,  variety.  They  arc  not  very  delicate  natu- 
rally, and  they  are  made  heavy  by  the  addition  of  alcohol  and  sugar  before 
fermentation.  Were  they  made  of  the  pure  juice  of  the  grape,  with  a  view 
to  flavor  and  gentle  exhilaration,  rather  than  for  strength  and  beautiful  color, 
the  manufacturers  woukl  do  much  toward  removing  the  strong  i)opular  feeling 
against  them,  and  would  secure  for  them  a  larger  sale  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  .\inerican  wine-makers  do  not  now  hesitate,  however,  to  appear  at 
world's  fairs,  and  compete  with  the  makers  of  die  older  countries.  Twenty 
or  thirty  were  at  I'aris  in  1867:  others  were  at  Vienna  in  1873.  At  I'hilji- 
(Iclphia,  ill  1876,  a  show  was  made  by  thirty  makers.  At  the  latter  exhibition 
the  Californians  showed  not  only  a  great  variety  of  wines,  but  the  largest  grape- 
vine in  the  world,  —  the  famous  Montecitc-vine  of  Santa  Barbara,  which,  after 
,in  existence  of  fifty  or  sixty  years,  during  which  it  bore  about  six  tons  of 
grapes  a  year,  had  then  only  recently  died.  California  still  possesses  the 
largest  living  grape-vine  in  the  world,  variously  called  the  "  Daughter  Vine,"  or 
the  "Vouiig  .Mammoth."  It  grows  near  the  i)lace  where  the  former  thrived  so 
long,  is  now  eleven  inches  in  diameter,  covers  an  area  of  ten  thousand  scjuare 
feet,  and  yields  from  eight  thousand  to  ten  thousand  pounds  of  fruit  a  year. 


in  the  United 
yet  reached 

lan  look  with 

1  on  the  pre- 
sort of  clari- 

ampagnt^and 


CORDAGE    AND    BAGGING, 

There  are  now  raised  in  the  United  States  every  year  4,600,000  bales  of 
<otton,  which  have  to  be  enclosed  in  coarse,  stout  bags  in  order  to  be  in  a 
<  nndition  for  transportation   to   market.     There   are   also  raised  Qu,„j|,y  ^f 
50,000,000  pounds  of  wool,  which  must  also  be  put  up  in  thick  baling  and 
l>ags  for  market.     There   are,   besides,   290,000,000   bushels    of  baggingatuff 

,  >  '       ^    I         >  required. 

Wheat,  1,300,000,000  bushels  of  corn,  and  an  average  of  400,- 

000,000  bushels  of  other  grain,   besides    140,000,000   bushels   of  potatoes, 

unmeasured   apples,  and  uncounted  tons  of  flour,  produced ;    the  principal 


''"''wrrfffm-:^ 


illiV;  m 


■  MM 


524 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


part  of  which  stuff  spends  a  portion  of  its  time  in  bags  of  thick  cloth  or 
tenacious  paper  after  it  leaves  the  farm  and  the  mill,  and  before  it  is  finally 
consumed  by  man.  The  number  of  bags  which  have  to  be  manufactured 
every  year  to  accommodate  this  enormous  supply  of  produce  can  only  be 
counted  by  the  tens  of  millions.  It  is  so  large  as  to  be  a  matter  of  inter- 
national importance ;  and  foreign  merchants  and  manufacturers  arc  foml  of 
studying  how  they  can  manage  to  furnish  to  the  United  States  the  largest 
share  possible  of  the  bags  she  requires  every  year,  or  of  the  raw  material  from 
which  the  bags  can  be  made. 

Another  class  of  goods  which  enters  into  even  more  universal  consump- 
tion in  the  United  States  comprises  ropes,  cables,  and  twine.  No  great 
Cables,  sailing-vessel  leaves  a  port  of  our  country  without  going  out  with 

rope»,  ac.  fj.Qj„  ^g  ^Q  thrgg  miles  of  ropes  and  cordage  aboard  of  her, 
either  strung  aloft  as  rigging,  or  co-led  belov/  as  cables  ^nd  spare  ropes.  No 
vessel,  in  fact,  large  or  small,  stirs  without  a  certain  amount  of  cordage 
aboard ;  not  even  a  canal-boat,  which,  at  least,  must  have  towing  and  mooring 
cables.  As  there  are  23,000  large  ships  and  steamers  belonging  to  the  i)eople 
of  the  United  States,  and  3,000  canal-boats  and  barges,  it  will  be  seen  that 
immense  quantities  of  cordage  are  consumed  every  year  in  the  furniture  of 
the  vehicles  of  ocean  and  river  commerce.  Resides  this,  every  theatre  in 
the  country  has  a  forest  of  rigging  behind  the  scenes.  Every  new  building. 
and  work  of  construction,  is  erected  by  means  of  ropes.  Every  awning, 
flag,  tower-bell,  curtain,  fishing-boat,  and  railroad-train  recpiires  the  use  of 
ropes  and  lines.  F^vcry  i)ackage  done  up  at  the  store  must  have  a  piece  of 
twine.  Cordage,  in  fact,  is  in  universal  demand.  The  Yankee  sdioolboy, 
who  always  carries  two  or  three  pieces  of  twine  in  his  pocket,  illustrates  the 
law  under  which  we  all  live  in  respect  to  cordage ;  for,  while  we  do  not  all 
go  about  in  the  world  with  a  wild  mass  of  string  and  ends  of  rope  in  our 
pockety,  we  could  not  get  through  life  comfortably  without  the  instrumentality 
of  that  useful  class  of  goods. 

Cordage  and  bagging  are  made  from  the  same  classes  of  coarse  vegetable 
Materials  fibres,  —  flax,  hemp,  and  jute.  Cotton  is  sometimes  used  for  small 
used.  ropes,  and  generally  for  twine. 

Rope-making  was  one  of  the  earliest  mechanical  pursuits  of  the  (olo- 
nists  of  America ;  they  being  impelled  to  exert  their  skill  in  that  direc  tion 
by  the  neeti  of  rigging  for  their  ships,  and  of  nets  and  lines  for 
their  fishing-boats.  Virginia  raised  a  great  deal  of  hcmit  and 
flax  in  the  early  years  of  the  province;  and  after  1629  N'w 
England  raised  hemp  also.  A  sort  of  wild  hemp  grew  in  the 
latter  district,  from  which  the  Indians  made  nets  and  lines ;  but  this  was  not 
what  the  white  man  cultivated.  Hemp-seed  was  obtained  from  England  and 
Holland,  and  the  domestic  plant  was  the  one  cultivated.  By  1641  a  rope- 
walk  had  been  started  in  Boston  by  John  Harrison.     In  1662  John  Heyman 


Rope- 
making 
an  early 
pursuit. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


S»S 


was  authorized  to  make  cordage  at  Charlestown.  This  industry  was,  unao 
coiintably,  not  opposed  by  Parliament ;  and,  there  being  no  weight  upon  its 
|iracti(  e,  it  was  talcen  up  rapidly  by  Connecticut  and  otiier  colonies.  By  1698 
there  wore  several  rope-walks  in  Philadelphia,  some  of  them  being  owned  by 
loseph  Wilcox.  The  native  culture  of  hemp  began  to  fall  off  about  this 
time.  This  luxuriant  plant,  growing  from  four  to  twelve  feet  high,  as  fast  and 
as  strongly  as  Indian-corn,  exhausted  the  soil.  In  Virginia  it  began  to  be 
al)aiuloned  for  tobacco,  and  in  the  North  for  crops  less  taxing  to  the  soil. 
This  did  not  prevent  the  cordage-makers  from  getting  raw  material,  however. 
An  inii)ortation  of  hemp  from  Russia  and  other  hemp-countries  took  place, 
sufficient  to  satisfy  all  demands.  Parliament  sought  to  stimulate  the  growth 
of  hemp  here  by  offering  in  i  703  a  bounty  of  six  pounds  per  ton  of  hemp, 
"bright  and  clean,"  which  should  be  exported  to  England;  but  the  effort 
(lid  not  avail  much,  and  the  i)ounty  was  not  long  maintained.  Virginia 
and  otiicr  colonies  offered  bounties  also  for  hemi-vraising  at  different  times  : 
but  it  (lid  not  pay  to  raise  hemp  on  a  very  large  scale  when  the  soil  was 
so  available  for  tobacco  and  plants  of  that  rank ;  and  the  country  has 
never,  from  that  day  to  this,  raised  all  the  hemp  it  could  con-  Culture  of 
suine.  For  the  last  twenty  years,  from  20,000  to  40,000  tons  of  ^emp. 
the  material  have  been  imported  annually.  The  culture  of  hemp  is  now 
confined  principally  to  the  States  of  New  York,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  and  Missouri.  F'lax  is  now  the  more  poi)ular  crop  with  farmers, 
because  its  seed  is  so  valuable  for  the  oil  it  <;ontains,  and  the  crop  does  not 
tax  the  soil  so  heavily.  It  is  raised  principally  in  the  West,  Ohio  producing 
more  than  half  of  the  whole  crop.  The  production  is  about  15,000  tons  of 
fibre  a  year,  and  1,700,000  bushels  of  seed.  Flax,  however,  still  has  to  be 
imported  at  the  rate  of  from  4,000  to  6,000  tons  a  year  to  supply  the  demand 
for  it,  because  the  farmers  throw  away  the  fibre  half  of  the  time,  being  content 
wlien  they  have  gathered  the  seed.  Flax  was  raised  abundantly  during  the 
cotton  la 'nine  in  the  North  resulting  from  the  late  war  ;  but  its  culture  fell 
off  again  after  the  cotton-crop  of  1866  came  into  Uie  market. 

Hemp  is  pre[)ared  for  rope-making  by  exposure  to  the  dew  and  weather  in 
the  tields,  or  by  soaking  in  tanks  of  water ;  both  of  which  processes  have  the 
same  effect,  —  namely,  of  decomposing  and  washing  out  the  natu-    process  of 
ral  glue  in  the  bark  of  the  plant,  which  unites  the  fibres  of  the  bark   rope-mak- 
into  a  tenacious  peel.     When  the  fibre  readily  sei)arates,  die  hemp   '"''■ 
is  removed  from  the  woody  heart  of  the  plant,  dried,  and  prepared  for  spin- 
ning by  hackling.     This  process  is  simply  combing  by  hand  to  get  out  the 
dust  and  tow.     .After  the  hand-treatment  it  is  hackled  finer  in  a  machine,  and 
then  combed  by  another  machine  —  the  "  spreader  "  —  into  a  long,  loose  roll 
ol  bi)re  called  a  "sliver."     One  or  two  of  the  slivers  are  then  passed  through 
a '"ilrawing-frame,"  in  which  they  pass  through  two  sets  of  rolls  (the  second 
set  moving  faster  than  the  first),  l)y  which  means  the  sliver  is  drawn  out  and 


i 


526 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


attenuated.  The  sliver  then  g.oes  to  the  spinning-machine,  in  which  it  is  still 
further  "  drawn,"  anil  twisted,  into  a  yarn.  The  yarn  is  then  reeled  fur  luistiim 
into  a  rope.  John  Good  of  Brooklyn  has  invented. a  plan  by  means  of  which 
the  yarn  is  passed  through  a  tube  before  reeling,  and  made  smootiici.  The 
yarns  are  graded  in  size,  according  to  tiie  number  that  will  just  fill  a  half-iiu  h 
'  tube,  or  make  one  strand  of  a  three-inch  rojje.  No.  40  is  for  fuie  rope.  NO 
20  for  cables,  i'iie  yarns,  being  reeled,  are  now  tarred,  if  destined  for  liti^ini' 
by  being  drawn  through  tar  heated  to  220°.  When  they  come  out  of  the  tar 
they  pass  between  rollers,  or  through  small  holes,  so  that  the  sui)ctI1u(jiis  tnr 
may  be  pressed  out.  'I'he  yarns  are  now  twisted  into  a  rope  in  a  long  liuildinir 
called  a  rope-walk,  which  is  generally  ajjout  1,200  feet  long.  (The  govern- 
ment walk  at  Boston  is  1,360  feet  long.)  .\  number  of  bobbins,  ( ontaining 
300  fathoms  of  yarn  eacii,  are  i)ut  into  a  frame  at  one  end  of  the  walk,  and  the 
yarns  are  "hauled  down"  into  strands.  'I'hree  or  more  yarns  jiass  into  a 
tube,  which  compresses  and  moulds  them  into  a  strand  ;  and  the  three  strands 
of  the  rope,  emerging  simultaneously  from  as  many  tubes,  are  drawn  along  tlie 
rope-walk  l>y  another  machine  the  full  length  of  the  building.  Ilach  strand  is 
now  separately  and  simultaneously  twistetl  until  it  is  hard,  and  then  the  three 
are  allowed  to  come  together  and  <  lose  up  into  a  rope.  .\  suitabh  sliaiied 
triangular  wedge  is  placed  between  the  strands  to  ])revent  them  from  doling 
up  too  fa.st,  and  the  whole  process  goes  on  slowly  under  the  i)ersonal  inspec  tion 
of  a  workman.  Tlie  process  is  the  same,  whether  the  ro])e  be  large  or  small. 
or  tarred  or  white.  Since  1827,  when  ro])e-factories  were  started  in  Wheeling. 
Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  and  Louisville,  the  machinery  has  been  propelled  In 
steam,  and  a  stronger  twist  has  been  given  to  rope,  and  its  strength  iiK  reased. 
The  breaking-strain  of  hemp  rc)])e  was  al)out  9,200  ])oun(ls  to  the  s<|uare  inch 
when  made  by  the  old  processes:  the  breaking-strain  has  risen  as  high  as 
15.000  pounds  of  late.  Twine  is  s])un  from  cotton  and  flax  by  the  ordinarv 
jmxesses  of  spinning,  the  fibre  being  carded,  drawn,  twisted,  and  reeled  li\ 
ap])ropriate  machinery. 

In  1870  there  were  in  the  United  States  201  factories  of  c  oninge  and 
Number  of  twiuc,  employing  3,700  men  and  boys,  and  turning  out  work  worth 
rope-facto-  $9,000,000  annually.  The  factories  were  scattered  all  over  the 
nes  in  i  70.  (Country  ;  but  the  large  majority  were  in  the  Last.  Those  on 
the  .Xtlantic  seaboard  were  largely  supplied  with  imported  hemp ;  those  in  the 
interior,  entirely  with  the  native  article. 

Wire   rope  is  now  beginning  to  supi)lant  hemp  for  ships  and  hoisting- 
ayiparatus  and  many  mechanical  purposes.     It   is  ])rol);il)le  that  it 
will  soon   take  the   ])lace   of  hem])  for  all   purposes  where  gre.it 
strength  and  light  weight  are  desired,  as  in  heavy  rigging,  cables,  &c. 

For  the  finer  qualities  of  bagging,  such  as  for  grain  and  flour  sac  ks.  lotton 
and  flax  are  i)rincipally  used  ;  for  the  coarser  sorts,  hemp  and  jute  are  the 
favorite    materials.      Jute  is  a  grass  growing  seven  or  tight  feet   high,  the 


Wire  rope. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


527 


neculiar  product  of  India,  which  was  unknown  to  Europe  until  1830,  and  first 
became  known  to  the  civiUzed  world  from  the  fact  that  it  constituted 
the  nialerials  of  which  the  gunny-bags  were  made  in  which  Indian 
produce  was  exported.     Attention  being  attracted  to  the  fibre,  it  was  exported 
to  Kngland  ;  and  the  city  of  Dundee  in  Scotland  developed  a  great  manufac- 
ture of  it  into  gunny-cloth.     Scotland  is  still  the  principal  seat  of  the  industry ; 
hilt  the  United  States  has  since  i860  taken  to  the  manufacture  of  jute  bagging 
also,  and  now  imports  sixty  thousand  tons  of  jute-butts  annually  for  the  purpose. 
I'he  bagging  is  useful  for  putting  up  the  cotton  and  wool  crops.     The  total 
value  of  the  raw  jute  imported  is  about  $2,500,000,  and  the  bagging  jute-raising 
made  from  it  $4,501  000.     Attention  has  Ltterly  been  drawn  to   >»  United 
the  i)Ossil)ility  of  raising  jute  in  the  United  States.     Experiments     *"''*' 
have  been  made  with  success  in  Louisiana ;  yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  is  wise 
tu  encourage  this  crop.     Half  or  more  of  the   flax-crop  of  the  useofref- 
I'nited  States   is   thrown   away  by  the   farmers  after  the  seed   is   use  flax  for 
thrashed  from  it,  the  flax  being  raised  only  for  the  seed.     A  better     °^8'"*^' 
b^tjging  can  be  made  froin  that  refuse  flax,  or  the  flax-tow,  than  from  jute- 
hiitts,  as  there  can  be  also  from  hemjj-tow.     It  woidd  be  more  patriotic  and 
prudent  to  encourage  the  utilization  of  hemp  and  flax  for  coarse  bagging  than 
to  ex])end  any  effort  on  native  jute.     It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  long- 
(leeaved  industry  of  whale  fishing  has  revived  with  the  jute-manufacture,  a  great 
(leal  of  oil  being  consumed  in  that  business. 

Sime  1S60  the  manufacture  of  I  gs  of  paper  has  been  added  to  the 
industry,  and  now  occupies  a  very  distinguisheil  position.  The  idea  of  the 
invLiitors  was  to  create  something  which  would  answer  the  purpose 

^  '       '  Paper  bags. 

of  flour-sacks,  whi(  h,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  cotton,  were  very 
ix|)ensive.  The\  employed  for  the  purpose  thick  manila  paper,  and  succeeded 
.idiiiirably.  .\bout  forty  factories  are  now  devoted  to  the  industry  ;  and  they 
.ire  |)ro(lucing  bags  of  all  sizes  and  strengtii,  from  the  little  package-bag  in 
wlii(  h  the  customer  takes  home  a  povmd  of  candy  to  the  huge  sack  holding 
uMc  or  two  huudreil-weight  of  flour. 

To  flax,  hemp,  jute,  and  cotton-bagging,  there  are  now  devoted  about  eighty 
factories,  producing  about  $15,000,000  worth  of  goods. 


SOAP. 


Fhe  French,  the  sunniest  and  most  polite  people  in  the  world,  love  to 
liciievL'  that  nearly  every  thing  which  ameliorates  life,  and  renders  social  inter- 
lourse  pleasant,  was  invented  among  themselves.     They  claim  the   ^       ^^ 
origin  of  soaj),  of  course.     The  south  of  France   has  always  had   French 
an  abundance  of  olive-oil   and   soda.     The  writers  say,  that,  away   °"8^'"' 
l)a(k  in  the  twelfth  century,  a  fisherman's  wife  at  Savona,  who  had  warmed 
some  suda  lye  in  an  earthen  jar  which  had  formerly  held  olive-oil,  discovered 


1  ■ 

I 

'I 


iii 


il  { 

I 


m'^ 


528 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


in  the  jar  a  new  substance,  which  attracted  attention  on  account  of  its  utilitv 
and  Icti  to  tlie  establishment  of  regular  (Victories  for  its  manufacture.  Froi„ 
the  name  of  the  village,  the  new  substance  was  called  savon,  —  a  word  vvhid, 
sur\'ives  in  Saxon  in  the  adjective  saponaceous.  It  is  certain  that  soai)  was 
made  at  Marseilles  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  that  that  city  has  ever  since 
been  the  principal  centre  of  its  manufacture  in  the  world  at  large.  In  i,S0o 
30,000  workmen  were  employed  there  in  that  one  industry,  and  liic  jinxliKt 
was  over  60,000  tons.  The  use  of  soap  spread  from  Marseilles  all  over 
France,  and  thence  all  over  lOurojie  and  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  '1  he  mann 
facture  has  always  been  a  prolific  source  of  prosperity  fur  that  great  inaritiiiie 
city,  both  because  it  added  largely  to  the  commerce  of  the  port,  and  l)e(  ause 
it  gave  employment  to  so  large  a  proportion  of  its  own  population.  The  soaijs 
were  perfumed,  and  were  of  excpiisite  delicacy  and  beauty. 

In  1S77  the  manufacturers  of  Marseilles  awoke  to  find   that  the  salcr  of 

their  fomous  i)roducts  were  falling  off  in  an  alarming  manner.     Nortii  .America 

which  formerly  took  so  large  a  (luantity  of  the  goods,  no  lonL'cr 

Decline  of  .  /  ,      ,  •  ,  ,  ,  ^ 

Boap-manu-  was  buying  tiieiii.  ihe  bouth-.Xmerican  demand  began  to  tail  off. 
facturesin       Kurope  itself  wiis  not  so  large  a  consumer.     Upon  investigation,  it 

was  found  that  the  trouble  was  due  to  several  causes  ;  and  one  of 
them  was  the  fact  that  the  United  States  had  ceased  to  be  a  buyer,  and  not 
only  that,  but  that  she  was  actually  exporting  from  5,000  to  10,000  tons  of 
common  and  perfumed  soaps  every  year  to  the  countries  formerly  su])])lie(l  liv 
France.  The  matter  was  considered  of  so  serious  conse<iuence,  that  the 
attention  of  the  government  of  France  was  called  to  the  matter.  .Nothinj,', 
however,  has  been  done  which  could  stop  the  .American  competition  ;  and  the 
consecpience  is,  that  the  ancient  city  of  .Marseilles  ap[)ears  to  be  doomed  to 
see  a  portion  of  her  industry  permanently  go  from  her  to  tlie  New  World. 
Soai)s  and   candles,  which  were  always  made  at  the  same  factory,  were 

imported  to  the    United    States   in   considerable   (luantities   until 

Importation        ,  „  ,  ,  ,-r  i 

of  soap  into  about  1 824,  when  the  tarifl  was  so  arranged  as  to  give  an  nnpetiis 
United  to  the   homc-manufacture.     Up  to   ;hat    time   the   only  varieties 

made  here  were  the  common  soft-soap  — which  was  then,  as  now, 
largely  a  household  manufacture — and  the  common  laundry  and  toilet  s()a|)s. 
Higher  grades  were  attempted  after  1824,  and  made  on  so  large  a  scale,  that 
Tariff  of  the  foreign  article  was  virtually  excluded  from  this  market.    The 

^^y  tariff  of  1864  gave  another  impetus  to  manufacture  by  raising  the 

duty  from  about  three  cents  to  ten  cents  a  pound.  Since  1864  the  Ameneaii 
factories  have  been  making  the  very  highest  class  of  perfumed  and  deiieati 
soajjs,  as  well  as  the  more  common  grades  ;  and  they  have,  as  alread\  stated, 
not  only  been  able  fully  to  supply  the  home-market,  but  to  extend  tlieir  sale^ 
successfully  to  foreign  markets. 

Three  of  the  American  houses  have  attained  \'  a  great  reputation  within 
the  last  fifteen  years ;  namely,  those  of  Knoch  Morgan's  Sons,  B.  '1'.  Babbitt  kV 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


529 


Advertising. 


Coinjiany,  and  Colgate  &  Company,  all  of  New- York  City.     'i"he  first-ncmed 
invcntotl  the  article  called  sapoHo,  in   which  a  fine  white  pow-   g^^g^^  di- 
cier is  incorporated,  which  renders  the  soap  useful  for  removing   American 

dirt  liom  the  hands,  and  from  furniture,  wood-work,  oil-cloth,  &c.,   '"■""'■=- 

turers. 

l)yrul)l)ing.  Colgate  and  Babbitt  have  made  themselves  known  for 
s|)c(ialtics  of  their  own.  All  three  have  employed  indefatigably  that  great 
rcMiurce  of  the  energetic  business-man  in  the  i)rescnt  age, — the 
svstLiii  of  atlvertising,  —  anil  in  this  respect  have  been  imitatetl  by 
Hig.yins  and  other  Western  makers.  One  secret  of  success  in  trade  is  first  to 
have  .1  good  thing  to  sell,  and  then  to  let  tbe  whole  world  know  it.  The 
|)Lililltr  travelling  along  every  country  street,  and  knocking  at  every  urban 
(ioor.  was  the  mainstay  of  earlier  merchants  of  small  goods  who  wanted  to 
(lilTu^f  their  wares  over  the  country.  Since  the  multiplication  of  newspapers, 
ami  tiie  enormous  increase  of  travel,  printed  and  painte<l  advertisements  have 
l)CL'ii  the  resource  of  those  who  have  a  new  thing  to  sell,  and  want  to  impress 
its  virtues  upon  the  minds  of  the  peojile.  The  soap-manufacturers  have  filled 
the  newspapers  of  the  land  with  their  notices.  They  have  frcijuentetl  all  the 
lairs,  from  the  WorUl's  F  {positions  down  along  the  whole  line  to  the  annual 
(ounty  displays  of  cattle  and  l)ed-(iuilts  at  them  all  ;  and  hive  hung  up  big  pla- 
cards to  catch  the  eye,  and  inform  the  mind.  They  have  sent  out  an  army  of 
men  with  brushes  and  pots  of  colored  paints,  who  have  covered  all  the  availa- 
ble hoard  fences  and  barns  ami  conspicuous  rocks  with  huge  inscriptions  and 
signs  proclaiming  the  names  and  virtues  of  their  soaps.  They  have  made  it 
aimoii  impossible  for  the  .American  <  itizen  to  sit  down  in  the  retirement  of  his 
own  iu)ine,  or  to  go  out  into  the  open  air,  without  seeing  something  that 
reminded  him  of  the  very  excellent  character  of  the  latest  brand  of  soap,  and 
how  happy  he  would  l)e,  and  how  rich  he  would  probably  get,  if  he  only 
lumj^ht  that  style  oi'  soap  very  largely.  (Ireat  ingenuity  has  been  displayed  by 
(iiilereiit  makers  in  preparing  their  newspaper  advertisements.  Sometimes 
these  (ariis  are  printed  as  paragraphs  of  reading-matter,  and  are  frecjuently 
sjiarkling  models  of  wit,  beauty,  and  brevity.  Higgins  has  used  the  pictorial 
pajiers  largely,  and  filled  them  with  imaginary  pictures  in  which  a  box  of  his 
ftoap  constitutes  by  turns  a  camp-chair  for  Bismarck,  an  iron-clad  for  the 
American  navy,  a  coach  drawn  by  a  four-in-hand  of  ilogs,  a  target  for  a  riflc- 
shoot.  (Src.  The  mgenuity  of  those  who  have  advertisetl  by  paragraphs  is  so 
great  as  to  be  worthy  of  illustration.  Mere  are  a  few  samples  of  the  style  of 
thing  they  have  resorted  to,  the  paragraphs  being  technically  called  at  the 
newspaper-offices  "  reading  advertisements."  The  samples  have  been  taken 
at  random  from  the  actual  paragraphs  of  these  enterprising  firms. 

"  Sliakspeare  says,  '  Care  is  no  cure,  but  rather  corrosive,  for  things  that 
are  not  to  be  remedied.'     We  cannot  associate  care  and  corrosion,  however, 

with 's  Toilet-Soap  ;  for  it  saves  care,  and  is  deliciously  emollient.     This 

new  toilet-soap  is  the  highest  achievement  of  a  well-known  manufacturer  for 


i 


1 


IXJ\ 


l^ 


530 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Its  perfect  purity,  9.\A  pleasant  re-action  on  the  skin,  combined  with  a  sweet 
natural  odor." 

"  Poets  and  essayists  have  deUghted  in  the  supreme  delights  of  c oimtrv 
life,  and  its  accompaniments  of  health,  and  peace  of  mind.  But  body  and 
mind  require  the  help  of  regular  habits  and  cleanly  habits.     Why  not,  tlKii 

sing  the  praises  of  's  Toilet-Soap?    The  purest  of  all  toilet-scnps  (for 

none  but  the  finest  vegetable-oils  enter  into  it),  and  exhaling  a  delicate  violet- 
odor,  it  needs  only  to  be  tried  to  become  a  household  necessity." 

"According  to  Voltaire,  perfection  is  iluuinvi  only  l)y  slow  degrees  and 
the  hand  of  time.  This  is  j.eculiarly  the  case  with  inventions  and  dis- 
coveries.    For  instance, has  been  forty  years  in  applying  and  i)ertertinL' 

his  chemical  science:  therefore  we  have  his  new  toilet-soap, — an  article  for 
the  toilet  and  bath-room  that  cannot  be  overpraised  for  its  excelleiK  es.  As 
a  test,  it  is  found  to  be  the  most  admirable  in  the  world  for  th"  dcli(  ate  skin 
of  babes." 

"  Old  Fuller,  the  excellent  preacher,  says,  '  If  thou  wouldst  please  the 
ladies,  endeavor  to  make  them  pleased  with   themselves.'     You   can   lieip  to 

do  this  by  recommending  them  to  use  that  superb  toilet-article, 's  st)a|). 

Nothing  can  eipial  its  excellences  :  for  the  purest  oils  only  are  used,  and  tiie 
resources  of  science  are  artistically  and  scientifically  lavished  upon  it ;  and  a 
delicate  fiagrance  is  the  result." 

This  exaggerated  style  of  advertising  is  amusing  in  many  respects  :  l)ut  it 
requires  men  of  wit  and  scholarship  to  pen  their  paragraphs  ;  and,  as  ,m 
investment  of  money,  they  have  proved  very  remunerative.  None  t)l  the 
manufacturers  wiio  have  resorted  to  this  ])lan  of  introducing  their  goods  to 
the  public  have  failed  to  make  a  fortune  by  it. 

Soft-soap  is  made  by  boiling  the  scraps  of  fat  from  kitchens  with  a  strong 
lye  made  from  wood-ashes,  or  directly  from  ])otash.  The  hard  bar-soap  ol 
commerce  is  made  in  the  same  way,  except  that  the  materials  are 
more  choice,  and  that  twenty-five  or  thirty  per  cent  of  powdered 
rosin  is  added,  and  saponified  with  them,  ('austic  soda,  prepared  for  tiie  |iur- 
pose,  is  now  generally  the  alkali  used  for  all  soa|)s,  in  ,-iace  of  the  l)e  made 
from  wood-ashes  emi)loyed  by  our  forefathers.  Marine  soap  is  made  from 
cocoanut-oil.  It  is  very  hard,  will  hold  a  great  deal  of  water  l)efoie  dissoh- 
ing,  and  can  be  used  to  wash  with  salt  water.  It  has  a  heavy,  disagreeable 
odor.  Toilet-soap  is  made  from  very  pure  and  sweet  materials,  such  as  olive- 
oil,  sweet-almond-oil,  beef's  marrow,  and  refined  sweet  lard.  The  Marseilk^ 
soaps  have  gained  their  une<iualled  reputation  by  being  made  of  ulive-oil, 
from  which  fact  it  has  hajjpencd  that  the  soap  has  been  entirely  free  from  tiie 
heavy  animal  odor  which  generally  attends  common  soaps.  The  materials  I'ui 
the  cakes  for  the  toilet  are  saponified  withcjut  heat,  and  ])erfumed  with  vegeta- 
ble-flavors. A  very  good  toilet-soap  is  made,  however,  by  cutting  very  pure 
tallow-soaj)  into  tiiin  shavings,  and  melting  it  over  a  water-bath  with  rose  and 


Soft-soap. 


OF  THE   UNITED  STATES.  531 

(iraiij^'c-flower  water  and  common  salt,  in  the  proportion  of  twenty-four  pounds 
of  xi.ip  to  four  pinta  each  of  the  perfumed  waters  and  half  a  pound  of  salt. 
When  cold,  next  dav,  the  soap  is  cut  into  small  bits,  thoroughly  dried  in  the 
shaili',  and  again  treated,  as  before,  with  rose  and  orange-flower  water.  It  is 
(oolfd,  powdered,  and  dried  again.  Hy  this  process  all  unpleasant  odors  are 
removed.  Castile-soaj)  is  made  from  olive-oil  and  rajie-seed  in  France,  but 
from  various  mixtures  of  fats  and  oils  in  this  country.  Oxide  of  iron  imparts 
tlie  strongly-marbled  appearance  of  this  product.  Soap  is  also  made  from 
i;lvi  erinc  and  many  other  substances. 

riie  number  of  factories  ip  this  country  at  present  devoted  to  soap  and 
(andles  is  nearly  C50.  They  produce  about  525,000.000  worth  of  goods 
annually. 

FLOUR. 

ilie  Uniteil  States  has  become  one  of  the  great  sources  of  the  food-suj^ply 
iif  the  world.     It  is  the  aim  of  every  free  and  independent  nationality  to  make 
sure  of  its  food-supply  by  raising  it  at  home  ;   but   some  of  the 
loimtiies  of  the  Old  Worlil  have  utterly  failed   in  every  attempt   un'iteV*'  ° 
111  this  direction,  and  some  of  the  richest  of  them  —  especially   states  to 
Irani  e,  (Ireat  Hritain,  and  the  Netherlands  —  are  obliged  to  buy   '""•'*" 
fdoil  iVuin  other  nations.     This   is  also  the  situation  of  the  West 
Indus  and  South  America.      The  United  States,  on  the  other  hand,  with  her 
fertile  fields  and  active  pojxilation,  has  managed  to  raise  all  the  food  her 
jioiHilation  of  forty-five  million  can  i)ossibly  consimie  ;   and  she  has,  besides, 
,1  Miriiins  of  grain  alone  every  year  to   sell  which  will   support  thirty  million 
lieo|)le  a  year.     .Accordingly,  this  country  not  only  does  not  import  food,  but 
it  exports  largely  to  the  kingdoms  of  the  OUl  World,  and  to  those  regions  in 
the  tropics  which  prefer  to  raise  coffee,  tea,  and  tropical  fruits,  rather  than 
,1 ,1,'reat  snjiply  t)f  jjrovisions. 

The  grain-(  n)ps  of  the  L'niteil  States  now  amount,  in  an  average  year,  to 
.iliout  tlie  Ibllowing  figures  in  bushels  :  — 

W  licat  ...........  2()o,ooo,coo 

'  "rn 1,300,000,000 

'■^y*-' 20.000,000 

<'ats J3o,ooo,ooo 

I'arley 40,000,000 

Of  this  enormous  yield,  about  60,000,000  bushels  of  wheat  and  70,000.000 
III  (iirn  are  exported  to  other  lantls.  A  part  of  what  is  left  is  consumed  in 
replanting  the  earth,  and  in  the  manufacture  of  starch,  hominy,  and  whiskey. 
There  remain  about  230.000,000  bushels  of  wheat  and  1.000.000,000  bushels 
uf  corn,  which  are  consiuued  in  Ihe  United  .States  as  food.  \  part  of  the 
lorn  is  fed  to  the  flocks  and  herds  of  the  country  in  the  grain.     .A  part  is 


'f('>.h,.r,ri,n   ,r 


!■■■ 


532 


/AD  US-  TK/A  I.    HIS  TON  V 


also  used  as  fuel  in  years  of  excessive  abundance  and  expensive  transijortation 
One-half  of  the  corn,  however,  and  three  (juarters  of  the  wheat  at  Kmm  ar^ 
ground  up  into  flo'ir  and  meai  for  l)read. 

("•rain  was  reduced  to  flour,  in  the  early  days  of  the  settlement  of  ti,,. 
country,  by  breaking  it  with  a  hand-pesile  in  a  mortar  made  from  a  hollow 
Coioni*  ^'""'   •      '  '^'^  ^''^^  ^^  '''-'^'  "i^"''  niode  of  making   bread.     11^. 

mode  of  v     ..  man  improved  u|)on  it  a  little  by  rigging  up  an  .iiipaiatus 

fl'ou''r."*  ''*'■    '  well-sweep,  and  suspentli-      the   heavy  pestle  from  ihat,  so 

"1..t;   •'   could   be  operated   witl.      xs  expenditure  of  labor.    Hk' 
windmill   w.  ,,   how  •■    •     soon    introduced,   and    fuially  the   gristmill   nm   In 

water-power:  and  \W 
^L'ttlers  glavlly  allows.; 
the  grindstoiir  to  mi. 
pcrsede  tlic  laborious 
pestle  and  niortar. 
whicii  it  did  inun^dj. 
alely.  'i'lu-  lloiinni;- 
mills  were  a  great  ( nn- 
venieiice  to  the  pai- 
ple  :  and  tluy  haw 
been  an  iiislitiuion  oi 
such  positive  lunshi- 
l\,  that  they  have  niiil- 
liplied  in  all  parts  oi 
the  (  omury  as  ia>i  av 
the  p(jj)ulation. 

Twenty  years  a.., 
the  largest  tloiiniis: 
State  in  the  (ounlrv 
for  the  supjily  of  the 
general  market  \va> 
New  V'ork.  i'his  wa^ 
due  to  the  abundance  of  water-power  in  that  State,  and  the  large  number  dt 
canals  and  railroads  available  for  collecting  the  grain  and  di^trih- 

ormersu-      ,|(j,-,,r  (h{.  fl()iir.     The  grain  came  largelv  from  the  farms  of  the 
penonty  oi  '^  ^  o     . 

New  York  as   State  itself,  but  also,  in  part,  from  the  West.     The  city  of  Roehe> 
a  flour-mak-   ^^^  ^.^^.  ^^  principal  Centre  of  manufiicturc,  owing  to  the  Itixii- 

ing  State.  '  '  '  r> 

riant  water-power  of  the  famous  (lenesee  River.  The  cities  of 
Baltimore  and  Richmond  also  became  ftimous  milling-centres.  .\t  the  latter 
Baltimore  ^"^^  places  a  large  part  of  the  surplus  grain  of  the  South  was  eon- 
and  Rich-  centrated  for  conversion  into  flour,  and  distribution  to  market. 
""""  ■  Since   1850  the  manufacturing-centre  for  the  general  market  lia- 

moved  backward.     The  great  flour-cities  of  the  country  are  now  in  the  hean 


(;AI.I.K(iil    Kl  Ol'KMII  I  ■ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES.  533 

1)1  tlu  grain-regions  of  the  West.     Ix)uisville,  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  Minneapolis, 
St,  I'.uil,  Milwaukee,  Toledo,  &c.,  are  now  the  flour-cities  par  excellence ;  and  • 
it  is  (lom  their  mills  that  the  barrelled  product  comes  which  is  distributed 
through  the  older  States,  and  sent  abroad,  bearing  the  enthusiastic  brands  of 
■OldClory,"  "(iilt  Kdge,"  "Sea-Koam,"  "Red  U-tter,"  "  Peer-   N.metor 

less,"  '•  Monarch, I'he  i'ride  of  the  Border,"  "  Hallelujah,"  and  »"••'"••■ 

^0  on.  Mow  rapidly  the  milling-interest  has  developed  since  the  opening  of 
the  U ist  to  free  settlement  may  be  seen  from  the  following  statement  of  the 
total  number  of  flouring-mills  in  the  United  States  :  — 

i8ao 4.3*54 

1850 1 1, 81,. 

i860 ij/'jB 

1870 22,_,   ( 

TIk'  product  was  worth  1^136,000,000  in  1850,  and  ;^248,ooo,c.  j  -n  ,  S60 ; 
liiit  in  1870  it  was  worth  {$445,000,000,  and  in  1878  it  must  i.avc  eei.  at 
least  .<55C).ooo,ooo. 

In  tlu;  Kastom  States  the  mills  are  run   principally  by  water-pc    .-i      Along 
tht  (oast  Uiul  on  the  islands  many  old   windmills  still   stand,  and  grind,  in 
their  iiuaint,  leisurely  way,  the  <orn  and  wheat  of  meal  comnui-   jjiuginthe 
nitits.     Steam-mills  generally  supply   the    cities.      In    the    South   Eastern 
wind  iind  water  power  is  chietly  used  ;  but  in  1870  Texas  had  also      *  "' 
till'  Miilis  driven  by  horse-power,  and  seventeen  by  oxen.     This  sort  of  motive- 
liinviT  was  also  resorted  to  more  or  less  in  most  of  the  other  Southern  States, 
iIk  mills  in  that  section    being    numerous,   but  small.      An  instance   of  the 
>m.ill  si/e  (>f  the  Southern  mills  can  be  given.     North  Carolina  had   southern 
aliout  1,450  mills  in   1876  as  against   1,400  in  Ohio;   yet  North   states. 
( aruliua  jjroduced  only  about  S8,ooo,ooo  worth  of  Hour  and  meal,  while  Ohio 
|iro(lu(ctl    more   than   four   limes  as  nuich.      In  the   West   steam-power  and 
water-power  are  used.     The  mills  of  the  West  are   very  large  :    the  bulk  of 
the  (louring  for  the  general  market  is  now  done  in  that  i)art   of  the  <:oun- 
irv.     Illinois,    Indiana,    Michigan,   Minnesota,   and    Missouri    are 

'^  In  the  West. 

the  principal  milling  States.     New   York  and   Pennsylvania,  how- 
ever, by  reason  of  their  dense  po])ulation  an<l  heavy  lo<al  consumption,  still 
grind  the  most  flour  ;  but  it  is  chiefly  consumed  by  the  States  themselves. 

Tlu'  ordinary  operation  of  grinding  grain  is  carried  on  by  letting  the  grain 
lluw  slowly  down  between  two  heavy  grindstones   from  four  to   six    feet    in 
iliaincter,  weighing  about  1.400  pounds  apiece  ;  the  lower  one  sta-   pmcessof 
iionury,  the  upper  one  revolving  at  a  speed  of  120  revolutions  a  snaking 
minute.      The  grain  enters  between  the  stones  through  an  aperture     ""'■ 
m  the  centre  of  the  upper  stone,  and   is  ground  to   powder  speedily.     The 
flour  and  bran  flow  from  between  the  stones  into  the  tight  box  which  sur- 
rounds them,  and  are  carried  olT  by  spouts  to  l)e  sifted  and  separated.     Within 


\ri '  h 


i: ■■■..•:' " 


'j*^^«s; 


534 


INDUS  Th'/A  I.    Ills  TOR  Y 


a  very  few  years  a  new  process  has  been  invented,  which  promises  to  rrNoIn, 
'tioni/e  the  business  of  grinchng.  The  plan  is  to  let  the  grain  flow  into  a 
hollow  cylinder,  within  which  a  forest  of  iron  spokes,  mounted  upon  the  axis 
of  the  cylinder,  is  revolving  with  great  velocity.  The  grain  is  stnu  k  in  the 
air,  and  reduced  by  collision  rather  than  by  grinding.  Another  and  littlfr 
known  "  new  process  "  is  the  invention  of  Mr.  Lacroix  of  Farib.uili,  Minn. 
and  dates  from  1872.  The  plan  is  to  let  the  stones  revolve  slower,  ^d  as  to 
grind  the  grain  more  coarsely.  The  flour  is  bolted  upon  very  large  lioltini,' 
cloths  with  the  aid  of  an  exhaust  draught  of  air  and  of  brushes,  which  |ircvciits 
the  cloth  from  clogging.  It  is  claimed  that  eight  or  ten  jier  cent  uimc  ilonr 
is  gained  by  this  process. 

The  exports  of  flour  are  now  5,900,000  barrels  yearly,  and  of  nual  145,01)0 
barrels.  The  ex])()rts  of  both  ought  to  be  largely  increase<l.  I'liij^laml  t^rinds 
our  grain,  and  derives  a  prolltable  trade  l)y  sending  it  as  flour  iuid  nual  to 
South  .America  and  other  non-lbod-producing  cotuUries.  \\V  ought  tn  ^'riiui 
that  grain  ourselves,  and  obtain  the  profit  of  the  manufacture.  Wc  inij,'iit  also 
grind  some  portion  of  the  1  13,000,000  bushels  of  grain  sent  abroad  ivciy  voar 
in  the  kernel. 

The  .S)utheni  flour  is  the  best  for  exjiort,  becausi'  it  lias  tin-  i|uality  ol" 
standing  the  moist  o(  can-voyage  better  than  other  flours.  Kichmoiid,  lialti- 
more,  and  St.  Louis  supply  the  bulk  of  tlie  flour  for  export. 


MU.SIC.\[.    INSTKUMKNTS. 

In  tiistant  ICuropc  the  people  expect  very  little  of  the  I'nited  States  in 
an  art  point  of  view.  They  look  \\\\o\\  the  country  as  half-savage  yet.  Tluv 
European  think  everybody  carries  a  revolver,  and  drinks  a  great  deal  oi 
idea  of  whiskey  .straight,  and   can  go  out  of  town  into  the  (onntry  anv 

*""'"■  day,  in  any  part  thereof,  and  kill  a  wild  Indian  or  a  lani 
pant  Iniffalo  within  a  few  miles  of  the  city.  They  look  upon  the  I'liited  St.itis 
somewhat  as  they  do  upon  Siberia,  whose  only  value  to  I'airope  con>ists  in  its 
producing  savage  dogs  of  great  size  and  beauty  ;  or  as  a  barbaric  country,  from 
which  it  is  absolutely  out  of  the  (piestion  to  expect  any  product  of  genius  ami 
high  artistic  culture.  It  was  therefore  possible  in  1X73  for  an  I'lnglisli  <  icruy 
man,  the  Rev.  \\.  R.  Haweis,  to  write  his  charming  book  on  '•  Music  and 
Morals,"  in  which  he  discussed  inu!;i<"  and  musical  instnnnents  in  all  tluir 
pha.ses,  historical  and  otherwise,  and  absolutely  without  referring  to  tiie  exist- 
ence of  such  a  thing  as  an  .American  piano,  organ,  or  violin  ;  and  the  book 
Superiority  ''^'^'^  reprinted  in  the  United  States  too.  \'et  the  .Amerii  an  i^iano. 
of  American  Organ,  and  violin  are  concededly  t)ie  best  made  in  the  present  age 
panoi.  ^j.  ^^  vvorld.     The   l-'-uropean  makers  of  pianos  have  been  dc 

feated   at  every  international   exhibition  since   1862   by  one   or  both  of  thi 
American  houses  of  (Whickering  and  Steinway,  in  respect  to  touch,  tone,  bril- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


535 


liancy,  durability,  and  all  the  other  desirable  (nialities  of  the  piano.  Broad- 
wood  (wiiose  pianos  often  cost  i!6,ooo  in  London  in  1851),  Erard,  Collard,  anri 
I'levcl  iiavc  all  failed  to  surpass  the  American  makers.  The  American  cabinet- 
organ  is  superior  in  all  respects,  Unci  has  a  world-wide  sale.  It  has  been 
discovered  of  late  years  that  New-York  CMty  possesses  a  violin-maker,  (le- 
mllnilor,  whose  work  ranks  with  the  best  whic  h  is  produced  in  liie  ancient 
capitals  of  the  Old  World.  It  is  a  singular  comment  on  tlie  lack  of  candor 
ami  uiriiess  in  the  Knglish  mind,  that  the  production  of  such  remarkable  in- 
striimciits  in  America  was  not  alluded  to  in  any  manner  in  the  book  above 
refcrri'd  to,  which  professed  to  be  standard  on  the  subject  of  which  it  treated. 

The  human  family  is  fond  of  nuisic,  and  tiie  variety  of  musical  instruments 
in  use  is  large.     Kvery  nation  contributes  its  fjuota  to  the  vast  multitude  of 
contrivances  for  producing  musical  sounds.     Wild  countries  have   pondnesi  of 
eccentric  creatit)ns  of  bamboo  and  hide,  horn  trumpets  which  can   man  (or 
be  heard  tiiree  miles,  and  violins,  ornamented  with  tusks  and  men's   """*  '" 
hc.iils.  which  produce  shrieks  of  noise  that  would  make  an  American's  hair 
stand  on  end.     From  this  class  of  instruments,  up  to  the  melodious  organs, 
violins,  pianos,  and  brass  horns  in  use   in  civilizeil  regions,  there  is  a  wide 
interval  ;  but  it  is  filled  with  a  myriad  of  inventions  of  all  degrees  of  originality 
and  |)irrc(  tion.     The  piano,  which  stands  near  the  head  of  the  list  of  perfect 
m>tnuncnts,  is  comparatively  a  recent  invention,  ilating  back  no  farther  than 
i;(K).     It  hail  ancestors  which  resembled  it  somewhat,  however,  in  the  (|ueer 
old  psaltery  and  dulcimer   (boxe*^  ^ -.oss  which  strings  were   stretched),  the 
claviciiherium  (with  a  keyboard,  the  strings  being  plucked  with  ([uills),  the 
thvicyinbal,  the  virginal,  the  spinet,  and  the  harpsidiord.     The  harpsichord 
wis  the  instrument  in  use  by  our  great-grandmothers.     It  was  the  first  one  of 
the  scries  in  wiiich  the  strings  were  struck  by  a  hammer.     I'rior  to  1760  the 
striMj;s  hail  been  plucked  with  a  ''uill.     A  few  specimens  of  the  harpsichord 
are  still  extant  among  the  older  families  of  the  country.    One  made  for  Charles 
Carroll  was  exhibited  in  I'hiladelphia  in  1876. 

'['he  expense  of  the  larger  musical  instruments  prevented  many  people  from 

iiwiiiiig  them  in  this  country  until  after  the  manufacture  began  hen*.     A  great 

many  violins  and  accordions,  which  cost  little,  were  owned  by  the  people,  and 

helped  solace  the  loneliness  of  the  farms,  and  the  lack  of  ])opular  amusements 

111  homes  in  the  cities.     Jefferson  was  an  accomplished  musician 

,     .  •   ,        1  ,       .  Jefferson. 

with  the  first-named  mstrume-it.  Mut  harpsichords  and  pianos 
were  seldom  seen.  .\  few  were  imported  by  merchants  for  sale  in  the 
•  itics;  anil  great  musicians  who  came  over  here  to  give  concerts  generally 
hroiight  pianos  with  them,  which  they  generallv  left  behind  when  they  returned 
to  Europe :  but,  on  the  whole,  the  instrument  was  as  rare  as  ajjpointments  to 
positions  in  the  President's  cabinet.  It  was.  moreover,  even  as  late  as  1825, 
still  a  thin-toned,  feeble  instrument.  It  was  made  with  a  trame  entirely  of 
wood,  and  could  not  stand  our  climate. 


4' 


( 


'. 


1 1.' 


»: 


"^'*f''wqrfffv  ' 


5M> 


IXDUS  TRIAL    HISTOR  Y 


i'     ! 


!; ' ,  "tiiih  ^^? 


i  i  nil 


i;^   :^^H^i.A 


1, ' !  If'''-.  .  ■ 


(■  ■ ,  p 


h-^'.  ,i. 


RTi] 


In  1822  Jonas  C'hickering  of  Hoston,  a  young  and  intelligent  mcrhanir 
with  a  love  of  music,  began  to  experiment  at  piano-making.  His  first  iiistrii- 
jonat  mcnt  was  offered   for  sale   in   April,    1823.     Chickering  began, 

Chickerinc.  almost  from  the  very  outset,  with  pianos  which  were  a  long  stri<le 
ahead  of  the  JMiroiwan  instruments  in  purity  and  resonance  of  tone,  and  in 
the  length  of  time  they  would  remain  in  tune.  He  made  the  entire  franas 
of  his  pianos  of  iron  instead  of  wood,  and  introduced  the  cir<  tilar  s(  ales 
arch  wrest-planks,  and  tuning-l)locks.  The  iron  frames  were  a  great  inijirove- 
ment.  The  strings  of  a  piano  pull  enormously  ;  and,  unless  the  frame  is  per. 
fectly  rigid  ami  unyielding  (which  the  wooden  frame  never  was),  the  iiiano 
will  get  out  of  tune  rapidly,  and  soon  wear  out.    'I'he  pull  of  the  strings  of 


CIIICKENINf^    riANO. 


a  modern  grand  piano  is  between  eleven  and  twelve  tons.  The  iron  frame 
was  improved  by  other  makers,  and  was  soon  adf)i)ted  generally  botii  in 
America  and  Europe.  Al])heus  Babcock  of  Philadelphia  got  a  jjatcnt  in 
Conrad  1 825  for  an  oblong  frame,  the  sha])e  of  wiiich  caused  it  to  resist 

Meyer.  ^j^p  tension  better.     Conrad  Meyer  of  Philadel|)hia,  in  1833,  made 

square  pianos  with  full  iron  frames  substantially  like  those  now  used  in- 
American  makers. 

There  were  other  makers  in  the  business  in  the  early  part  of  the  ccntnry : 
among  them  were  Stodart,  Osborn,  ar.r!  Thurston  ;  Stodart,  pcrha])s,  being 
Early  piano-  the  most  popular.  All  the  makers  displayed  great  ingenuity  in 
makers.  increasing  the  richness  and  brilliancy  of  tone  of  their  pianos ;  and 

they  were  rewarded,  in  the  prosperous  times  following  1825,  by  the  large 
demand  which  grew  up  for  their  instruments.     Competition  between  them 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


5J7 


rcdiu i'<l  prices,  and  the  sales  soon  increased  to  several  thousand  a  year.  The 
sale  lias  since  been  constantly  extending.  Chickering  took  the  leail  after 
a  while,  an,!  in  1853,  when  he  died,  was  selling  eight  hundred  pianos  a  year. 
Kv  1S67  the  firm  had  sold  in  all  thirty  thousand  pianos,  and  was  ahead  of 
all  (Dinpetitors.  The  house  has  since  increased  its  sales  to  more  than  three 
thousand  a  year. 

In   185s  Steinway  &  Sons  of  New- York  City  introduced  the  second  of 
till'  two  striking  improvements  which  have  been  made  in  the  piano  by  Ameri 
laii  makers:  this  .",  \s  the  "  overstringing  "  of  the  bass-strings,  as  it  steinway  & 
is  t  ailed  ;    that  is,   taking  them  out  of  the  horizontal    jjlane   in   *""•• 
wlii<  h  the  tenor-strings  are  i)la<ed,  and  stringing  them  over  the  others,  and 
iifaur  the  middle  of  the  soimding-board.     Hy  this  improvement,  and  a  new 
arrangement   of  the  bridges,  Steinway  &  !~ons   increased  the  length  of  the 
Uiss-fords  over  the   sounding-board    from   forty  to  sixty-four  inche,-.     This 
liroiight  a  wonderful   access   of  power  to   the    instrimient.      All   the   other 
makers,    American    and    foreign,  were    soon    compelleil    to   ado|)t    this    ex- 
iilicnt  arrangement  of  the  strings.     They  were  the  first  to  manufacture  im- 
proved grand  pianos  in  this  coimtry.     Their  first  essay  in  this  direction  was 
liroiight  out  in.1859,  and  appeared  in  concert  at  the  New- York  Academy  of 
.Music. 

In  i860  Lindeman  & 
Sous  of  New  \ork  pat- 
iiitiil  a  cycloid  piano 
whii  li  received  universal 
(onunendation  ;  and 
Doker  &  |{rothers.  J.  P. 
Ilak'.  Harris  Brothers. 
anil  Albert  Weber,  of 
Niw  York,  Knabe  & 
Coiniiany  of   other 

Haiti  more,    inventors. 

William  P.  ICmerson,  and 

ilaiict,  Davis,   >V    Com- 

jiany,  of   liosii,  n,   and 

others,  in   turn,  l)r<)Ught 

out   special    styles     md 

patents.      .Ml    these 

makers  have  had  a  great  sale  of  their  instruments.     Steinway  &  Sons  to».'k 

the  lead  in  1869. 

The  annual  production  of  pianos  in  the  I'nited  States  is  now  about  forty 
thousand:  in  Europe  it  is  only  about  twenty-five  thousand.  In  1.S67.  at 
Paris,  the  first  prizes  were  given  to  Steinway  and  Chickering.  The  t  i/ited 
States  now  outstrips  the  Old  World  both  in  the  extent  of  ])roduction  and  the 


WKllKR    I'lANO. 


,-m 


*'' 


538 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


II 


,.-•':«' 


quality  of  her  pianos ;  and  she  has  the  three  largest  fn'-'cles  in  tne  world. 
She  can  well  sustain  the  negi.v.t  of  Haweis  in  "  Music  and  Morals "  witli 
equanimity,  in  view  of  these  facts. 

Within  the  last  two  years,  one  of  the  New- York  factories  (that  of  Idsei)!) 
P.  Hale)  has  begun  to  do  business  on  a  scale  which  promises  to  put  its  s;i!es 
Joseph  p.  ahead  of  that  of  the  houses  of  both  Chickering  and  Stiiiiway. 
Hale.  Mr.   Hale,   a   Massachusetts  man   by  birth,  began   piano-niakim,' 

in  New  York  in  i860,  after  having  first  accumulated  a  fortune  in  the  ( nxkcrv 
and  real-estate  trades  in  Worcester,  Mass.  His  i)urpose  was  to  chcnijcn  the 
selling-cost  of  the  piano.  He  wanted  "  the  people,"  as  contrasted  with  the 
upper  ten  thousand,  to  have  a  i)iano  which  would  be  both  good,  and  ( hLMii 
enough  for  them  to  afford.  He  entered  upon  the  manufacture  on  a  kuxT 
scale,  and  by  1872  had  a  factory  in  New-York  City  capable  of  Iniilding  >i\ty 
,iianos  a  week.  He  has  rccendy  undertaken  to  increase  the  ( apai  ity  nl  hi^ 
factory  to  a  himdred  and  fifty  pianos  a  week  ;  which  would  lie  three  tinier 
greater  than  that  of  any  other  factory  in  the  world,  and  would  siipijlv  one 
fifth  of  die  trade  of  the  continent.  Mr.  Hale's  operations  made  a  i,Teat 
sensation  in  the  piano-trade  in  1877. 

In  1870  there  were  156  i)iano-f;ictories  in  the  United  States.  enii)l(iviag 
Number  of  4,200  people,  and  producing  24,306  pianos  worth  S>S.^  50,000. 
factories.  '\\^^,  number  of  factories  does  not  increase  ;  but  the  prodm  tioii 
has  now  nearly  doubled. 

.An  instrument  which  is  contesting  for  the  jialm  of  jiopular  favor  with  tlie 
piano  is  the  sweet-voiced  caI)inct-organ,  wiiose  gentle  and  sympatnetic  tojKs 
Cabinet-  are  far  better  adapted  to  the  (juiet  and  repose  of  tiie  family  Hie 
organ.  (|^,,,^  ^■^^,  ^ore  l)riiliant  but  less  gracious  piano  :  in  fact,  it  niii;ht 

have  been  said  that  the  contest  is  ended  in  favor  of  the  <  al)inet-or;.;an.  were 
it  not  for  the  fact   tiiat  its   larger  sale  is  partly  due  to   its  ( hea])er  pri(  e.  .md 
that  the  recent  reduction  in  tiie  jiricc  of  pianos  !ea\es  the  contest  tor  the  ulti 
mate  largest  sale  still  an  unsettled  (|uestion. 

The  caliinet-organ  is  an  .\nieri<  an  invention  :  it  sprang  from  so  iiiunlile 
an  origin  as  the  accordion.  It  is  a  reed-instruuK'iit,  the  tones  Wkw^  jmo- 
AnAmerican  diiccd.  not  with  the  aid  of  pipe-^.  but  by  t!ie  vibrations  of  a  thin 
invention.  j^^^jp  y(-  i,,-;,^..;  ixi^mA  luiif  au  iiK  ii  to  several  in(  hes  in  length,  r,.s 
tened  at  one  end  over  an  aperture  in  a  nutai  phite  througli  whicli  a  curreiu  nt' 
air  is  forced  or  drawn,  'i'he  original  patent  was  issued  to  .\aron  .M.  l'ea-ile\, 
in  1S18.  for  what  he  call.'d  "an  improvement  in  organs."  .At  first  tlie  reed- 
organ  was  siin])ly  an  accijrdion,  or  lap-mclodeou  :  and  it  was  in  tliat  form  that 
manufacturers,  for  a  long  period,  improved  and  sold  it.  It  was  enlarged  hy 
different  makers,  strengthened  in  ])ower.  and  finally  improved  in  tone  l)y 
cur\ing  the  reeds  into  an  S.  It  iiecaine  popular  for  accomiianiinents  to 
church-music  about  1840.  In  1846  Jeremiah  ("arhart,  then  of  I'lilTalo, 
invented    the    modern  "  melodeon "  by   fitting  to   the   reed-organ  a  pair  of 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


539 


m 


exhaust-bellows  and  a  regular  key-board.  It  was  provided  that  the  air  in  this 
instniment  should  be  drawn  inward  through  the  reeds,  rather  than  blown 
outward.  'Ihc  change  improved  the  tone,  prevented  the  reeds  from  sticking, 
secured  a  prompt  response  whenever  a  key  was  touched,  and  brought  with  it 
main  other  advantages.  Mr.  Carhart,  and  Prince  &  Company,  made  four- 
octave  melodeons  on  this 
pl.iii  lor  two  or  three 
years,  and  then  increased 
their  siopc  to  five  octaves. 
Man\-  changes  of  detail 
were  made  in  tlio  arrange- 
nuiit  of  the  interior  appa- 
ratus from  year  to  year. 
anil  llu'  tone  and  working 
(if  the  instrument  were 
iini»ni\eil.  I'hc  nKuhine 
still  lacked  the  i)erfect 
swxetiiess  whi(  ii   it    ought 

to    have     had.     Emmons 
In    lX4(,    I'.m-     Hamlin. 

Mioas  Hamlin,  a  young 
man  in  the  employ  of 
l'rin<  e  iV  Comiiany  :)f 
llutt'alo.  iiit  ujion  the  hap- 
|)y  iilea  of  gi\ing  a  slight 
twi>t  to  the  ( iirveil  reeds. 
I'he  (  hange  eliminated  all 
harshness  from  the  tone 
of  the  reeds,  and  made 
tlu'in  >ofl  and  nuisical. 
It  led.  also,  to  experi- 
ments in  the  direction  of 
giving;  different  (jualitics 
of  voice  to  ri'cds  by  al- 
terations in  their  size  and 
form,  which  have  since 
|iru\eil  successful.     I'rince 

iV  ('oni|)any  iuunediately  adopted  all  the  new  ideas  in  their  melodeons, 
and  presented  to  tiie  public  a  class  of  Instruments  which  iu-^tantly  became  a 
powerful  rival  to  the  piano.  Said  Spenser  in  a  ri'tircd  nook  of  an  ancient 
palace, 

"  Mv  liivc  doth  >il, 
PKiyinj;  alone,  earcles-i,  on  lier  luavrnlv  virginaU." 


CAIilNKl-OKCAN 


il' 


'      '1ff,y.r,^f.,j^ff,,.f 


1 


1 


540 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  manu- 
facture. 


If  the  ancient  virginal,  with  its  faint,  thin  voice,  could  have  filled  the  poet's 
head  with  dreams,  what  would  not  the  divine,  assuaging  strains  cf  the  sweet 
melodeon,  now  brought  to  perfection,  have  done  in  that  direction  ! 

In  1854  Mr.  Hamlin  formed  a  partnership  with  Mr.  Henry  Mason,  ,011  of 
Dr.  Lowell  Mason  the  composer,  and  began  the  manufacture  of  reed-organs 
Progress  of  "^P^"  ''■  ^'^''8^  ^Q.2\^  in  Boston.  The  firm  first  presented  to  the 
public  their  organ-harmonium,  with  four  sets  of  reeds  and  two  man- 
uals of  keys.  In  1861  they  brought  out' the  school-harmonium 
in  i86i.  the  cabinet-organ.  They  have  since  constantly  developed  the  re- 
sources, sweetness,  and  scope  of  their  instruments,  until  they  stand  absolutely 
at  the  head  of  manufacturers  of  reed-organs  in  the  world  at  large.  'I'liey  are 
not,  however,  the  only  American  makers  who  excel  the  P'rench,  (ierman,  and 
English  makers :  many  others  do  that,  and  among  them  the  B.  Shoninger 
Organ  Company  of  New  Haven,  Conn. ;  the  Quaker-City  Organ  Company, 
Philadelphia  ;  Peloubet,  Pelton,  &  Company  of  New  York  ;  the  Benham  ( )rgan 
Company  of  Indianapolis ;  the  Clough  &  Warren  Organ  Company  of  1  )ctroit, 
Mich. ;  and  the  Taylor  &  f'arley  Organ  Company  of  Worcester,  Mass.  It  is 
believed  that  these  makers  all  build  upon  the  exhaust  or  American  plan  ;  and 
their  instruments  are  certainly  superior,  in  sweetness,  variety,  and  rajiidiiy  of 
execution,  to  European  organs,  —  a  fact  which  is  recognized  by  the  large 
foreign  salo  of  their  organs.  They  receive  orders  from  every  continent  in  the 
world,  and  send  abroad  about  $600,000  worth  of  instruments  annually. 

The  manufacture  in  the  United  States  is  now  being  carried  on  in  aliout 
Numberof  scvcnty-five  establishments.  In  1870  the  production  had  already 
establish-  reached  32.000  ip.strnnicnts  a  year,  wliii  li  was  a  good  ways  alicad 
ments.  ^^^  ^^^  manufacture  of  pianos.     It  cannot  at  present  be  less  than 

50,000  a  year. 

In  the  building  of  i)ipc-organs  for  rliurchcs  the  United  States  have  made 

some  i^rogress.     'i'hey  are   able  now  to  depend  upon  liieir  own 
Pipe-organs.  /-ni  i^ii  <•  ■      \  • 

factories  for  all  that  they  need  in  tins  ( lass  of  musical  instruments. 
The  principal  makers  are  Hook  &  Hastings  of  Boston,  and  (leorge  Jardine 
\'  Son  of  New  York.     About  700  chun  li-organs  are  made  every  year. 

The  manufacture  of  brass  iiorns  and  trumpets,  violins,  banjos,  guitars, 
drums,  cymbals,  xylophones,  gongs,  accordions,  tambourines,  and  all  (itlicr 
Manufacture  ''istruments,  both  for  serious  and  comic  use,  is  now  condiuied 
of  brass  upon    a    large   scale.      The    industry  is   in  a  very  healthy  state, 

instruments.    ,j  |^^,   i,i^,i,^^^^t  ,.]^^^  „f  |,ra,s  and   sdver  pieces,  and   of  violins,  is 

being  attemjited,  and  reasonable  success  has  been  attained  by  a  few  makeis. 
(Jcmiinder  of  New  York,  es|)ecially,  has  done  well  in  violins.  The  manufac- 
ture now  amounts  to  about  $2,500,000  worth  \  early.  There  is  a  fondness  tor 
Furopean  instrun.cnto  ol  these  smaller  kinds,  however,  which  our  makers  have 
not  yet  conquered  ;  and  $700,000  wortn  of  them  are  imported  yearly.  The 
triumph  which  the  ]>iano  and  orgiiii  makers  have  won  has  yet  to  fall  to  the  lot 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


541 


of  the  makers  of  these  sm  ler  instruments.  That  the  latter  will  yet  carry  their 
eagles  all  over  the  musical  world  and  subdue  it,  as  their  brothers  have  done 
before  them,  is,  however,  certain.  They  have  the  talent,  and  it  only  needs 
time  and  patient  study  to  accomplish  the  result. 

Two-thirds  of  all  the  musical  instruments  in  the  country  are  made  in  New- 
York  City,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia,  the  cities  taking  rank  in  the  order  named. 

MATCHES. 

The  means  of  lighting  a  fire  were  so  poor  in  the  days  of  our  forefathers, 
that  a  fire  was  dispensed  with  whenever  possible ;  and  where  a  fire  was 
al)solutely  necessary,  as  in  the  kitchen,  it  was  kept  alive  constantly,'  how  fires 
like  the  flame  on  an  ancient  altar,  by  feeding,  and  by  covering  the  were  former- 
coals  at  night  with  the  ashes.  The  usual  way  of  kindling  a  fire  in  ^^  '*^  *"  • 
those  (lays  was  to  strike  a  sliower  of  sparks  from  a  piece  of  flint  into  a  few 
scon  bed  cotton  or  linen  rags,  which,  by  a  little  gentle  blowing,  would  then  be 
maile  to  burst  into  a  flame.  Phosphorus  was  not  discovered  until  Discovery  of 
1677.  and  it  was  not  until  a  hundred  years  afterwards  that  it  came  phosphorus. 
into  use  at  all  for  lighting  fires.  There  were  two  ways  in  which  it  was  tiicn 
used.  \  piece  of  phospliorus  was  put  into  a  vial,  and  stirred  with  How  it  was 
a  hot  wire,  so  as  to  coat  the  bottle  with  o.xide  of  phosphorus  :  the  **  '^"*  "■"*•• 
l)ottle  was  then  tightly  corked.  When  wanted  for  use,  a  s])linter  of  wood 
n!)oiit  six  inches  lung,  the  end  of  which  hail  been  coated  with  sulphur,  was 
(lipped  into  the  vial,  where  it  took  fire  from  the  phospliorus,  and  was  lighted. 
This  process  of  getting  a  light  was  in  use  almost  within  half  a  century  :  only 
the  rich  employed  it.  .Another  plan  contemporary  with  it  was  to  employ  an 
(iwiiinriate  match.  .\  stiik  of  wood  about  -^ix  inches  long  was  tijjped  with 
sulphur,  and  then,  with  a  i)aste  made  of  chlorate  of  potash,  gum,  and  sugar, 
colored  with  vermilion.  Vials  containing  a  piece  of  asbestos  soaked  in  oil  of 
vitriol  were  sold  with  them.  The  match,  touciied  to  the  oil  of  vitriol,  burst 
into  a  blaze. 

In  i<S29  an  Knglish  chemist  discovered  that  chlorate  of  potash  would  ignite 
by  friction  ;  and  this  gave  rise  \.o  the  modern  lucifer-match.  The 
now  style  of  match  was  tipped  with  ciilorate  of  potash,  sul[)liate 
of  antimony,  antl  starch,  and  was  lighted  by  drawing  between  folds 
I  if  saml-paper.  The  manufacture  of  this  class  of  matches  began 
soon  afterward  in  the  United  States,  in  New  England.  They  were 
I  ailed  "  locofoco  "  matches  pop'ilarly,  the  jingling  and  unmeaning  name  being 
j;i\cn  them  for  comic  effect.  'I"he  Democrats  in  1835  accpiired  "Locofoco" 
the  name  of  "  Locofocos"  as  a  political  jjarty  fiom  the  use  of  these  ""tches. 
matches.  'I'he  New- York  Whigs  had  called  a  meeting  ;  and  the  Democrats,  in 
order  to  get  jiossession  of  the  hall,  came  in  and  blew  out  the  candles.  The 
Whigs  .-etirod  ;  and  the   Democrats  then  relighted  the  candles  with  locofoco- 


Discovery 
which  led  to 
the  making 
of  the  luci- 
fer-match. 


i        -r'rrrfrrffriir 


542 


INDUSTPIAL    HISTORY 


IJfie 


m-1  J. 


t ' .? 


matches,  and  went  on  with  the  meeting.  The  matches  were  also  called  'Con- 
greves,"  because  they  were  exi)losive  like  the  rockets  of  that  name.  In  1814 
Invention  of  pliosjjhorus  was  for  the  first  time  applied  to  the  match  itsuir,  In 
Aionzo  D.  1836  .\lonzo  1).  Phillii)s  of  Springfield,  Mass.,  got  a  patent  for  jjIios- 
Phiiiips.  phorous  matches,  which  was  a  step  in  advance  of  the  old  kimi  :  ami 
since  then  the  manufacture  has  been  carried  on  in  the  United  States  oii  a  lame 
scale.  The  length  of  the"  match  was  reduced  to  about  two  inches.  Maclnnerv 
was  invented  for  making  the  wooden  splints,  and  performing  different  oinra- 
tions  of  the  manufacture  ;  and  the  business  was  so  systematized,  and  Lnt(.ic(l 
Extension  of  upon  on  such  an  enormous  scale,  that  matches  soon  be(  anic.  not 
industry.  ^^^  luxury  of  the  rich,  but  the  cheapest  article  which  'ii'crcd  into 
the  retail  trade  of  the  people.  In  1850  A.  Beecher  &  Sons  established  a  larj^c 
factory  &f  matches  at  Westville,  Conn.  ;  and  in  1S54  Swift  X:  Courlnev  uxni 
into  the  business  at  Wilmington,  Del.  Tiie  two  firms  consoiidaii'd  in  iSjo  a\ 
the  Swift,  Courtney.  &  Beecher  Company,  and  now  constitute  tlie  i)riiui|)al 
house  in  the  business  in  the  United  States.  Tiiey  have  branchis  ii  I'hiladd- 
I)hia,  New  York,  Baltimore,  and  '"iiicago.  TIktc  are  at  ])ri.',-ent  iMMit  eighty 
establishments  in  the  business.  Tiie  manufacture  is  enormous,  rea'  ii.\'  a!)oiit 
15,000,000,000  matches  a  year. 

Friction-matches  were  first  made  in  combs  of  a  do/ei^  or  wo  eai  h.  in 
Process  of  this  foriu  the  wood  was  very  conveniently  anaii^  for  ilijipini.' 
making.  j,^j(j  [\■^^.  melted  sulphur,  and  afterward  into  tlo-  ( lu mi-  il  pivpara- 

tion  of  phosphorus,  or  chlorate  of  j/otasii.  Iv'ch  matcn  was  biokt.'n  olT  as  it 
was  wanted  for  use.  This  st'';'  of  match  is  still  largel)  mrde  lui  its  ( hoaimcss. 
The  more  convenient  and  n>U(  'nore  common  form  in  whi'  i  matches  arc  ^old 
is  in  bundles  or  boxes,  containiiu  JViv*-. ',;.'. -e  from  t.\enty-fivi"  to  five  iiumlicd. 
The  splints  ;;re  t'ornv"!  l)y  mnihiticrx  u  -'ch  will  make  two  'lu'.iion  in  a  dav. 
They  are  rolled  into  tlat  bundit.,  ,  _j;lui.en  inches  across  l)y  iikk  hinerv,  each 
splint  being  held  apart  from  its  neighbors  ;  and  are  then  dipped  by  h and  into 
the  chemical  preijarations  necessary  to  cause  them  to  ignite.  One  Wurknian 
can  dip  a  million  matches  in  an  hour.  They  are  then  dried,  ami  put  up  in 
packages  for  the  market. 

The  match-business  is  now  the  principal  customer  for  ])hosplionis,  and  one 

of  the  large  ones  for  sulphur.     It  is  said  that  ninety-five   per  (cut  of  all  the 

pliosijhorus  made   is  (onsumed   in  match-making.     The  business 

Quantity  o      j^,^^  j^^,^,^^   j^^   ^j^^.    ^^^^  ^^^  uuhealthv  one,  owing  to  the  ll(li■^ono^^ 

pnospnorus  '  .01 

consumed  in  character  of  the  chemicals  used.  In  I'',ngl;ind.  where  mat(di-niaking 
'^^":^'  used  to  be  carried  on  largelv  at  home,  ihe  poor  i>cople  cnnaurd  in 

making.  '^     -  111 

it  were  never  free  from  the  fiunes.  .\t  night  their  very  rloihinj,^ 
was  luminous:  in  the  day-time  white  vapors  were  ((intinuallv  rising  Ironi 
them.  American  ingenuity,  by  iiUroducing  the  use  of  ma<  hines.  has  made  llic 
busir  j.o  a  ven  (lii.'erent  sort  of  an  occupatimi  :  and  it  is  now  as  healthlul  as 
;he  majority  fif  trades. 


r^  % 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


543 


Among  the  matches  now  made  are  several  for  special  uses,  —  the  pailor- 
matcli,  for  instance,  which  uses  no  sulphur,  and  is  thus  free  from  the  choking 
fiimi's  of  sulphur ;  the  smoker's  matcli,  which  blazes  strongly,  and  various 
(an  lie  used  to  light  a  cigar  in  the  wind  or  rain ;  and  the  wax  kinds  of 
matdi,  which   burns   a   long   time,  and  is  an  elegant  affair  for  "'*"'  "" 
dainty  uses. 

GLASS-WARE    AND    I'O TTERY. 

Tiie  first  glass-factory  in  the  United  States  was  started  in  Virginia  almost 
immediately  after  the  founding  of  ihe  first  settlement.  It  is  said  that  the  very 
first  I  aiL'o  sent  back  to  Engu.nd  contained  "  trials  "  of  glass  made   _.   ,   , 

'^  o  o  First  gla&i- 

iii  Virginia.     There   is  very  little   on   record  about  that  original   factory  in 
istal)lishment ;  but  it  appears,  at  any  rate,  that  it  stood  in  the   ^""=<' 
woods,  aljout  a  mile  from  Jamestown,  and  that  a  portion  of  its 
prodiK  t  was  in  the  form    of  glass  beads  to  be  used  in  thi-  trade  with  the 
Iiulians.     In  1621  a  fund  was  subscribed  to  estaljlish  a  faclory  especially  for 
f;lass  beads.     Italian  workmen  were  sent  over  to  get  the  works  in  operation. 
W licihcr  one  or  more  factories  were  in  operation  in  1632   is  not  known;  but 
one  ( L'rtainly  was.     It  was  broken  u]),  however,  in  that  year,  by  the  Indians, 
wlu)  invaded  the  colony,  and  destroyed  factories,  the  crops,  and  tlie  settlers 
imliscriminately.     The  glass-bead  business  was  not  again  resumed  in  Virginia 
lor  mort.'  tlian  a  hundreil  and  fifty  years. 

Till'  next  essay  by  the  colonists  was  in  Massaciuisetts.  (Uass  bottles,  table- 
wan',  and  window-glass  were  universally  wanted,  and  the  colonists  were  not 
satisfii'd  with  tlie    .low  anil  costly  business  of  getting  them  from   „.  ^ 

i;uro|)c.     Factories  were  aicordingly  started  at  IJraintree  at  a  very   ing in  Mas- 
earlv  date,  and  at   Salem   in  i6iq:  thev  were  encouraijed  bv  the   "'•''""tts 

''-'  •  t^  .  Colony. 

govcrnnieut  of  the  colony  of  Massaciuisetts,  and  ajjjjcar  to  have 

ilirivt'!  tor  a  long  period.     Tlie  one  at   Mraintree  remained  in  operat         learly 

Miitil  the  time  of  tlie   Revolution.     I'hiladclphia  liad  a  glass-hoii^-  1683. 

All  old  ma|)  of  New-York  City  sliows  that  tliere  mxtc  two  glas-  Ties  at 

that  phu  c  as  early  as  17,52.     During  the  Revolutionary  war  wind       _; lass  was 

made  111  New  Jersey  ;  but  it  was  a  very  inferior  article.     After  th'    .<.evolution 

tiif  111  inut'acture  of  glass  was  encouraged  botli  by  tlie  national  an 

iiv  several  of  the  state  governuuMils,  as  l)eing  one  of  the  ba* 

wml  oidustries  of  the  countrv.     'I'en   iier  cent  dutv  was  levied   '^"stry  after 

'  -  Revolutior- 

i|ioii  all  imported  glass-ware  by  the  former.     In  1788  the  legis-   arywarby 
laiure  of  New  V'ork   loaned  three  thousand  pounds  for  eight  years   "'"States 

,  ,  ,-  . ,,  1      ,  •'"''  nation 

to  the  proprietors  of  a  glass-uictory  near  .Albany,  and  about  1803 
Massa<  iiiisfiis  voted  a  l)ounty  to  a  factory  in  Boston  for  every  tal)le  of  window- 
.^lass  made.     'I'he  manufacture  was  encouraged  in  Connecticut,  Marvland,  and 
Virginia  ;   and  all  of  these  States  had  small  fiictories  in  operation  I  jfore  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century.     The  business  began  at  Pittsburgh,  Penn., 


Encourage- 
nent  of  in- 


i   i 


544 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


in  1796,  with  the  estabhshment  of  bottle  and  crown  glass  works  hv  (icn 
O'Hara.  This  factory  met  with  great  success ;  and  it  is  in  operation  i\ en  at 
Success  of  ^'^^  present  day,  under  the  ownership  of  Thomas  Wiglunuin  & 
factory  at  Company,  though,  of  course,  so  enlarged  and  changed  as  to  possess 
Pittsburg  .  ^j^jy  ^1^^  ^^^j]^  ,^^^  ^^^  ^^^  body,  of  the  original  works,  i'itishumh 
became  the  principal  glass-making  city  of  tlic  coimtry  in  a  very  few  years 
(len.  O'Hara's  success  inspired  others  to  go  into  the  business,  and  the  war 
of  181 2  operated  to  provide  still  furtiier  inducements  by  raising  tiie  jirids  of 
glass-ware  ;  and,  as  Pittsburgh  was  sufticieiitly  remote  from  the  coast  and 
frontier  to  be  safe  from  the  operations  of  the  war,  by  18 14  there  were  fivu 
glass-furnaces  in  blast  in  that  city,  making  boviles,  window-glass,  am!  table- 
ware. One  of  them  was  the  flint-glass-works  of  Hlakewell  &  ('onipanv.  the 
pioneer  of  its  class  in  .America.  This  concern  imported  its  workinou;  it 
made  sets  of  table-ware  for  two  presidents,  and  also  produced  a  s|)leiKli(l 
vase  which  was  subsequently  jircscnted  to  Lafayette. 

The  United  States  were  designated  by  nature  as  a  glass-making  countrv, 
The  land  is  stored  in  every  part  with  sand,  limestone,  and  disintegrated  (luartz- 
rock  of  the  best  (niality  ;  and  there  has  always  been  an  abiiiKiam  t. 
of  cheap  fuel.  Only  one  of  the  materials  entering  into  the  ( (im- 
position of  glass  is  not  present  in  this  country  in  abundance  :  that 
is  soda,  which  con'^t.-'.-ites  twenty  per  cent  of  the  weigiu  of  glass. 
This  (an  be  obtained,  however,  as  cheaply  as  it  can  be  in  i'inuland. 
lielgium,  and  l-'rance  :  and  the  ])Ossession  of  the  other  materials  is  a  i|iialifi- 
cation  foi  the  business  such  as  tew  other  countries  are  endowed  with.  There 
lias  been,  therefore,  a  consiilerable  growth  of  the  business,  espec  iallv  in 
Pennsylvania,  Nea-  Jersey,  and  New  Vork.      The  statistics  are  as  follows :  — 


Favorable 
conditions 
for  glass- 
making  in 
United 
States. 


4i  f,ifi;i  -[x^ 


183^ 
1.S40 
1S50 
1.S60 
1S70 


KACTOKIBS. 


44 
81 

94 

113 

201 


5i,5oo,cxxi 
4.000,000 
4,641,000 

Q.OCD.OOO 

19,233,000 


Of  the  factories  reported  in    1.S70,  fiftv-two  were  in   Pennsylvania   fmosth 
at  Pittsl)urgh,  where  there  were  forty-seven  Victories  in  active  operation),  fiff. 
foi;r  in  New  York,  nineteen  in  New  Jersey,  fourteen   in   M.issachusetts,  ami 
nine  in  Ohio. 

Notwithstanding  this  progresi,  the  glass  works  of  the  United  States  In-  no 
means  supply  the  domestie   mijket.     No    iloubt    .he    production   of  liottk> 


-'M.  f-j"-"!. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


VAI.IT  OK 
I'HODl  I  T. 


\'ani;i   (mosriv 
cration).  lift- 
iichiisetts,  am! 

1  States  liv  H'l 
loii   of  liottlo 


S4S 


coarse  and  fine,  of  lampj-thimneys,  good  table-ware,  and  common  window- 
glass,  is  sufficient  for  the 


(lemaiulsof 

America 
the    conn-     does  not  sup- 

trv;  Imt  in   P'yherown 

market. 

the  higher 

([ualitics  of  window, 
mirror,  and  plate  glass, 
the  production  is  en- 
tirely inailequate.  Over 
six  million  dollars' 
worth  of  tliese  classes 
of  glass-ware  is  in> 
portcil  \  early  from  Ik-1 
<;iun).  France,  and  I'"nj^^- 
laml,  to  sii|)ij|y  the  de- 
ficiency of  native  i^ro- 
(iiiction.  'TIktc  is  in 
this  direction  a  lar^e 
lick!  for  the  extensio.i 
of  the  business.  Sev- 
eral places  exist  in  the 
Soiitii  where  tlie  inann- 
tactiirc  could  be  eco- 
nomically and  profita- 
bly carried  on.  Mobile 
being  one  of  them. 
There  are  several  gooil 
places  in  the  North- 
west. 

Ill  the  manufacture 
of  j;lass-warc  there  is 
not  one  ar-   p„„„  „, 

tl(  le   in    ten     glass-mak- 

t ho  11  sand  '""■ 
which  is  not  fashioned 
at  the  end  of  a  blow- 
pipe. Plate -glass  iat 
"iniiows.  and  the  lenses 
>ii  'ipticaJ   instruments,  casters. 

arc  rast ;    and  L'oblets, 

unip->,  and  st>mc  other   irrcgularly-siiai)ed  *arc,   are    jiressed    in   dies :    but 
everv  thing  ebe  is  taken  Irom  the  meUing-pot  in  a  soft  lump  at  the  end 


M 


' 


v\ 


m 


mmn 


W 


"^^.*..i4fc 


546 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


S^'  ''\\ 


M:i      I 


W  '  v^\y\ 


m 


of  a  blow-pipe,  and  acquires  its  first  form  by  the  operation  of  the  luivs  and 
hands  of  the  workman.  Window-glass  is  made  by  blowing  the  lump  into 
tables  or  cylinders.  The  sand,  carbonate  of  soda,  manganese,  and  arsenic 
which  compose  the  glass,  are  first  melted  down  in  eight  or  ten  pots  arranged 
in  a  large  circular  dome,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  the  fire.  It  takes  aljout 
forty-eight  hours  to  perfect  the  fusion.  When  the  bubbles  are  all  gone  and 
the  drdss  has  been  skimmed  off,  a  workman  dips  the  end  of  a  blo\v-])ii)e  five 
feet  long,  with  a  diameter  ranging  from  one-fourth  inch  to  one  inch,  into  the 

melted  glass,  and 
takes  up  a  luni])  of  it; 
he  blows  this  into  a 
large  flat  gIol)e.  A 
boy  affixes  to  tlu' 
globe  opi)ositc  tlu- 
pipe  an  iron  rod 
with  the  aid  of  a  lit- 
tle meltctl  glass,  and 
the  l)low-])ipf  and 
the  nose  of  the 
globe  are  then  sepa- 
rated from  tiic  globe 
by  the  application  of 
a  piece  of  (  ohl  iron. 
The  globe  iicld  by 
the  iron  rod  is  then 
put  into  the  furnare, 
and  rapidly  revolved. 
It  softens,  and  finally 
opens  out  with  a  flap 
into  a  flat  dish,  which 
is  then  kept  revolv- 
ing until  it  is  cold.  It 
is  next  sent  to  the  an 
nealing- furnace,  and 
its  brittleness  removed  by  annealing;  and  it  is  then  cut  up  for  the  market  with 
a  diamond-point.  The  other  process  of  making  window-glass  is  to  blow  a 
lump  of  melted  material  out  into  a  cylinder,  which  is  done  by  holding  the 
blow-pipe  alternately  over  the  head,  and  then  down  below  the  j)latiorni  on 
which  the  workman  stands.  In  the  latter  position  it  elongates  into  a  cylinder. 
The  cylinder  being  put  into  the  oven,  the  heated  air  within  bursts  out  the  end 
opposite  to  the  hlow-pipe.  The  latter  en<l  is  cut  off  with  a  hot  iron  as  soon  as 
the  cylinder  is  cool.  The  cylinder  is  then  .slit  onre  lengthwise,  and  laid  in  an 
oven,  where  it  softens,  opens,  and  flattens  down,  the  workman  assisting  the 


DECASTHRS. 


Of-    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


547 


Plate-glaat. 


Dner.ntion  by  working  a  block  of  wood  over  it  attached  to  the  end  of  a  rod. 
Ihc  plate  is  then  sent  off  to  be  annealed.  The  distortions  which  are  pro- 
duced by  looking  through  window-glass  come  from  the  fact,  that,  the  inner 
anil  outer  surfaces  of  the  cylinder  being  of  different  lengths,  the  flattening 
produces  in  the  glass  undulations  called  cockles. 

Hottlcs  and  hollow-ware  are  blown  out  from  a  lump  of  melted  material,  and 
shaped  in  moulds  of  brass  or  iron,  which  open  and  shut  on  a  hinge,  and  are 
worked  by  the  foot.  I'late-giass  is  cast  upon  an  iron  slab,  at  the  Bottles  and 
sides  of  which  arc  placed  bars  of  iron  of  the  intended  thickness  hoUow- 
of  the  plate.  An  iron  or  copper  roller  rests  upon  these  bars,  and  '*'""'■ 
is  tlicii  rolled  over  the  surface  of  the  melted  glass,  pressing  before  it  the  super- 
fluous material,  and  giving  the  i)late  a  uniform  thickness.  The 
edges  of  the  plate  are  trimmed  when  it  is  cool,  and  the  plate  is 
tiicn  annealed.  Flint-glass  for  table-ware  is  ground  after  pressing  by  means 
of  sand  and  emery  wheels.  The  sharp  edges  so  often  noticed  are  produced 
in  this  way.  All  glass  has  to  be  ground  and  polished  by  apparatus  specially 
fitted  up  for  the  purpose.  Colored  glass  for  stained  windows,  laiHerns,  to:.,  is 
nudi'  !iy  mixing  into  the  melting-pot  oxide  of  gold  for  red,  oxide  of  copper 
fur  l)hie,  oxide  of  manganese  for  amethyst,  iron  ore  and  manganese  for  orange, 
copper  and  iron  for  green,  and  other  metals  for  other  colors.  The  color  may 
be  produced  in  the  body  of  the  glass  itstdf,  or  only  on  t!ie  surface  ;  if  on  the 
surface,  it  is  prodmed  by  dipping  the  lump  of  clear  glass  into  a  pot  of  colored 
material,  when  some  of  the  latter  dings  to  the  whole  surface,  and  remains 
permanent  in  every  stage  of  tlie  subseiiuent  processes.  'I'he  silvering  of  glass 
for  mirrors  is  a  simple  operation.  Tin-foil  is  spread  over  a  stone  table,  and 
(|uicksilver  poured  thinly  o\er  it.  The  plate  of  glass  is  slid  slowly  upon  the 
table,  pushing  the  quicksilver  before  it,  the  object  being  to  prevent  any  air 
getting  under  the  glass.  The  superfluous  metal  is  then  drawn  off,  and  the 
])late  weighted  down  for  several  hours.  It  is  then  taken  u|),  the  tin-foil  adher- 
ing, and  exi)osed  to  the  air,  l)ack  up])ermost.  for  several  days,  until  the 
amalgam  is  perfectly  hard. 

The  Siemens  reverberatory  gas-furnace  has  been  adopted  in  the  glass- 
manufacture,  as  well  as  in  the  iron  and  steel  business,  —  more  largely  abroad, 

however,  than  in  .\mcrica.     It  is  now  considered  essential  in  the   e: „ 

aiemens  re- 
making of  the    hip'-.cr  {pialities  of  glass.     The  ordinary  furnace,   verberating 

with  its  melting-pots  arranged  around  an  open  fire-box,  is  certain  b"*-'"'"""- 
to  injure  the  glass  by  bringing  coal-dust,  sulphur,  to:.,  into  contact  with  the 
mehing-materials.  This  is  all  obviated  by  the  Siemens  furnace ;  and  Hie 
enlargement  of  the  plate  and  fine  glass  business  in  this  country  can  only 
proceed  with  the  aid  of  this  style  of  furnace. 

Pottery  was  one  of  the  earliest  manufactures  of  the  colonists.  The  Lon- 
don companies  sent  over  potters  to  all  the  colonies,  and  the  Dutch  did  the 
saint  for  their  settlements  at   the   mouth  of  the   Hudson.    The   colonists 


tepfi,f 


Ill 


if,'''   ' 


;>       ' 


548 


/A7J  rs  TK I A  I.    HIS  TOK  Y 


ANCII'.NT   Iin-IKKY     — Jim. 


could  not  get  on  without  jars,  jugs,  mugs,  and  I'arllicn  dislu-s  ;  and  cvt  ry  .lis- 
trict  of  the  country  had   its  own   |)ottcry.     Alexander   llamiitou  ri|i(iitr(l  ii, 

1790    tiiat     tlie     liusiiitvs    \v;is 

Manufocture  I'lnving.  It  \v;is 
of  pottery  by  one  of  tl\f  few 
colonists.  I  I  .     , 

branciu's  oi  mdns. 
try  which  had  made  itsiH'  ahK- 
to  sui)iily  tiie  •■olonial  (kin.UKJ. 
'I'lie  husiness  is  a  very  ^iin|ple 
one,  tlie  clays,  while  and  Iikumi, 
lieiii),'  fashioned  l)y  hand  updH 
a  little  revolving  round  table 
directly  from  the  liMn|i,  diinl  ii) 
the  air,  haki'd  in  ,m  ovin.  and 

Number  o(  IIk'II  gla/ed.  it  is 
potteries.  v^.  ,.y        i.^ttn^vcly 

practised  throughout  the  idim- 
try,  there  being  about  750  pot- 
teries in  operation,  sii|i|ilyiiig 
about  :S6,o()o,ooo  worth  of  ware 

every  year.     Trenton,  N.J. .  is  tiie  greatest  individual  centre  of  the  niaiuifat- 

ture.     Within  the  last  fivi-  years  the  pot- 
ters have  begun  to  juiy  some  attention  lo 

the  matter  ot'  producing  artistic   pottery. 

Their  forms  had  been,  until  five  years  ago, 

of  the  simplest  and  most  practical  des(  rip- 

tion  ;  little  was  done  for  beauty,  and  «an  i- 

any  pottery  was    made    for   ])urely  orna- 
mental objects.     .\  change  in  refereiK  e  to 

form    is    now  taking   jilace.     Within    tiie 

last  ten  years  the  attention  of  makers  has 
.been  drawn  to  a  collection  of  pottery  near- 

Cesnoia  ly    two    thousand    years    old, 

collection.       which   was  dug   uj)   from   the 

ruins  of  the  temples  in  the  Island  of  Cyprus 

by  Cesnola,  the  consul  of  the  United  States, 

and  wiiich  was  sold  to  the   Metropolitan 

Museum  of  New-Vork  City.     'l"he  lovers 

of  art  have  gone  wild  over  these  treasures, 

and  a  mania  has  grown  uj)  for  ornamental 

jiicces  in  the  same  sha])es  as  many  of  the  interesting  antiques   in  this  lainnni 

collection.     'I'he  old  mania  for  artistic  china  has  broken  out  .igain  too,  ami 

these  two  causes  combined  have  presented  to  the  pottery- makers  their  ojipor- 


ANt  I  FN  I     I'dl  IKNV.—  .|AI(. 


OF    Till-:    UNllEli    STATES. 


549 


tmiiiv.  Many  of  llic  inoic  ciitcrprisinf,'  firms  Iiavc  rcicnlly  undLTtakcn  to  pro- 
ihiic  jars,  vasL's,  miij^s,  \<  .,  in  llic  antique  style  ;  and  tlu'  market  is  now  full  of 
ilu  II  wart',  and  tiie  sales  of  it  are  larj,'e.  Some  ol  the  pieces  they  make  they 
ilcciiiale  at  tlie  pottery  tiiem.-.elses  in  brown  and  i)la(k  ;  hnt  a  larj,'e  propor- 
timi  (if  the  pieces  is  sent  to  tiie  store  in  tlu  rou^'h  state,  to  lie  sold  to  la<lies 
.mil  Jilists  who  desire  to  decorale  the  jars  and  vases  themselves.  The  forms 
111'  (diiimon  pottery  have  jien  eptiltly  improved,  too,  alonj;  with  those  of  tiic 
more  artistic  kind. 


\\ 


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POKCKI.AIN    llATK. 


Porcelain. 


I'orcclain-ware  is  also  made  to  some  extent  in  the  United  States,  though 
this  is  not  yet  one  of  our  },'real  industries.  New  York.  Pennsylvania,  and 
N\'\v  Jersey  have  excellent  f u  idries,  nuikini;  ware  from  native 
earths,  and  decor.itin^'  it  with  tlower  and  leaf,  and  bird,  insect,  and 
animal  ])atterns,  according  to  the  taste  of  the  day.  'I'his  liranch  of  manufiic- 
turt'  jiartakes  of  the  character  of  I'liie  art,  and  it  is  not  one  in  which  .American 
artisans  have  yet  won  any  dislingiiished  success.  What  will  be  the  result  when 
the  excellent  schools  of  design  in  Massai  husetts  and  New  York  have  done  their 
work  a  little  more  thoroughly,  need  not  be  referreil  to  here  ;  but  it  may  be  said 


-  •'■''Vi  ' 


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Hiotografiiic 

Sdences 

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23  WIST  MAIN  STMIT 

WItSTM.N.Y.  I45M 

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55° 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


that  there  is  ample  room  in  the  United  States  for  a  large  corps  of  native« 
American  decorators.  The  taste  of  the  people  for  choice  table-ware  has  outrun 
the  ability  of  the  native  factoiies  to  gratify  it.  Decorated  china  is  now  the 
attribute  of  the  rich.  It  ought  to  be  within  the  reach  of  all  the  people  \  but  it 
never  will  be  until  there  are  more  decorators,  —  a  great  many  more, — and  until 
all  the  manufactories  can  afford  to  employ  them.  The  decorators  are  at  pres- 
ent principally  men  of  foreign  birth  and  training.  The 
very  best  class  are  native  artists,  who  occasionally  lay 
aside  the  easel  to  illuminate  a  jar,  a  vase,  a  plaque,  or 
some  other  object  of  clay,  for  a  friend  or  for  the  market. 
As  before  said,  it  is  only  the  rich  that  can  afford  to  en- 
gage the  services  of  either  class.  It  is  not  strange  that 
the  United  States  should  not  yet  be  great  in  china  and 
porcelain  ware,  when  we  reflect  that  attention  to  the 
industry  only  began  about  sixty  years  aj,o ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  porcelain  countries  par  excellence  of  the  world  have 
practised  the  art  of  moulding  and  decorating  this  ware  for  a  period  of  from 
three  hundred  to  a  thousand  years.  The  best  that  can  be  said  of  the  art 
as  it  exists  in  this  country  at  the  present  day  is,  that  it  promises  well  for 
the  future.      It  most  certainly  does  that. 


PORCELAIN  CUF. 


GLUE. 

The  most  arid  soils  sometimes  best  repay  cultivation  ;  and  things  the  most 
useless  and  valueless  in  life  often  turn  out  to  be,  in  tlie  hands  of  those  who 
From  what  know  their  peculiar  qualities,  articles  of  priceless  merit.  It  is  from 
it  is  made.  refuse  that  some  of  the  most  necessary  and  excellent  commodities 
of  the  age  are  obtained.  Glue  is  one  of  these  commodities.  It  is  made  from 
the  trimmings  and  clippings  of  hides,  which  are  removed  during  the  process 
of  currying  and  tanning.  Those  scraps  are  not  only  useless  for  any  other  pur- 
pose than  glue-making,  but,  were  they  not  available  for  some  such  p  irpose, 
they  would  be  absolutely  unpleasant  to  have  on  hand.  They  would  be  hard 
to  dispose  of,  and,  unless  speedily  removed,  would  be  a  source  of  disease 
and  danger.  As  it  is,  however,  science  has  put  them  to  use  for  the  produc- 
tion of  an  article  which  society  could  not  now  get  along  without ;  for  glue 
is  of  universal  convenience.  It  enters  into  the  binding  of  the 
books  we  take  up  every  day ;  it  cements  the  furniture  which  we 
use  every  hour  of  our  lives ;  it  renders  writing-paper  capable  of  taking  ink 
without  blurring ;  it  makes  turpentine  and  petroleum  barrels  tight ;  it  joins 
the  violin ;  and,  in  fact,  performs  a  thousand  services  of  the  most  necessary 
and  interesting  description.  V'-:re  it  not  for  the  fact  that  this  article  can  be 
made  from  refuse  cuttings  of  hide  which  are  of  no  intrinsic  value  whatever, 
it  would  be  so  costly,  that  books,  paper,  furniture,  and  all  objects  into  the 


Utility. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


551 


construction  of  which  it  enters,  would  be  so  much  more  expensive,  that  the 
increased  price  might  suffice  to  turn  the  scale  adversely  when  one  was  deciding 
whether  to  buy  those  articles  or  not. 

In  glue-making,  the  cuttings  of  hide,  when  fresh,  are  put  into  a  strong 
solution  of  lime  in  order  to  remove  the  hair,  fat,  and  bits  of  meat,  clinging  to 
them,  and  to  dispose  the  cuttings  to  melt  readily  upon  the  appli-  procett  of 
cation  of  heat.  When  sufficiently  treated,  the  scraps  are  taken  giue- 
out  of  the  lime-water,  and  washed  and  dried.  The  latter  process  ""''  "*' 
is  performed  in  the  most  thorough  manner ;  and,  in  order  that  there  may  be 
perfect  desiccation,  the  scraps  are  generally  stored  for  a  long  period  of  time. 
In  the  spring  and  fall  the  scraps  are  put  into  the  melting-pot  in 'bags  of 
netting,  and  boiled  with  rain-water.  The  gelatinous  substance  in  them  dis- 
solves readily  into  liquid  glue.  The  glue  is  drawn  off,  strained,  and  allowed 
to  cool  and  settle  ;  and,  when  it  becomes  hard  like  jelly,  it  is  sliced  into  sheets, 
and  spread  upon  nets  to  drj'.  Drying  requires  two  or  three  weeks.  The 
sheets  are  ready  for  the  storf.  when  perfectly  dry,  though  they  are  usually 
stored  away  in  lots  for  a  while  before  they  are  marketed.  The  climate  of 
America  is  very  favorable  to  glue-making,  on  account  of  its  dryness.  In 
moist  countries,  like  England,  the  drying  is  not  so  perfectly  and  beautifully 
(lone. 

There  are  now  about  seventy  glue-factories  in  the  United  States.  Phila- 
delphia is  the  principal  centre  of  the  trade,  although  Chicago  and  St.  Louis 
have  latterly  attained  some  importance  in  it.  The  Philadelphia  factories  are 
very  large. 

A  purely  American  variety  of  glue  wxs  invented  by  Mr.  Spaulding.  It  was 
called  "  Spaulding's  Prepared  Glue,"  and  under  that  name  was  extensively 
advertised  and  sold,  not  only  in  the  United  States,  but  in  Europe 
and  other  parts  of  the  world.  It  was  made  in  a  liquid  forr^, 
and  had  the  quality  of  hardening  when  applied  to  the  cementa- 
tion of  two  surfaces.  Sold  in  bottles  of  small  size,  its  con- 
venience secured  for  it  great  popularity.  Various  preparations  of  this  sort 
are  now  in  the  market.  An  ounce  of  nitric  acid  to  the  pound  of  dry  glue, 
or  three  parts  of  acetic  acid  to  one  of  dry  glue,  preserves  the  glue  in  liquid 
form.  .,. 

One  of  the  most  important  uses  of  glue  is  for  the  making  of  sand  and 
emery  paper, — an  industry  which  is  carried  on  frequently,  if  not 
generally,  in  the  glue-factories  themselves.     The  sheets  of  paper  j„"  ^i,ing"' 
useil  are  made  from  old  rope  so  as  to  be  very  tough,  or  from  land  and 
manila-fibre    direct.      Sand-paper   and   emery-paper  are   largely  '^"J' 
used  in  all  fa*  tories  in  which  wood  is  fashioned  for  popular  use, 
and  in  many  oii  ■  1  shops  besides.    They  are  comparatively  recent  inventions, 
and  are  of  great  service  to  manufacturers. 


•■  Spauld. 
ing'B 
Prepared 
Glue." 


552 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


VENEERING, 

The  ancient  forests  of  Brazil  and  other  parts  of  South  America  contain 
enough  trees  of  rare  and  beautiful  cabinet-woods  to  give  the  whole  human 
race  furniture  of  solid  woods.  But  these  forests  cannot  be  utilized  at  present, 
and  will  not  be  brought  into  the  market  for  many  generations ;  and  ral)inet- 
Economy  In  woods  of  great  beauty  are,  therefore,  rare  in  the  general  market, 
uie  of  and  costly,  rather  than  abundant  and  cheap,  as  they  might  lie. 

veneer  ng.  j\]3out  fifty  years  ago  the  cost  of  cabinet-woods  was  so  great,  tliat 
three  logs  of  mahogany  sold  for  five  thousand  dollars  apiece  in  London. 
The  expense  of  all  fine  cabinet-woods,  and  the  actual  scarcity  of  some  varie- 
ties, led  to  the  art  of  sawing  up  beautiful  logs  into  thin  sheets,  and  of  covering 
furniture,  doors,  picture-frames,  chests,  &c.,  made  of  cheaper  woods,  with  these 
sheets  of  the  rarer  timber,  so  as  to  produce  the  same  effect  as  though  tiie 
articles  were  made  of  solid  cabinet-woods,  and  thus  to  gain  the  appearance, 
without  the  cost,  of  solid  wood.  It  was  an  application  to  cabinet-work  of  the 
idea  of  plating  an  inferior  substance  with  a  superior,  which  has  also  been 
utilized  in  silver-smithing,  glass-making,  and  other  industrial  arts.  Singularly 
enough,  after  veneering  had  been  invented  and  i)ractised  for  this  object,  it 
was  found  that  the  practice  had  a  great  merit  of  its  own  in  strengthening 
the  wood  veneered  by  preventing  it  from  splitting  anil  cracking,  and  in 
enabling  the  workman  to  produce  a  nimibcr  of  panels,  &c.,  of  exactly  the 
same  graining  of  wood.  Its  utility  for  all  these  general  purposes  has  led  to 
its  general  and  increasing  employment. 

The  woods  which  are  sawed  up  for  veneering  are  rose-wood,  mahogany, 
ebony,  sandal-wood,  satin-wood,  bird's-eye-maple,  French  maple,  tulip-wood, 
Kindt  of  and  a  large  variety  of  the  South-American  cabinet-woods,  whose 
woods  uted.  names  are  so  strange  and  unpronounceable,  that  it  would  not  he 
desirable  to  reproduce  them  here.  The  best  portions  of  the  tree  for  sawing 
are  those  where  the  branches  form,  because  the  twisted  and  gnarled  arrange- 
ment of  the  fibres  of  the  tree  in  those  parts  of  the  trunk  produces  a  wide 
variety  of  interesting  forms  in  the  graining  of  the  wood,  and  deepen.;  the 
color,  and  renders  the  wood  more  close  and  compact.  The  veneers  are 
sawed  out  very  thin  ;  but  the  thinness  varies  with  the  value  and  quality  of  tiic 
Thickness  of  wood,  from  an  eighth  to  a  hundredth  of  an  inch.  Saws  of  great 
veneering.  precision,  running  in  gangs,  are  used.  Sometimes  a  different 
process  is  used,  the  veneers  being  cut  off  in  a  broad  peel  by  a  turning- 
lathe.  This,  however,  is  more  generally  resorted  to  in  cutting  sheets  of  bone 
and  ivory. 

The  veneers  are  sent  to  the  cabinet-maker  rough,  because  the  rough  face 
Treatment  of  assists  in  glueing  theno  down.  They  are  fastened  on  simply  with 
veneers.  good  glue  ;  the  Only  care  necessary  being  this,  that  they  must  be 
worked  down  so  thoroughly  as  to  expel  the  air  from  below  them.     They  are 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


553 


clamped  down  until  cool  and  dry.  The  outer  surface  of  the  veneering  is 
then  polished,  and  treated  exactly  as  though  the  article  were  made  of  solid 
cabinet-wood. 

Undoubtedly  a  pure  taste  would  dictate  a  preference  for  a  black-walnut  or 
common  maple  article  of  furniture  which  was  made  of  solid  wood,  and  was 
exactly  what  it  represented  to  be,  than  a  much  more  splendid  and  showy 
article,  apparently  of  bird's-eye-maple  or  rosewood,  which,  in  reality,  was 
veneered.  But  veneering  is  not  necessarily  a  cheat,  and  it  has  too  many 
valuable  uses  to  be  dispensed  with  altogether.  For  instance,  who  would  want 
a  piano  to  be  of  solid  rosewood  ?    Who  could  afford  to  buy  one  of  solid  wood  ? 


CARRIAGES   AND   CARS. 

The  forests  of  the  United  States,  once  so  magnificent,  are  now  being  swept 
away  with  a  rapidity  which  has  alarmed  our  statesmen,  and  has  made  the  sub- 
ject of  replanting  the  devastated  fields  a  question  of  vital  impor-   Destruction 
tance.    The  demands  upon  the  timber-growth  of  the  country  are  "'  'orestt. 
enormous.     Wood  is  wanted  for  millions  of  dwellings,  for  fences,  furniture, 
shipping,  railroad-ties,  fuel,  telegraph-poles,  machinery,  boxes,  for  exportation 
to  foreign  countries,  and  a  thousand  other  objects ;    and,  instead  of  the  de- 
mand fixlling  off  as  timber  grows  scarce,  it  is  the  fact,  that  in  many  cases 
the  demand   is  constantly   increasing.     The   requirements   of  the   car  and 
carriage  factories,  for  instance,  are  increasing  every  year.     In  the  days  of  our 
great-grandfathers,  the  occasional  ancient  coach,  and  the  heavy  lumber-wagon 
in  which  the  freight-transportation  of  the  country  was  carried  on,  were  almost 
the  only  vehicles  that  rolled  along  the  roads.     The  people  did  contrast  be- 
not  own  private  carriages  themselves.     When  they  travelled,  they  tween  the 
took  to  the  coach,  or  rode  on  horseback,  the  latter  being  the  more  "''''"  ""f 

°  present  time. 

customary  plan.  The  purchase  of  a  private  carriage  was  such  a 
rarity,  that  such  an  act  was  sufficient  to  stamp  a  man  as  an  aristocrat,  and  was 
very  likely  to  create  a  prejudice  against  him.  So  that  in  those  days,  ahhough 
the  people  fairly  lived  under  the  branches  of  boundless  and  apparently  inex- 
haustible forests,  and  though  timber  was  as  cheap  as  dirt,  the  amount  of  wood 
cut  for  carriage-building  was  so  slight  as  to  make  no  perceptible  impression 
upon  the  forests  whatever.  But  now  things  have  greatly  changed.  Within  the 
hundred  years  just  gone  by  an  era  of  railroad-building  and  carriage-owning 
has  come  in,  and  during  the  last  fifly  years  carriages  and  cars  have  been  build- 
ing in  increasing  numbers  year  by  year.  Now,  in  1878,  the  demand  upon  the 
forests  of  the  country  for  the  stuff  with  which  to  build  these  vehicles  is  some- 
thing enormous  and  alarming.  Upon  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  there 
now  roll  350,000  cars,  and  upon  the  highways  and  streets  15,000,000  carriages, 
stages,  trucks,  and  carts.  To  replace  the  old  and  supply  the  demand  for  new 
vehicles  of  these  several  classes,  it  is  estimated  that  the  country  now  requires 


^'>f--^/rrt\n'  ir 


554 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\ 


i 


the  growth  of  500,000  acres  of  timber  annually.  These  figures  sliow  better 
than  any  thing  else  can  the  enormous  development  reached  by  tliis  spec  i;il 
industry  in  the  United  States. 

The  earliest  efforts  of  the  people  of  America  at  carriage-making  were  put 
forth  in  the  direction  of  building  rude  carts  and  wagons  without  springs  for 
First  effort!  "^^  '"  teaming  goods  to  and  from  the  mill,  from  the  farms  to 
in  carriage-  town,  and  vUe  vetsd,  and  from  city  to  city.  The  wheels  for  these 
making.  vehicles  were  all,  or  nearly  all,  imported,  until  the  Rcvolutiijuarv 
war ;  at  which  date  the  colonists,  for  the  first  time,  fell  to  making  them  gener- 
ally for  themselves.  The  few  private  carriages  of  that  day,  one  of  wliii  li 
Importation  was  owneil  by  Washington,  were  imported.  They  were  lieav), 
of  carriages,  coach-like  affairs,  drawn  by  six  horses,  and  adapted  to  travelliiv 
on  the  bad  roads  of  that  period.     '.Vith  the  better  times  which  came  after  ilie 


WINUSOK    WAC.ON. 


Revolution,  and  particularly  after  the  war  of  181 2,  the  carpenters  turn.'d  their 
hands  to  something  besides  heavy  wagons,  and  especially  to  a  new  style  of 
vehicles  (namely,  stage-coaches)  for  which  there  then  grew  up  a  great  demand. 
Stage-coaches  were  unknown  in  the  United  States  until  after  the  Revolution. 
There  were  only  1,905  miles  of  best  roads  in  the  country  in  1791,  and  the 
mail  was  carried  in  heavy  wagons.  Lines  of  stages  were  started  to  run  in 
every  direction,  however,  after  1791,  in  the  coast  States ;  and  the  reciuirenients 
of  the  companies,  recorded  by  a  heavy  tariff  of  forty-five  per  cent,  soon  {,'ave 
carriage-building  a  great  impetus  in  all  jjarts  of  the  country.  Very  little  was 
done  for  the  improvement  of  the  ordinary  freighting  or  Conestoga  wagon  for 
a  long  period  ;  but  the  models  and  arrangements  of  the  coach  were  things 
which  touched  the  people  closely,  and  this  class  of  carriages  received  a  great 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


555 


deal  of  attention  accordingly.     Woods  were  sought  for  to  compose  the  axles, 
wheels,  and  body,  which  were,  at  the  same  time,  the  toughest  and  lightest. 


The  seats  were  carefully  cushioned.  Every  part  of  the  vehicle  was  carefully 
studied  and  improved  ;  and  the  whole  coach  was  made  light,  strong,  comforta- 
ble, ar.d  serviceable  to  a  degree  which  had  never  been  known  before.     One 


556 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY'^ 


factory 


nibus." 
running 


started  at  Troy,  N.Y..  about  the  year  1815,  became  famous  in  tin: 

manufacture  of  a 
style  of  coach 
which  was  far  supe- 
rior to  the  undent 
models  of  Mn^iland, 
and  which  soon 
came  into  genera! 
use  in  this  country 
under    the    name 

"Troy  of  the 

co.ch.-  ,..,.^^y 

coach."  The  stage- 
coaches of  the  i)res- 
ent  day  are  still 
mainly  of  this  ])at- 
tern,  developed  at 
Troy,  N.  Y.  An 
other  firm,  at  Con- 

"  Concord  Cord, 
wagon."  j(j    j^ 

became  famous  for 
another  style  of 
coach,  adapted  to 
summer  travel.  It 
had  the  three  seats 
and  the  boot  of  the 
regular  stage ;  l)ut  it 
had  a  wagon-body. 
and  a  light  canvas 
top.  It  took  the 
name  of  the  "Con- 
cord wagon,"  and 
is  still  known  by 
that  name  wherever 
manufactured. 

About  1830  still 
another  style  of 
coach  was  intro- 
duced, which  took 
the  name  of  "cm- 
It  was  an  extremely  long  vehicle,  a  sort  of  ark,  with  two  seats 
longitudinally  cf  the  coach.     Invented  in   France  in  1827,  it  was 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


SS7 


Rapid  de- 
velopment of 
carriage- 
building 
■ince  1830. 


introduced  to  New  York  in  1830,  and  was  employed  to  run  on  regular 
routes  in  that  and  other  cities  for  the  accommodation  of  people  going  up 
and  down  and  about  town.  These  omnibuses  arc  made  very  introduction 
miicli  smaller  now  than  formerly,  but  are  still  run  in  most  large  of  the 
cities.  Their  value  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  are  more  exclusive  *"""  *"' 
than  the  street-car,  and  they  supply  the  facilities  for  city  travel  without 
injuring  the  streets  through  which  they  run  by  the  laying  of  an  iron  track. 

After  1830  the  business  of  carriage-building  developed  very  rapidly,  and 
many  new  ideas  were  introduced.  The  elliptical  spring,  invented  hi  1825, 
began  to  be  employed.  Smiths  began  to  make  the  tires  of  their 
wheels  in  solid  rings,  and  to  shrink  them  on  by  cooling,  instead  of 
making  them  in  pieces,  breaking  joints  with  the  fellies.  Hickory 
came  into  general  use  for  wheels  and  frames  on  account  of  its 
strength  and  lightness.  Machinery  was  invented  to  make  the 
spokes,  hubs,  tops,  the  small  metal-work,  and  other  parts  of  wagons  and  car- 
riages, by  the  thousand  and  tens  of  thousanils.  New  styles  of  wagons  were  con- 
trived, adapted  to  special  needs.  The  business  developed  remarkably  fast ;  and 
improvement  followed  improvement  so  rapidly,  especially  in  the  construction  of 
pleasure-carriages,  that  particular  builds  of  wagon  became  anticiuated  in  less 
than  ten  years,  and  were  superseded  by  something  else,  lighter,  handsomer, 
stronger,  and  cheaper.  Hundreds  of  new  factories  were  started,  and  hundreds 
of  ingenious  brains  were  set  to  work  devising  new  ideas  in  pattern,  build, 
and  materials.  The  general  tendency  of  all  improvements  was  to  cheapen  the 
cost  of  carriages,  and  make  them  lighter  and  stronger.  The  reduced  cost, 
and  the  improved  roads  and  growing  wealth  of  the  country,  brought  about  a 
lively  demand  for  the  products  of  the  factories  ;  and  by  1850  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  carriages  were  enormous.  The  American  patterns  were  very  much 
admired  in  Europe.  They  were  largely  copied  in  Europe,  and  heavy  orders 
were  sent  here  for  the  carriages  themselves. 

The  factories  have  always  shown  a  readiness  to  change  the  styles  of  their 
work,  and  to  pass  from  one  thing  to  another,  according  as  fashions  or  the 
circumstances  of  the  times  have  changed.  Some  of  the  factories  shifted  to 
the  business  of  making  railroad  and  street  cars  when  railroads  came  into 
being,  and  discontinued  the  wagon-branch  of  the  business  altogether.  Many 
of  them  took  to  making  army-wagons  during  the  war.  Elxpress-wagons  were 
taken  up  by  many  of  them  at  one  period,  and  there  has  been  a  long  rivalry 
between  the  factories  for  the  production  of  the  wagon  which  should  carry  the 
largest  number  of  tons  of  goods  with  the  least  draught  upon  the  horses.  Some 
of  this  class  of  goods  are  now  made  to  carry  five  tons  of  goods.  Children's 
carriages  have  been  added  to  the  business  of  many  firms.  Some  factories  now 
make  from  three  hundred  to  five  hundred  styles  of  carriages. 

Large  numbers  of  the  different  styles  of  American  wagons  are  now 
exported  to  the  different  parts  of  the  world ;   and  America,  which  once  was 


558 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


beholden  to  Europe  for  her  cart-wheela,  now  in  these  latter  days  returns  the 
compliment  by  sending  back  wheels,  steel  axles,  and  finished  carriages,  of 
workmanship  and  material  superior  to  any  thing  Europe  herself  produces. 
The  growth  of  the  business  will  be  seen  by  the  following  figures  :  — 


1840 
1850 
i860 
1870 

"873 


92 

1,822 

7.2S4 
11. 847 
12,500 


CARRIAni!) 
MADE. 


'3.33« 

95,000 

270,000 

800,000 

1,000,000 


2.274 
14,900 

37.459 
54.028 
75,000 


VAl.UK  or 
PKOULtT. 


{'.708,741 
I  2,000,000 
35.027.000 
65,302,000 
100,000,000 


The  business  of  building  railroad  and  street  cars  has  all  grown  uj)  since 
1830.  It  has  centred  principally  in  the  Middle  States,  owing  to  the  necessity 
Railroad  and  of  proximity  to  the  iron  and  coal  regions.  There  are  now  a  hun- 
•trcetcart.  jred  and  three  factories  in  operation  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  six  of  them  being  in  Canda.  An  average  of  sixty  thousand  cars  are 
built  yearly,  the  majority  being  freight-cars  of  the  four-wheeled  and  eight- 
wheeled  types.  The  passenger-cars  constitute  less  than  one-twentieth  of  the 
whole  number  built,  though,  perhaps,  half  the  total  value  of  cars  built.  These 
cars  are  of  the  eight-wheeled  and  twelve-wheeled  types.  The  early  railroad- 
cars  of  the  United  States  were  merely  slight  modifications  of  the  ordinary  stage- 
coach. As  soon  as  it  was  seen  that  the  new  style  of  travelling  was  to  be  an 
established  thing,  however,  the  railroad-car  proper  was  immediately  invented. 
At  first  the  car  was  merely  in  principle  several  stage-bodies  joined  together,  the 
seats  being  arranged  in  compartments,  and  the  conductor  climbing  along  from 
one  compartment  to  the  others  on  a  foot-board  outside.  This  style  of  car  was 
the  common  basis  from  which  the  American  and  the  English  car  of  the  present 
day  has  been  developed.  The  English  people,  however,  improved  upon  this 
ancient  sort  of  car,  merely  to  make  it  larger  and  more  comfortable,  retaining 
the  compartment  system  on  account  of  its  aristocratic  exclusiveness.  The 
Americans,  on  the  other  hand,  improved  upon  the  parent  vehicle,  not  only  to 
render  it  larger  and  better,  but  to  make  it  more  democratic.  The  car  was 
elongated,  the  doors  placed  at  the  two  ends,  and  a  row  of  seats  placed  on  each 
side  of  the  car ;  the  aisle  for  the  conductors  and  passengers  being  in  the  centre, 
and  the  whole  interior  of  the  car  being  free  from  compartments  and  partitions. 
Down  to  the  time  of  the  war,  the  American  cars  were  still  somewhat  crude  affair;. 
They  frequently  leaked  during  rain-storms,  and  the  dust  from  the  locomotive 
and  ground  found  its  way  into  the  interior  through  the  cracks  at  the  windows. 
The  cars  were  poorly  ventilated,  and  the  seats  were  uncomfortable.  Since 
i860  the  cars  have  been  so  improved  as  to  be  luxuriously  comfortable.    The 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


559 


interiors  have  been  beautified  with  rare  woods  and  ornamental  paintings  and 
gilding,  and  more  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  seats.  George  M.  Pullman 
in  1864  v/ent  into  the  business  of  building  what  are  called  "  drawing-room  "  or 
"  palace  "  cars,  which  are  now  added  to  all  express-trains  on  the  great  routes  of 
travel.  In  these  luxurious  coaches  the  traveller  can  secure  freedom  from  the 
iTOvvd,  and  seats  as  comfortable  as  in  his  own  drawing-room  at  home  ;  and  he 
{ a:  obtain  from  the  porter,  if  desired,  such  refreshments  as  he  wants.  Sleeping- 
cani  fur  night-travel  have  also  been  introduced  since  1864.  It  is  with  this 
clasb  of  cars  that  the  name  of  Wagner  is  associated. 

.  The  business  of  car-building  is  one  recjuiring  great  capital  and  remarkable 
managerial  ability :  the  number  of  concerns  engaged  in  it  is  therefore  small, 
xs  we  have  seen.  The  number  engaged  in  the  highest  branch  of  the  busi- 
ness, that  of  building  p^^senger  and  palace  cars,  is  only  about  twenty.  At 
least  fifty  distinct  trades  are  drawn  u])on  to  share  in  the  construction  of  the 
best  class  of  cars ;  and,  in  the  decoration  of  them,  fine  art  itself  is  placed 
under  levy.  The  cost  of  cars  varies  from  |6oo  for  a  coal  or  platform  car  to 
tio.ooo  for  a  first-class  passenger-car,  and  |30,ov.  ->  for  a  palace-car.  There 
are  palace-cars  on  the  broad-gauge  Krie  Railroad  which  cost  {^50,000. 


tlftil: 


Il 


%■ 


y 


560 


JNDUSTIHAL    HISTORY 


CHAITI'R    XIII. 


CONCLUSION. 

THK  foregoing  survey  of  American  nianufacttircs  strikingly  exhibits  the 
variety,  inagnitudo,  and  excellence  of  this  great  department  of  luinum 
inilustry.  'I'he  forces  and  proilucts  of  Nature  have  been  drawn 
magnitude  "P""  '*^''  l'^^'  servi(  e  of  man  to  an  amazing  degree  :  in  every  dine- 
of  American  tion  almost  lias  lie  stretc  lied  out  and  appropriated  the  rich  wtalth 
turM  "'  'y'"t'  iiround  him.  Among  his  numerous  triumphs,  the  disiovcry 
of  steam,  witii  its  manifold  applications,  and  means  for  ap|)lyiiij,' 
it,  is  to  be  ranked  among  the  first,  both  in  the  order  of  genius  retiuircd  to 
utilize  it  effectively,  and  in  the  results  attaine<l.  The  use  of  steaiu  for  rapid 
transit  is  certainly  one  of  the  grandest  achievements  of  civilization,  and  it 
will  doubtless  ever  continue  to  excite  human  admiration  and  awe.  Su(  ( ess 
in  this  direction  has  led  .us  almost  to  overlook  the  service  rendereii  by  steam 
Stationary  as  a  motor  for  nuuuifacturing-purposes.  The  stationary  engine 
engine.  certainly  merits  nearly,   if  not  (juite,  the  consideration  due  the 

locomotive.  Its  invention  tloes  away  with  the  necessity  for  locating  mills 
and  factories  bcsi<le  an  eligible  stream.  Such  establishments  may  now  lie 
built  in  our  large  cities,  where  the  facilities  for  obtaining  help,  transixminj,' 
raw  material  and  finished  product,  and  negotiating  purchases  anil  sales,  afford 
the  manufacturer  marked  advantages.  Steam-power  is  much  more  reliable, 
too,  than  water-power,  and  free  from  certain  risks.  Neither  drought  nor 
freshet  interferes  with  its  ojieration  ;  ajul  so  low  is  the  cost  of  fuel,  coiiijiared 
with  these  advantages,  that  the  stationary  engine  is  rapidly  supplanting  die 
mill-dam. 

Quite  as  much  ingenuity  has  been  devoted  by  inventors  to  the  improve- 
ment of  this  class  of  machines  as  to  the  perfection  of  locomotives.  'I'heir  aim 
Improve-  '^^^  been,  not  only  to  make  them  more  cheaply,  but  to  economize 
ments  in  space,  lessen  the  amount  of  fuel,  simplify  construction,  and  insure 
machines.  greater  safety.  A  great  many  ex[)eriments  have  been  tried  in  the 
way  of  making  safety-boilers  which  shall  never  explode,  and  several  inventors 
claim  to  have  reached  that   consummation ;   but,  as  no   such  boiler  has  yet 


gly  exhibits  the 
iiicnt  of  human 
ivc  been  drawn 
in  every  dircc- 
the  ricli  wealth 
is,  the  discovery 
ms  for  applying 
litis  retiuired  to 
steam  for  raimi 


)  the  iniprove- 
cs.  Their  aim 
t  to  econonii/,e 
ion,  and  insure 
en  tried  in  tiie 
veral  inventors 
boiler  luii-  yet 


OF    TlfE    UMTI-.n    STATES. 


S6' 


come  into  general   use,  the  problem  n  really  unsolved.     It  does  not  seem, 
however,   to   be  beyond  the  re;u  h  of  human  invention  ;   and  we  may  con- 


fidently hope  for  an  early  triumph  over  the  many  ditficulties  thus  far  unsur- 

moiinted. 


ii 


I         ^1 


ii       '■; 


^"^i 


562 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


There  are  five  kinds  of  stationary  engines, — the  beam  and  oscillating,  which 
are  in  use  upon  steamboats,  and  the  rotary,  steeple,  and  horizontal  engines. 
Kindt  of  These  all  have  innumerable  modifications.  In  addition  thereto 
■tationary  there  are  certain  portable  engines  for  such  temporary  uses  as 
enKinet.  driving  piles,  hoisting  building-material,  and  threshing  grain.  The 
first  stationary  engines  in  this  country,  bu'lt  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  aiuU 
in  the  beginning  of  this,  were  chiefly  designed  for  pumping  mines.  Tlieir 
application,  of  late  years,  has  been  to  manufacturing.  American  inventors 
have  done  much  to  improve  these  machines.  J.  Eve,  a  r'-.ivc  0("  this  country, 
obtained  a  patent  in  England  in  1825  for  a  valuable  improvement  in  rotary 
engines. 

A  vast  stride  in  advance  was  made  by  the  Messrs.  Corliss  &  Niglitingale 
of  Providence  some  twenty-five  years  ago.  They  devised  a  new  way  of  con- 
necting the  governor  with  the  cut-off,  which  economized  the  power  of  steam, 
and  so  effected  a  great  saving  in  fuel.  The  marked  improvement  ni.ide  in 
this  respect  may  be  thus  illustrated  :  The  James  Mills  at  Newburyport,  enga<,'ed 
Economy  In  in  the  manufacture  of  cotton-goods,  had  a  pair  of  condensing 
use  of  fueJ.  engines,  whose  cylinders  measured  twenty-four  inches  in  diameter 
with  a  four- foot  stroke.  They  consumed  10,483  pounds  of  coal  daily,  on  the 
average,  for  five  years  prior  to  the  contract  made  with  Mr.  Corliss ;  and  it  was 
thought  that  they  ran  to  good  advantage.  But  the  makers  offered  a  pair  of 
high-pressure  engines  in  their  stead,  on  these  terms  :  The  company  might  pay 
either  $10,500  in  cash,  or  five  times  the  value  of  the  coal  saved  the  first  year, 
the  choice  to  be  made  before  the  engines  were  put  in.  The  company  took 
the  latter  alternative,  and  were  obliged  to  pay  $19,734.22.  Since  then  the 
stationary  engine  has  been  still  further  improved. 

Another  phase  of  our  industrial  history  deserves  a  passing  notice ;  and  that 
is,  the  substitution  of  iron  to  a  great  degree  for  the  softer  metals  in  conse- 
8  b  titution  Q"^"^^  ^^  ^^  greater  ability  of  us  modems  to  work  it.  In  ancient 
of  harder  times  copper  was  very  extensively  emj>loyed  in  the  mechanic  arts. 
for  softer  ,^q{  because  iron  was  unknown,  but  because  the  artisans  of  tliose 
days  did  not  understand  how  to  work  it.  An  illustration  in  i)oint 
is  the  manufacture  of  weighing-apparatuses,  which  formerly  were  made  of  brass, 
and  have  only  recently  been  manufactured  of  iron. 

Originally  our  mechanisms  for  ascertaining  weight  were  either  a  pair  ol 
scales  or  pans,  balanced  at  the  ends  of  an  evenly-divided  beam,  or  a  lever 
Scale-  with  unequal  arms  called  the  "  steelyard."     Now  these  instruments 

makinK.  i^^ve  increased  in  variety,  delicacy,  and  scope,  so  that  so  light  a 

particle  as  ^-^xs  P^rt  of  a  grain  can  be  detected  ;  while  a  car  containing  many 
tons  of  metal  or  other  heavy  freigiit  can  be  exactly  and  easily  weighed.  The 
big  beam  employed  by  the  country  butcher  is  but  a  form  of  the  steelyard. 
The  platform-scales  in  use  in  the  ordinary  grocery-store  are  operated  on  tlie 
same  prmciple.    The  larger  scales  for  hay,  coal,  and  railway-cars,  are  still  of 


V  -'' 


t 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


563 


Our  letter- 


the  same  kind,  only  that  they  use  a  system  of  compound  instead  of  single 
levers.  The  town  of  St.  Johnsbury,  Vt.,  is  famed  for  the  manufacture  of 
scales  which  have  had  a  most  extensive  use  in  this  country.  It  has  almost  a 
monopoly  of  the  business  in  larger  apparatus.  The  more  delicate  balances 
employed  by  apothecaries  are  made  at 
more  numerous  points.  The  Danish  steel- 
yard, wliich  has  the  article  to  be  weighed 
stationary  (as  with  the  American  steelyard), 
but  with  the  other  weight  fixed  and  the  ful- 
crum movable,  has  never  come  into  use  in 
this  country.  Another  form  of  weighing- 
apparatus,  however,  has  an  extensive  use  in 
tiie  United  States :  it  consists  of  a  coil  of 
brass  wire,  whose  elasticity  is  gauged  by  a 
movable  index  upon  a  graduated  scale. 
i'in-peddlers  and  fish-men  are  generally 
provided  with  tlMs  kind.  A  variety  of  this 
same  kind  has  a  dial-plate  attached,  on  which  a  needle  rotates. 
scales  are  but  modifications  of  forms  already  described. 

VVe  cannot  close  this  history  of  American  manufacturing  industries  with- 
out a  brief  reference  to  three  kindred  processes  which  properly  come  under 
the  head  of  mechanic  art,  thougii  more  or  less  nearly  approaching  the  realm 
of  fine  art.  The  first  of  these  is  photography.  The  chemical  principle  on 
which  that  process  depends  —  namely,  the  discoloring  effect  of  sun-  photogra- 
iight  upon  paper  coated  with  nitrate  of  silver  —  was  discovered  as  p*'>'- 
long  ago  as  the  twelfth  century  ;  but  not  until  1840  —  the  year  after  Daguerre 
invented  the  process  of  taking  sun-pictures  on  silver-coated  plates,  and  Talbot 
simultaneously  devised  a  way  to  fix  a  picture  taken  on  paper  in  the  camera  — 
was  our  present  photographic  process  rendered  fairly  practicable ;  and  the 
largest  meed  of  praise  for  that  accomplishtnent  is  due  to  Professor  J.  W.  Draper 
of  the  University  of  New  York,  who  had  for  many  years  been  experimenting 
in  order  to  discover  a  way  to  set  the  picture  when  once  obtained.  The 
invention  has  worked  a  mar\'ellous  revolution  in  portraiture,  and  put  it  within 
the  power  and  means  of  every  one  to  have  faithfiil  family  likenesses.  In  the 
form  of  stereoscopic  pictures  it  has  enabled  us  to  procure,  at  a  slight  cost, 
perfect  representations  of  great  statues,  paintings,  distant  natural  scenery  and 
lK\laces,  and  all  that  is  wonderful  and  rare  in  the  way  of  display  in  nature  or 
in  art.  The  process  has  been  of  rare  value,  too,  in  obtaining  cheap  and  accu- 
rate pictures  of  mechanical  devices,  and  also  obtaining  permanent  views  of 
rare  transitory  phenomena,  like  solar  eclipses,  and  transits  of  planets  across  the 
sun's  surface.  The  art  is  constandy  undergoing  trifling  improvement  in 
process,  and  meeting  with  a  wider  use  in  science  and  the  mechanic  and  fine 
arts. 


^1 


It  i 


564 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\ 


I 


The  word  "  lithography  "  means  the  art  of  printing  from  a  stone,  and  liad 
its  origin  in  an  accidental  discovery  by  a  poor  German  in  the  latter  "jjart  uf  tlie 
Lithogra-  eighteenth  century.  His  mother  asked  him  to  make  a  mcnioran- 
P''y-  dum  of  the  family  washing;  n'  -1,  not  having  a  piece  of  paper  at 

hand,  he  jotted  it  down  on  a  slab  of  peciui.ir  stone.  As  it  lay  before  him  he 
thought  of  inking  the  lines,  and  printing  therefrom.  His  subsequent  experi-^ 
ments  met  with  a  success  that  attracted  world-wide  attention.  At  that  time 
etching  was  a  favorite  process  for  producing  pictures.  Lithography  somewhat 
resembles  it.  The  principle  involved  in  the  operation  is  the  refusal  of  an  oily 
ink  to  adhere  to  a  wet  surface,  and  its  affinity  for  a  greasy  surface.  A  design 
is  drawn  witli  a  greasy  crayon,  prepared  with  great  delicacy  and  care  tor  the 
purpose,  upon  a  variety  of  fine  porous  stone,  found  at  its  best  only  in  (ler- 
niany.  The  whole  surface  is  then  moistened  ;  but  the  moisture  clings  only  to 
the  clean  stone,  and  the  design  remains  dry.  An  ink-roller  being  applied,  the 
ink  is  rejected  by  such  of  the  surface  as  is  wet,  but  is  taken  by  tiie  lines 
inscribed.  From  the  plate  thus  inked  an  impression  may  then  be  printed. 
Of  course  there  are  many  minor  stages  in  tlie  process,  which  are  essential  to 
its  success,  which  are  not  here  detailed. 

Lithography  was  introduced  into  this  country  in  1821,  and  applied  both  to 
fine-art  uses  and  to  map-drawing ;  its  expense  being  far  below  that  of  copixr- 
plate  engraving,  and  the  number  of  copies  that  could  be  obtained  from  one 
plate  being  for  greater.  It  has  met  with  many  improvements  and  applications 
Chromo-  in  the  United  States.  Within  twenty  years  the  art  of  chronio- 
lithography.  lithography  has  attained  a  great  development.  It  consists  of 
printing  the  dift'erent  parts  of  a  many-colored  picture  by  separate  plates  for 
each  color  very  much  as  calicoes   are   printed.     The  work  recjuires  great 

delicacy  of  adjustment,  and 
often  a  large  nuinl)er  of 
plates,  to  produce  tiie  pro))er 
mixture  of  tints. 

A  combination  of  photo- 
graphy and  lithography  has 
Photo-  been   made   still 

lithography,  niore  rerently, 
with  maivellous  residts.  It 
has  been  foimd  that  a  film 
of  gelatine  can  be  sensitized 
by  the  use  of  bichromate  of 
potash,  so  that,  on  l)eing  sub- 
jected to  exposure  under  a 
photographic  negative,  it  ac- 
quires the  essential  characteristics  of  a  lithographic  stone.  The  cheniie  al  elfect 
of  the    unlight  passing  through  the  light  parts  of  the  negative  is  to  touglien  the 


^S^lhHmttt.>> 


l-ArYKOOKAI'll. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


Stone,  ami  liad 
tter"part  ut"  the 
:e  a  niemoran- 
:ce  of  paper  at 
before  him  he 
iequent  experi-* 

At  that  time 
aphy  somewhat 
iisal  of  an  oily 
'ace.  A  design 
nd  care  for  the 
St  only  in  Cier- 
:  clings  only  to 
ing  applied,  the 
:n  by  the  lines 
len  be  printed. 
are  essential  to 


gelatine,  so  that  it  will  repel  water,  and  take  ink ;  and  the  parts  of  the  film  pro- 
tected by  the  dark  parts  of  the  negative,  and  subsequently  washed  free  from 
the  bichromate,  absorb  water,  and  repel  ink,  when  the  film  is  finally  mounted 
on  a  block,  and  subjected  to  the  printer's  roller.  This  process  of  photo- 
lithography has  been  adopted  by  "  The  New- York  Graphic  "  for  its  illustra- 
tions, and  with  various  modifications,  and  under  several  names,  is  coming  into 
extensive  use  for  book-illustrations  and  choice  facsimiles  of  rare  paintings. 

Tlie  papyrograph,  which  was  introduced  into  this  country  from  France  in 
1876,  and  is  rapidly  coming  into  use  for  the  purpose  of  cheaply  reduplicating 
autograph-designs,  circulars,  price-lists,  &c.,  consists  of  a  sheet  of  Papyro- 
paper,  varnished  with  a  water  and  ink  proof  coating,  and  written  Bfoph. 
or  drawn  upon  with  an  ink  which  corrodes  the  varnish,  and  leaves  the  lines 
porous.  Being  properly  washed  and  dried,  and  laid  upon  a  flat  cushion 
moistened  with  ink,  in  the  bed  of  the  press,  the  sheet  becomes  a  sort  of 
lithographic  plate,  from  which  many  hundred  impressions  can  be  easily  taken. 


applied  both  to 
that  of  copper- 
lined  from  one 
nd  applications 
art  of  ciiromo- 
It   consists  of 
irate  plates  for 
requires  great 
djustnient,  and 
numl)er    of 
uce  the  pro|)er 
Its. 

ition  of  photo- 
thograpliy  has 
en  made  still 
ore  recently. 
IS  results.  It 
nd  that  a  film 
n  be  sensiti/eil 
bichromate  ot" 
,  on  being  sub- 
losure  imder  a 
negative,  it  ac- 
hemi(  al  effect 
to  toughen  the 


BOOK     III. 


SHIPPING   AND   RAILROADS. 


CHAPTER    I. 


WOODEN   SHIPS. 


IN,  the  age  in  which  Columbus  ventured  across  the  Atlantic  in  search  of  a 
new  route  to  India  the  ships  of  the  world  were  all  of  small  size  compared 
with  tliose  of  the  present  day.  No  such  exchange  of  commodities  by  sea  as 
we  observe  to-day  had  ever  yet  taken  place,  and  no  such  long  smaiisizeof 
voyages  were  undertaken.  Commerce  was  simply  a  coasting-trade  vessels  in 
between  different  parts  of  Europe,  and  between  Europe  and  the  "" '  "*"' 
Mediterranean  coast  of  Africa.  Navigation  scarcely  ever  took  place  out  of 
sight  of  land,  except  in  the  northern  fisheries  and  on  the  peaceful  Mediterra- 
nean. For  such  objects  as  merchant-ships  were  required  in  that  age,  ves- 
sels of  less  than  two  huntlred  tons'  Inirden  were  of  ample  size  ;  and  the  vast 
majority  of  all  the  ships  afloat,  of  whatever  nationality,  were  of  less  than  that 
burden.  A  few  war-ships  in  France,  Spain,  Portugal,  England,  and  Italy,  were 
over  two  himdred  tons'  burden,  a  great  vessel  of  a  thousand  tons  being 
occasionally  seen.  The  merchant-ships  were  mere  fishing  and  coasting  ves- 
sels :  they  had  two  or  three  masts,  and  were  generally  rigged  with  square  sails. 
The  ships  in  which  Columbus  made  the  pioneer  voyage  across  the  Atlantic  in 
1492  are  described  as  being,  two  of  them,  light  barks  called  "caravels,"  without 
decks  in  the  centre,  and  rising  to  a  great  height  at  the  bow  and  stern,  with 
forecastles  and  cabins  for  the  accommodation  of  the  crews.  The  third  is  said 
to  have  been  decked  throughout  her  whole  length.  In  1582,  of  the  1,232 
vessels  then  belonging  to  Fhigland,  only  217  were  larger  than  eighty  tons. 
"Tlic  Mayflower,"  which  brought  over  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  was  of  a  hundred 
and  eighty  tons'  burilen.  At  the  time  when  the  active  settlement  of  Ainerica 
be!,'an,  the  Netherlands  was  the  great  shipping-country  of  the  world.  The 
niit(  h  had  about  20,000  ships  at  sea  to  about  2,000  owned  in  England.  The 
Spaniards  and  Portuguese  were  next  in  enterprise  to  the  Dutch.  The  English 
did  not  begin  to  be  eminent  in  shipping  until  fifty  years  after  the  planting  of 
the  Nortii-.American  colonies,  and  it  was  the  carrying-trade  of  the  colonies 
that  maile  them  so. 

Ship-building  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  first  industry  practised  in 

569 


570 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


111; 


^^ 


ROMAN  VBSSBL. 


America  after  that  of  house-building.    The  beginning  was  as  early  as  1607 
"The  when  the  Popham  colonists  in  Maine   built  a   thirty-ton  vessel 

Virginia."  called  "  The  Virginia,"  which  subsetiucntly  made  several  voyafrcs 
across  the  Atlantic.  Though  the  Atlantic  has,  since  that  date,  been  crossed  in 
more  diminutive  craft  than  "  The  Virginia,"  a  voyage  in  so  small  a  vessel  now 

would  be  considered  little 
short  of  madness,  No  ves- 
sel like  that  could  Ijc  put 
into  ocean-tnide  now.  and 
pay.  "The  Virginia"  was  a 
busy  little  ship  during  its  ex- 
istence. It  came  to  .America 
with  the  dates  and  Soniers 
expedition  in  1609,  and 
traded  back  and  forth  along  the  coast  and  to  England  for  many  years  (luite 
diligently.  When  Lord  Delaware  arrived  at  I'oint  Comfort  in  Virginia,  in 
the  summer  of  1610,  he  found  the  craft  there  along  with  liiree  other  vessels, 
"  The  Discovery,"  "  The  Deliverance,"  and  "  'I'he  Patience,"  which  had  been 
sent  over  by  the  London  Company. 

The  second  vessel  built  in  America  of  which  there  is  any  record  was  a 
Dutch  yacht  called  "The  Onrest,"  which  was  constructed  on  the  Hudson 
"The  River,  by  Adrian  Blok,  in  1614.     This  yacht  is  antedated  only  by 

Onrett."  "The  Virginia."  It  used  to  be  a  saying,  that  no  matter  where  an 
English  ship  sailed,  or  in  whatever  part  of  the  world  an  Knglishman  landetl,  .1 
Dutchman  and  a  Dutch  ship  were  sure  to  have  been  there  ahead  of  them. 
This  pioneer  yacht  of  North  America  fulfilled  the  old  saying  with  res])e{  t  to  a 
large  part  of  New  England;  for  in  16 14,  six  years  before  the  arrival  of  the- 
English  colonists  in  Massachusetts,  Adrian  Hlok,  making  a  voyage  through 
Hell  Gate  and  Long-Island  Sound,  had  discovered  Block  Island,  and  inspected 
the  coast  as  far  as  Cape  Cod.  In  1616  he  had  explored  the  whole  coast  from 
Nova  Scotia  to  Virginia. 

The  same  year  that  the  ancient  Knickerbockers  had  thus  establisheil  the 
naval  art  on  the  Hudson  River,  Capt.  ^ohn  Smith  landed  in  Maine,  en  route 
from  England  to  Virginia,  and  built  there  seven  boats  to  engage  in  cod- 
fishing. 

The  abundance  of  timber  and  pitch-pine  in  this  country  led  to  systematic 
proceedings  in  the  way  of  ship-building  at  a  very  early  date.  Timber  was 
Faciiitiee  ^'^""y  '^^^'^  '"  England ,  and  the  trading-companies,  under  whose 
for  ship-  auspices  the  colonies  were  planted,  saw  that  it  would  be  advan- 
"'■  tageous  for  them  to  have  their  ships  built  here.  The  Massachu- 
setts Company  acted  as  early  as  1629  ;  their  very  first  letter  to  the  governor 
and  council  of  the  colony  announcing  that  they  had  sent  out  shipwrights, 
six  in  number,  "  of  whom  Robert  Moulton  is  chief,"  to  introduce  this  branch 


OF   THE    UNITED  STATES. 


Sfi 


of  business  in  the  New  World.  Mechanics  were  also  sent  to  Virginia  for 
the  same  purpose ;  but  the  wonderful  fertility  of  Virginia  appears  to  have 
been  too  much  for  the  shipwrights,  and  they  found  tobacco-planting  a  much 
more  profitable  occupation  than  the  one  they  had  been  bred  to.  Ship- 
building began  the  soonest,  and  thrived  the  best,  in  Massachusetts.  The  first 
vessel  built  in  this  colony  was  launched  into  the  Mystic  River  at  Medfonl, 
July  4,  1631,  for  (lov.  Winthrop,  its  owner,  who  called  it  "The  Blessing  of 
ti\e  Hay."  This  prosperous  beginning  was  soon  followed  by  the  construction 
of  a  great  many  other  vessels  of  small  s  :,  at  different  points  in  the  colony, 
to  be  used  in  the  fisheries  and  to  trade ;  and  by  1641  the  industry  had  grown 
to  such  importance,  that  a  regular  official  supervision  of  the  building  of  them 
was  ordered.  It  was  enacted,  that,  "  when  a  ship  is  to  be  built  within  this 
juristliction,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  the  owners  to  appoint  some  able  man  to 
survey  the  work  from  time  to  time,  as  is  usual  in  England.  ...  If  his  advice 
is  not  heeded,  then,  upon  complaint  to  the  governor  or  any  other  two  magis- 
trates, they  shall  appoint  two  of  the  most  sufficient  ship-carpenters  of  this 
jurisdiction,  and  shall  give  tliem  authority  to  view  every  such  ship  and  all 
work  belonging  thereto,  and  see  that  it  be  performed  and  carried  on  accord- 
ing to  the  rules  of  the  art." 

Regular  ship-building  was  not  over  ten  years  old  in  the  colony  of  Massa- 
chusetts before  the  carpenters  undertook  vessels  which  were  of  large  size  for 
tliat  day.  Richard  Hollingswortii  began  one  at  Salem,  in  1641,  construction 
which  was  of  three  hundred  tons'  burden.  Gov.  Winthop  refers  of  vessels  of 
incidentally  in  his  journal  to  the  size  of  the  vessels  which  were  "'"  *"'' 
now  undertaken.  He  writes,  "  The  general  fear  of  want  of  foreign  commodi- 
ties, now  our  money  was  gone,  and  that  things  were  like  to  go  well  in  England, 
set  us  on  working  to  provide  shipping  of  our  own  ;  for  which  end,  Mr.  Peter, 
being  a  man  of  very  public  spirit  and  singular  activity  for  all  occasions,  pro- 
cured some  to  join  for  building  a  ship  at  Salem  of  three  hundred  tons ;  and 
the  inhabitants  of  Boston,  stirred  up  by  his  example,  set  upon  the  building  of 
another  at  Boston  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  tons.  The  work  was  hard  to  ac- 
complish for  the  want  of  money,  &c. ;  but  our  shipwrights  were  content  to  take 
such  pay  as  the  country  could  make."  "  Such  pay  "  meant  here  corn,  calicoes, 
and  commodities  of  all  kinds.  Lindsay,  in  his  "  History  of  Merchant-Ship- 
ping," says  that  in  1572  "the  largest  merchantman  that  sailed  from  the  port 
of  London  was  of  only  two  hundred  and  forty  tons'  register."  Yet  we  find  that 
in  1642  the  colonists  of  Massachusetts  had  built  one  of  three  hundred  tons, 
which  was  larger  than  any  the  wealthy  parent  kingdom  had  owned  seventy 
years  before.  This  is  in  reality  only  an  illustration  of  the  change  produced 
by  tiie  discovery  of  the  continent  of  America  upon  the  merchant-shipping 
of  the  whole  world.  With  the  planting  of  the  settlements  in  America,  and  the 
simultaneous  discovery  of  the  route  to  India  around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
commerce  ceased  to  be  a  coasting-trade  :  it  became  trans-oceanic  for  the  first 


573 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


time  in  history,  and  every  country  which  had  any  active  trade  whatever  with 
the  new  regions  of  the  eartii  was  obliged  to  Ixiild  a  new  and  larger  class 
of  merchant-vessels  for  the  service.  The  colonists  in  America  built  for  the 
trans-oceanic  trade  from  the  start :  hence  the  size  of  their  ships  became  lari;e 
rapidly.  Mention  is  made  of  one,  about  1643,  which  was  still  larger  ilum 
three  hundred  tons. 

In  1652  an  event  occurred  which  assisted  ship-building  in  this  country 
very  materially  :  this  was  the  ()assagc  of  the  famous  Navigation  A"t  iiiuler 
Navigation  Cromwcll,  the  law  being  re-aflfinned  in  1660  under  Charles  II. 
Act  of  i6ji.  'j'l^^.  object  of  the  act,  as  far  as  America  was  c:()uccrned,  was  to 
secure  the  whole  trade  across  the  ocean  to  IJritish  and  colonial  vessels,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  Dutch  and  Si)anish.  The  Dutch  were  about  engro^sinj,' 
the  carrying-trade  to  .\merica  at  that  time.  As  early  as  1640  they  had  about 
an  eijual  share  of  it  with  the  Knglish,  except  to  New  Kngland  ;  an  indication 
of  it  being  the  memorandum  which  comes  down  to  us,  that  on  C'liristmas 
Day,  1640.  there  were  in  the  ports  of  Virginia  twelve  ships  from  laigland, 
twelve  from  Holland,  and  seven  from  New  Kngland.  The  New-Knglaiiders 
were  so  rich  in  shii)i)ing,  that  they  carried  on  almost  all  their  commerce  tluni- 
i|  selves;   but  the  colonies  to  the  south  of  them  were  supplied  with  Ijirojiean 

fi,  wares  largely  by  Dutch  ships.     The  law  of  1651   secured  the  whole  trade  to 

the  royal  and  colonial  shipping,  and  the  latter  got  fully  half  of  it :  the  conse- 
(juence  of  the  law  being  great  activity  at  the  colonial  shipyards,  and  a 
corresponding  increase  of  colonial  tonnage. 

One  of  the  diflficulties  of  the  colonists  in  building  ships  was  the  general 
scarcity  of  money.  There  were  no  silver  or  gold  mines  of  any  account  in 
Scarcity  of  the  country,  and  the  colonists  hatl  only  a  limited  amount  of  hard 
money.  cash,  which  they  gained  by  sending  their  grain,  hides,  timber,  iVc, 

to  the  West  Indies.  ^Vhat  little  silver  they  got  in  this  way  was  (piickly 
despatched  to  Kurope  to  pay  for  the  manufactured  conmiodities  which  the 
colonies  were  obliged  to  imi)ort ;  so  that  there  was  a  constant  dearth  of  money 
here,  and  this  made  it  exceedingly  hard  to  pay  for  a  ship.  The  shifts  fliey 
had  to  resort  to  in  those  days  are  shown  by  a  contract  made  in  1 74 1  at  New- 
buryport,  Mass.,  cited  by  Mr.  J.  J.  Currier  in  his  "History  of  Ship-DuiKling 
on  the  Merrimack."  The  owners  were  to  ])ay  as  follows  :  "  Three  hundred 
pounds  in  cash,  three  hundred  ]K)imds  by  orders  on  good  shops  in  Hoston, 
two-thirds  money,  four  hundred  pounds  by  orders  up  the  river  for  timl)er  and 
plank,  ten  barrels  of  flour,  fifty  pounds  of  loaf-sugar,  one  bag  of  cotton-wool. 
a  hundred  bushels  of  corn  in  the  spring,  a  hogshead  of  rum.  a  hundred- 
weight of  cheese ;  the  remainder  part  to  be  drawn  out  of  said  Cummings  & 
Harris's  shop."  A  memorandum  in  Douglass's  "  Historical  and  Political  Sum- 
mary," dated  1748,  refers  to  one  ship  which  had  been  so  nearly  paid  for  in 
ji  calicoes,  that  its  owners  called  it  a  calico  shij).     The  builder,  taking  his  pay 

in  goods,  i)aid  off  his  workmen  in  the  same  way.     This  simple  mode  of  pay- 


I 


J 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


in 


mcnt  lasted  until  after  the  Revolutionary  war.  It  answereil  very  well,  too,  in 
tlic  majority  of  cases ;  the  largest  number  of  vessels  built  being,  of  course, 
from  ten  to  fifty  ton  shallops,  sloops  and  schooners  for  the  fisheries  and  coast- 
ing-trade. The  shallop,  it  may  be  said  for  tiiose  who  do  not  know  about  that 
class  of  vessel,  was  from  ten  to  twenty  tons'  burden,  and  was  ilecked  from  end 
to  end,  and  carried  two  small  masts  with  lugsails.  'I'he  schooner  was  purely 
;in  American  invention,  and  probably  grew  out  of  the  embryo  of  the  shallop. 
It  is  related  that  a  new  vessel  rigged  like  a  modern  s(:lu)oner,  having  been 
luini  lied  at  (lloucester,  Mass.,  by  Capt.  Andrew  Robinson  in  1714,  entered 
the  water  beautifully,  and  was  carried  by  her  momentum  away  from  the 
shore  with  such  speed  as  to  show  her  to  be  a  fast  vessel.  S(jme  one  cried 
Diit  in  admiration,  "  See  how  siie  schoons  !  "  and  the  captain  replied,  "A 
schooner  let  her  be  ;  "  and  this  class  of  merchantmen  took  that  name  accord- 
ingly. 

The  Revolutionary  war,  and  the  succeeding  years  until  the  war  of  181 2, 
constituted  a   trying   period   for  the   ship-builders   and   ship-owners   of  this 
country.    During  the  war,  their  vessels  running  along  the  coast  and 
to  tlie  West  Intlies,  and  such  countries  of  Kuro|)e  as  gave  tliem    Revolution. 
a  friendly  welcome,  were  captured  in  large  numbers  by  the  I-nglish  ary  war 
siiips ;  and  many  a  merchant  was  ruined  by  the  loss  of  his  property   "''°"  '"ti"*- 
in  this  way.     The  building  and  e(iuipping  of  privateers  soon  took 
the  place  of  regular  commercial  enterprise  ;  and  large  numbers  of  vessels  were 
armed  and  sent  to  sea  from  the  New-Lnglaiul  purls  every  year,  as  long  as  the 
war  lasted.     Scores  of  these  vessels  were  never  heard  of  again.     Some    of 
them  were  fortunate,  making  captures  of  ricli   merchantmen,  and  bringing 
their  owners  and  crews  great  wealth.     Tiie  ships  of  one  New-llngland  mer- 
chant took  120  prizes  worth  ^13,950,000,  and  otiiers  had  brilliant  luck  of  a 
kindred  descrii)tion  ;  but,  on  the  whole,    ,  is  certain  that  the  shipping-interests 
of  the  country  suffered  more  than  they  gained.     Then,  after  the  war  was  over, 
and  peaceful  commerce  was  resumed,  a  period  of  thirty  years  ensued,  during 
which  England  assumed  the  rigiu  to  search  and  detain  our  ships,  and  impress 
sailors  of  English  birth.     In  1806  this  evil  was  aggravated  by  an  impress- 
English  blockade  of  France,  —  a  compliment  which  was  returned  ment  of  sea- 
by  France  by  a  declaration  blockading  the  Britisii  isles.     Each  """' 
of  tile  two  powers  forbade  neutrals  to  trade  with  the  other ;  and,  while  their 
bitter  dispute  continued,  each  interfered  regularly  with  .\merican  shijjs,  cap- 
turing them  at  sea,  and  detaining  them  in  jwrt,  and  often  confiscating  both 
ships  and  goods,  because  they  were  supposed  to  be  giving  aid  and  comfort  to 
the  enemy.     Many  of  the  captured  vessels  were  released ;  but  their  cargoes 
often  became  worthless  during  the  detention,  and  the  owners  lost  heavily  upon 
them.    The  people  of  the  United   States  were   grievous   sufferers  by  these 
interruptions  of  their  commerce.     The  government  remonstrated  with  France 
and  England  against  them,  and  tried  to  bring  both  powers  to  reason  by  a 


\ 


7    "fT'T" 


'VjrtP-t* 


■111 


574 


INDUSTRIAI.    ff /STORY 


non-importation  act  in  1806,  an  embargo  act  in  1S07,  and  a  non-intcrcuiirse 
act  in  1809,  judging  that  what  touched  the  pockets  of  their  merchunis  would 
prixhice  more  el  led  tiian  any  thing  else.  I''<)r  the  time  being,  tlicse  several 
laws  imposed  only  a  heavier,  though  necessary,  burden  upon  our  own  i^hip 
builders  and  ship-owners.  'I'hey  were  effectual,  however,  with  Franci'.  aivl 
partially  so  with  Knglnnd.  In  1809  and  1810  Norway  and  Denmark  h.id  ih,' 
audacity  to  imitate  their  bigger  neighbors  by  seizing  our  ships  also  to  secure 
payment  of  tolls.  Hy  1812  the  cajjtures  of  American  vessels  had  been  \u 
follows :  — 

Taken  into  Dullish  ;iiul  Norwegian  ports  (1809, 63;  1810,124)       ■       1S7 

Capt'if-'''  '•>'  '■•n>;lantl ()\y 

Captured  l)y  Krante 558 

Total i,f)(,2 


Warodaii. 


This  sort  of  thing  could  be  endured  no  longer,  and  accordingly  this 
country  went  to  war  with  Kngland  in  iSi2to  secure  protection  to  itrojiertv 
on  the  high  seas  and  the  freedom  of  commerce.  Regular  trade 
being  almost  im|)ossible  during  the  war,  merchants,  with  the  ( on- 
sent  of  the  government,  again  went  itito  privateering.  The  exploits  of  tiieir 
ships  were  brilliant  nd  romantic  in  tlie  extreme.  The  United  States  lost 
1,407  merchantmen  and  270  armed  ships  during  that  war,  but  captured 
2,360  from  the  enemy  (750  of  them  being  retaken,  however)  ;  tins,  on  'he 
whole,  making  a  very  good  thing  of  it.  Most  of  the  prizes  taken  by  our  ^hips 
were  rich  merchantmen,  while  most  of  the  vessels  we  lost  were  coasting  and 
fishing  craft. 

The  United  States  gained  two  advantages  with  respect  to  shipping  hv 
these  two  wars  and  the  intervening  period  of  I'iuropean  interference  and 
Advantagei  aggression.  The  first  was,  that  the  necessity  of  building  fast  ships 
gained  by  was  imposed  Upon  our  builders,  and  they  were  forced  to  pay  great 
t  ewar.  attention  to  their  models.  No  one  wanted  to  send  a  ship  to  sea 
imless  she  was  capable  of  sailing  ra|)idly  away  from  a  hostile  cruiser  if  pursued 
and  obliged  to  run.  As  early  as  1782  a  ship  had  been  bu'lt  in 
New  ICngland,  the  frigate  "  Alliance,"  which,  being  chased  by  a  fast 
Knglish  shi]),  was  able  to  run  fifteen  knots  by  the  log,  with  the  wind  abeam. 
in  making  her  escape.  Our  builders  displayed  great  ability  and  originality  in 
meeting  the  recpiirements  of  the  age.  They  ignored  the  rules  prevalent  in 
llurope,  and,  rejecting  the  short,  deep  hulls  and  blulT  bows,  made  their  vessels 
long,  with  sharp  and  c:oncave  bows,  and  stems,  whicdi  permitted  the  water  m 
flow  away  from  them  freely.  Sometimes,  at  first,  more  attention  was  paid  to 
speed  than  steadiness;  and  a  sixteen-gun  ship,  "The  Neptune,"  is  known 
to  have  ("apsized  and  sunk  at  Newburyport  the  moment  she  had  crossed  the 
bar  on  her  first  vcjyage.     But  by  1812  earlier  faults  had  been  corrected,  and 


'Alliance. 


Oh   rriF.   rxiTF.n  siates. 


575 


!^ 


HB 


l» 


,1     :,f:;«| 


II 


"T-'r.,,,.™ 


576 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  ships  of  the  United  States  were  the  handsomest  and  swiftest  in  the  world. 
'riiere  was  great  compensation  in  that,  when  peace  came,  for  tiie  years  of  ri^k 
and  loss  which  liad  preceded.  The  second  aiivantage  above  referred  to  was 
more  immediately  the  result  of  the  brilliant  victories  of  the  war  of  1S12. 
Upon  the  return  of  peace  the  United  States  demanded  that  her  ships  should 
be  permitted  to  sail  the  seas  unmolested,  and  that  they  should  be  received  in 
European  ports  upon  the  same  footing  as  the  ships  of  "  the  most  fa\()ixd 
nations ;  "  or,  in  other  words,  that  navigation  should  be  conducted  on  a  basis 
of  exact  reciprocity.  The  prestige  which  this  country  had  gained  in  that  war 
prompted  England  to  accede  to  the  demand  at  once ;  and  the  other  nations 
of  the  world  entered  into  treaties  of  maritime  reciprocity  soon  after,  or  else 
passed  laws  which  had  the  same  effect.  It  had  been  customary  in  Eurojje  to 
tax  American  ships  entering  port  a  heavier  tonnage  duty  than  native  ships. 
We  had  returned  the  compliment  in  1789  by  taxing  foreign  ships  entering 
our  ports  fifty  cents  a  ton,  and  American  ships  only  six  cents  a  ton.  These 
discriminating  duties  were  repealed  in  1815  with  respect  to  England,  and 
during  the  next  twenty  years  with  resjjcct  to  most  other  maritime  powers ;  and 
trade  was  placed  upon  an  ecjual  and  reciprocal  footing.  The  good  effects 
Superiority  ^^^""^  ^°°"  **'^*-'"-  American  ships,  being  swifter,  stancher,  and 
of  American  better  managed  than  those  of  any  other  commercial  nation,  got 
*  '''*■  possession  immediately  of  almost  the  entire  foreign  commerce 

of  this  country,  and  the  shipping  and  carrying  trade  of  the  country  increased 
very  fast.  Our  grain,  cotton,  timber,  tobacco,  rice,  naval  stores,  hides,  pro- 
visions, and  other  crude  products,  began  to  go  abroad  in  very  large  (juantities; 
and  the  wants  of  this  growing  country  made  it  necessary  to  bring  to  our  shore 
from  P^urojie  immense  cargoes  of  cloths,  clothing,  iron-manufactures,  steel, 
chemicals,  &c.,  and  tens  of  thousands  of  emigrants.  American  shi[)s  obtained 
the  i)rincipal  part  of  the  carrying ;  and,  as  commerce  and  travel  increased, 
shipping  increased  too. 

The  only  locality  which  was  at  all  famous  for  its  ship-building  south  of  Ncw- 
Ship-buiid-  "^^^^  L'ity,  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  was  the  Chesapeake 
ingatChesa-  Bay.  The  schooners  and  ships  of  this  region  were  among  the 
pea  e  ay.  haiuisomest  anil  swiftest  flying  our  flag  or  any  other.  They  took 
the  name  of  "  clippers ;  "  and,  though  the  beautiful  moilels  upon  which  they 
were  constructed  were  soon  adopted  all  along  the  coast,  the  Balti- 
more clippers  were  thought  slightly  superior  to  all  others,  and  were 
regarded  far  and  wide  as  having  attained  the  acme  of  the  ship-buikling  art. 
The  lines  of  packets  which  were  started  after  18 15  to  ply  from  New  York, 
JJfjston,  ami  other  cities,  to  the  Euro])ean  ports,  and  which  continued  to  run 
until  about  the  time  of  the  w.ir  of  1861,  were  of  the  clipper-model;  and,  in 
fact,  all  American  ships  were  built  of  that  pattern,  except  a  few  of  large 
capacity,  constructed  expressly  to  carry  cotton,  which  were  organized  solely 
with  a  view  to  cargo-room,  and  had  (jueer  hulls  bulging  below  the  water-line. 


■  Ciipptra." 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


577 


viftest  in  the  world. 
or  the  years  of  ri^k 
ove  referred  to  was 

the  war  of  1S12. 

at  her  ships  should 

Juki  be  received  in 

"the  most  favoad 

inducted  on  a  basis 

gained  in  that  war 
d  the  other  nations 
y  soon  after,  or  else 
uniary  in  Europe  to 
y  than  native  ships. 
reign  ships  entering 
:ents  a  ton.  'I'hese 
ct  to  England,  and 
aritime  powers ;  and 
.  The  good  effects 
nfter,  stancher,  and 
nmercial  nation,  got 
i  foreign  commerce 
le  country  increased 

stores,  hides,  ])ro- 
ery  large  (luantities ; 
bring  to  our  shore 
■manufactures,  steel, 
:rican  ships  obtained 
id  travel  increased, 


The  performances  of  the  clippers  have  been  remarkable.  The  Liverpool 
packets  from  New  York  and  Boston  (varying  from  six  hundred  to  nine  hundred 
tons'  burden)  used  to  make  the  trip  across  the  sea  regularly  from  twelve  to 
twenty  days.  .\s  early  as  1825  the  ship  "Oliver  Ellsworth"  ran  from  New 
York  to  Livcr[)ool  in  thirteen  days.  "  The  Independence,"  one  of  whose 
sailing-days  was  March  5,  which  annually  took  out  the  President's  message, 
once  made  the  run  across  the  ocean  in  nine  days,  showing  a  spee'^l  wiich  is 
rarely  exceeded  at  the  present  time  by  an  ocean-steamer.  '  The  Flying 
Scud"  of  the  Australian  packet-line  from  New- York  City  (lyOj  tons'  burden) 
was  accustomed  to  make  the  whole  voyage  to  Australia  i>;  seventy-six  days 
with  a  cargo,  and  in  1S54  once  ran  four  hundred  anil  forty-nine  nautical  miles 
in  twenty-four  hours  (over  eighteen  miles  an  hour).  No  modern  steamer  can 
beat  that :  the  clipper-schooners  alone  have  beaten  this  time.  "  The  Clipper 
City"  (a, hundred  and  eighty-five  tons),  a  fast-sailing  lumber-vessel,  built  in 
1854  for  the  trad<  .f  Lake  Michigan,  ran  regularly  eighteen  knots  -n  hour, 
and  has  been  kno»vn  to  make  the  astonishing  si)eed  of  twenty  knots.  These 
are  not  exceptional  cases  :  they  arc  merely  instances  of  the  speed  of  the  fast- 
sailnig  ships  of  the  United  States. 

.\bout  1830  there  began  to  be  a  perceptible  increase  in  the  size  of  the 
ships  of  the  country,  owing  to  the  large  coasting-trade  which  was  springing 
up.     The  exchange  of  products  between  different  parts  of  the  ship-buiid- 
seaboard  was  becoming  very  large.     Cotton,  rice,  sugar,  and  to-  '"« '°  '^s"- 
bacco  were  coming  North :    cloths,  iron   and   steel  manufactures,  carriages, 
tools,  fertilizers,  India-goods,  &c.,  were  going  South.     Barks  and  ships  were, 
in  consequence,  built  for  the  trade,  varying  between  five  hundred  and  eight 
hundred  tons'  burden,  in    place  of  the    hundred   and   fifty  and  increase  la 
three  hundred  ton  schooners  and  brigs.     The  foreign  trade  was  •'*"• 
at  the  same   time   becoming    very   heavy,  and   thousand-ton    merchantmen 
began  to  make  their  appearance.     When  gold  was  discovered  in  California,, 
and  the  famous  stampede  of  that  and  the  subsequent  five  or  ten  years  began,, 
shipping  took  another  step  forward  ;  and  huge  clipper  freight-ships  of  a  special! 
(lass  were  built  for  the  long  voyage  around  Cape  Horn  to  the  new  regions. 
iin  the  Pacific,  to  which  the  whole  world  was  rushing.     By  1850  sixteen- 
hiindred-ton  vessels  were  employed  in  the  California  trade ;  and  the  tonnage 
of  the  vessels  increased  year  by  year,  until  (in  1878)  there  are  sailing-ships; 
plying  to  San  Francisco  from  New  York  of  twenty-five  hundred  tons'  burdem. 
I'iic  gigantic  clipper,  called  "The  Ocean    King"   (a  four-master,  owned   in 
Boston),  is  of  four  thousand'  tons  burden:  another,  "The  Great  Republic," 
is  of  the  same  size.     The  Californiamen,  in  fact,  now  figure  in  the  American 
merchant  marine  very  much  as  the  East-Indiamen  have  always  done  in  the 
Hnglish  marine  :   they  are  the  great  ships   of  the  sailing-fleet.    This  trade, 
lieing  a  part  of  the  coasting-trade  of  the  United  States^  is  expressly  reserved. 
to  our  flag. 


1 


§$' 


578 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


By  1 86 1  the  shipping  of  the  United  States  had  reached  a  very  interesting 
development.  Beginning  in  1783  with  about  a  hundred  thousand  tons  of 
ships,  —  few  of  which  were  more  ilian  three  hundred  tons'  burden,  and  tlic  vast 
majority  of  which  were  under  a  hundred,  —  the  national  wealth  in  siiips 
increased  quite  steadily,  in  spite  of  all  disadvantages,  until  in  1861  the 
total  tonnage  of  the  country  had  reached  the  enormous  figure  of  5,539,813. 
iMigland  alone  exceeded  us.  The  American  shipping  compriseil  the  fuiest 
■  and  largest  under  sail  afloat,  and  the  assortment  of  types  they  included  was 
perhaps  the  most  extensive  uniler  the  sun.     The  special  wants  of  clillercnt 


parts  of  the  coast  and  of  different  trades  had  given  rise  to  different  classes 
of  vessels  :  among  the  number  were  the  (iloucester  fishing-boat ;  tlie  Block- 
Island  double-cnders  ;  the  New-England  shari)y,  flat-bottomed  and  cat-iigged; 
the  Long-Isi:?nd  and  Hudson-river  sloops ;  the  clipper  brigs,  barks,  ami 
ships ;  the  "  kettle-bottomed  "  cotton-ships ;  the  Boston  ice-ship,  for  the 
Panama  and  South-American  trade ;  the  lumber-schooner,  carrying  the  most 
of  its  load  on  deck ;  the  fishing-dory ;  and  the  pleasure-yacht,  the  appearance 
of  whose  model  in  English  waters  in  1851,  in  "The  America,"  built  at  New 
York,  revolutionized  pleasure-boating  immediately.  The  war  of  18O1  caused 
a  decrease  in  our  shipping.  In  the  first  place  it  threw  about  a  million 
tons  of  shipping  out  of  employment,  owing  to  the  blockade  of  the  South- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


579 


em  I'orts,  and  led  to  the  sale  or  lease  of  the  ships  to  the  government,  and 
the  destruction  of  a  large  proportion  of  them  in  the  war.     Then 

,  ,..,..         Effect  of 

Confederate  cruisers  began  to  capture  our  ships  m  the  foreign  jate  war 
trade  and  whale-fisheries,  and  burn  them.     Maritime  ventures  be-  upon  "hip- 
came  so  hazardous   in   consequence   of  the   captures,  that  our     "'  '"'' 
merchants  were  afraid  to  sail  their  ships  upon  the  open  sea  any  longer  under 
the  .American  flag ;   and,  finding  a  ready  market  for  them  in  England,  they 
sold  a  great  part  of  them  to  Englishmen  and  others,  the  sales  amounting 
to  774,652  tons,  the  transfers  during  the  four  years  of  the  war  exceeding 
the  sales  to  foreigners  for  forty  years  preceding.     A  large  part  of  the  tonnage 
ill  the  foreign  trade  was  recalled,  and  put  into  coasting.     The  war  was  a 
terrible  blow  to  our  carrying-trade ;   and,  although  it  is  now  thirteen  years 
since  the  war  ended,  we  have  not  yet  recovered  the  ground  lost  during  that 
struggle.     We  are  getting  it  back  slowly  ;  but  it  will  be  several  years  yet  before 
the  merchant  marine  of  the  United  States  stands  where  it  did  in  1861. 

The  following  table  of  selected  years  will  show  the  growth  statistics  of 
and  changes  which  have  taken  place  since  1 789,  the  first  year  in  growth  and 
which  the  tabulation  of  accurate  statistics  began  :  —  ^  anges. 


n)SNA(iK  KK(.1S- 
Tl-RIM)  FOK  TlIK 
KOKliKiN  •rK.\UI£. 

TONNAC.E  IN 
COASTINl.-IK.XUE. 

TONNA'.JK  IN 
FISl'tKIH.S. 

TOTAL. 

'■89 

•^3.^93 

68,607 

9,062 

201,652 

1790 

346.-^54 

•03.775 

28,348 

478,377 

i;95 

S  "9.47 1 

184,398 

34,096 

747,965 

iSoo 

667,107 

272,492 

32.!^93 

972,492 

iSio 

981,019 

405.347 

38.417 

1,424,783 

1S13 

673,700 

470.109 

23.8 '9 

1,166,628 

1S15 

«.54.395 

475,666 

38,167 

1,368,128 

iS:o 

S«3.657 ' 

588,025 

108,485 

1,280,167 

1S25 

667, 4aS 

640,861 

1 14.841 

1,423,110 

iSjo 

537.563 ' 

516,979 

137.234 

1,191,776 

1840 

762,83s 

1,176,694 

241,232 

2,180,764 

1S50 

1.439.694 

1.797.825 

297.935 

3.535.454 

i860 

2.379.396 

2,644,867 

329,605 

5.313.868 

iS6i 

2,496,894 

2.704.724 

338,195 

S.539.813 

1865 

1,518,350 

3.38>.522 

197,010 

5,096,782 

1S66 

I. .3^7.756 

2,719,621 

203,401 

4,3'o,778 

i8;o 

1 ,448,846 

2,595,328  •-• 

159,41.1 

4.246,507 

'S75 

'.5' 5.59^5 

3,169,687 

118,436 

4.853,732 

1876        .... 

1,592,821 

2.609,323 

77.3'4 

4.279.458 

1,; 


'  The  reduction  in  these  two  years  is  only  apparent:  it  is  due  to  a  correction  of  the  tables  by  dropping 
vessels  vvreikeil,  condemned,  or  sold  to  forcitiiicrs,  which  had  been  carried  on  the  register  for  years. 

'  The  reduction  here  is  due  to  the  larger  enipluyment  of  steamers  in  the  coasting-trade  since  the  war,  one 
iteimer  doing  the  work  of  three  sailing-vessels. 


ill 


580 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


i'i 
11 


iff 


'If-: 


Is 


The  ship  building  of  the  country  has  concentrated  chiefly  in  the  New- 

England  States,  owing  to  the  superior  industry  of  the  people.     There  docs 

Shi    build-      "°^  appear  to  have  been  any  other  special  reason  for  it,  because 

inginthe        Other  States  have  just  as  large  supplies  of  building,  cojjper,  iron 

New-Eng-      cordage,  and  naval  stores,  and  some  of  them  a  great  deal  nioro 
land  states.  ^ 

of  one  or  all  of  them.  From  1607  down,  however,  more  tli.iu 
one-half  of  all  the  vessels  of  every  description  launched  in  American  waters 
have  been  built  in  the  New-England  yards.  New  York.  Pennsylvania,  Dela- 
ware, Maryland,  and  Virginia  have  been  buiUling  States  also.  South  of 
Virginia  there  appears  to  have  been  little  or  no  effort  in  this  direction.  Since 
1840  there  has  been  more  or  less  of  the  Iniilding  of  craft  for  the  inland  waters 
on  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Western  rivers. 

A  ship  is  a  mawellous  fabric.  Costing,  for  first-class  oak  vessels,  now  about 
fifty  dollars  a  ton,  nine-tenths  of  whii-h  expense  is  for  labor,  the  ship  calls  into 
requisition  the  services  of  forty  or  fifty  distinct  trades,  and  demands  tlie  highest 
engineering  and  mathematical  ability  on  the  part  of  the  designer,  and  tlie 
ablest  workmanship  on  the  part  of  the  builder. 

"Ah!  what  a  wondrous  thing  it  is 
To  note  how  many  wheels  of  toil 
One  tii<)Uj;hf,  one  word,  can  set  in  motion  I 
There's  not  a  ship  that  sails  the  ocean, 
But  every  climate,  every  soil. 
Must  bring  its  tribute,  great  or  small, 
And  help  to  build  its  wooden  wall." 

The  construction  of  shijis  is  one  of  the  most  profitao.e  branches  of  industry 
a  country  can  carry  on.  They  belong  to  that  peculiar  class  of  products  in 
Profitable-  which  the  raw  material  forms  the  most  insignificant  part,  and  tiie 
nessof  the  wages  of  the  workmen  the  largest  possible  i)roportion,  of  tiie  tost 
n  ustry.  ^j-  ^^^  completed  work.  Besides  that,  a  ship  once  built  retiuires 
continual  repair,  and  the  repair  of  ships  on  a  large  scale  is  even  more  profit- 
able to  a  country  than  is  the  building.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  ail  tiie  gov- 
ernments of  the  world  with  a  sea-coast  strive  to  have  their  own  shijjs  huilt  by 
their  own  people,  and  to  ])romote  as  much  as  possible  the  biiil  ling  of  ships  for 
other  nations.  The  United  States  have,  always  r.''|uired  American  siiips  to  l)e 
built  in  American  yards.  The  enormous  profits  of  the  .carrying-trade  lead 
governments  also  to  legislate  in  favor  of  their  own  shijjping.  The  United 
States,  for  instance,  have  always  reserved  the  whole  btisiness  of  the  roasting  of 
this  country  to  our  own  (lag  ;  and  for  a  period  of  fifty  years  it  imposed  an 
extra  duty  upon  all  goods  coming  froin  China,  Japan,  and  the  East  Indies,  in 
foreign  ships,  so  as  to  secure  that  trade  to  our  own  vessels.  Furthermore,  our 
laws  tax  all  foreign  ships  entering  our  ports  fifty  cents  a  ton  as  compared  with 
a  six-cent  tonnage  tax  on  our  own  vessels,  whenever  the  foreign  governineiit  to 
which  the  ships  belong  discriminates  in  any  way  against  our  vessels. 


,ilH   l' 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


581 


'I'lic  cost  of  wooden  ships  has  varied  a  great  deal  since  1607,  owing  to  the 
clianL;t's  in  tiic  wages  of  labor,  and  other  causes  affecting  the  general  range  of 
pricisof  all  commodities.  A  contract  at  Salem,  Mass.,  in  1661,  cost  of 
mentions  the  price  per  ton  of  a  ship  as  tiirce  pounds  five  shillings,  wooden 
oraliont  sixteen  dollars.  In  1.S25  first-class  ships  were  building  *  '''*" 
in  tin'  L'nited  States  for  tiiirty  or  forty  dollars  a  ton.  In  1840,  which  was  the 
lic>t  \xar  the  race  of  ship-owners  then  living  had  ever  known,  —  when  tonnage 
was  in  great  demand,  and  many  vessels  paid  their  cost  in  clear  profits  of 
Ircit^lit, — the  cost  was  about  fifty  dollars  a  ton.  .About  184S  the  price  had 
risen,  i>ossibly  l)ccause  large  siiips  of  llie  new  type  were  fitted  uj)  very  elabo- 
Mtt-1\ ,  tlie  captain's  cabin  being  as  richly  furnished  as  a  palace-car ;  so  that 
ships  cost  as  iiigh  as  seventy  dollars  a  ton  (the  average  price  was  fifty  dollars). 
In  iSfio  a  first-class  thousand-ton  oak  siii])  built  at  New- York  City  would  bring 
sixty-live  dollars  a  ton,  gold.  The  same  vessel  could  be  built  in  Maine  for 
forty-eight  and  fifty  dollars  a  ton.  Up  to  this  jjoint  in  the  history  of  the 
country,  the  cost  of  American  ships,  whatever  it  might  happen  to  be  in  any  one 
year,  was,  nevertheless,  from  five  to  fifteen  dollars  a  ton  less  than  that  of  vessels 
built  ill  Kngland.  After  1S61  the  derangement  of  prices  caused  by  the  war 
niaiie  .American  wooden  ships  the  most  expensive  in  the  world.  The  price 
rose  in  1869  to  eighty  dollars  a  ton  for  a  thousand-ton  oak  ship  fitted  for  sea 
witii  one  suit  of  sails,  the  price  varying  somewhat  with  the  part  of  the  coast  on 
which  it  was  built.  In  some  yards  in  .Maine  such  a  ship  could  be  launched 
for  sixty-five  dollars  a  ton.  .At  the  present  time  [irices  have  found  their  old 
le\ei,  and  oak  vessels  are  constructed  for  fifty  dollars  a  ton.  Canadian  vessels, 
luiilt  of  soft  woods,  and  therefore  shorter  lived,  are  sold  for  forty-five  dollars  a 
ton. 

A  very  notable  change  is  going  on  in  the  substitution  of  steam  craft,  or  boats 
towed  liy  steam,  for  the  old-fashioned  coaster  in  the  transportation  of  merchan- 
dise.   When  steaml)oats  first  came  into  practical  use,  it  was  prc)phe- 
sied  that  tiiey  would  speeilily  drive  olf  all  coasting-vessels,  because   ^""P"''""" 
their  trips  would  be  made  with  greater  regularity.      They  could   steam  craft 
not   carry  so  cheaply,  though;    and  consecpiently  sailing-vessels   ^n**  "'°o<*=" 
have  retained  easily  enough  until  now  a  very  large  portion  of  their 
ground,  steamboats  taking  only  the  more  costly  freights  and  those  requiring  as 
rapid  transit  as  possible,  leaving  the  transportation   of  coal  and  other  coarse 
commodities  to  the  slower-sailing  carriers.     Within  a  few  years,  however,  this 
province,  too,  has  been  invaded,  as  we  have  just  descrilied  ;  and  so  rapitlly  are 
the  canal  barges  and  other  vessels  towed  or  propelled  by  steam  gaining  the 
carrying- trade   of  coal,  grain,  and  all  commodities   not   transported   by  the 
re;'\ilir  lines  of  steamboats,  as  seriously  to  imperil  the  business  of  the  sailing- 
vessels  :  indeed,  it  is  highly  probable  that  in  a  few  years  they  will  be  driven 
from  a  large    jjortion    of   .American   waters   by   their   too    formidable    com- 
petitors. 


it^ 


582 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Statistics  of  According  to  the  last  report  of  the  Bureau  Veritas  of  Paris  it 

the  world's     being  for    1^66-67,  the  sea-going  merchant   sail-vesse!s  of  tlie 
world  were  distributed  as  follows :  — 


tonnage. 


KLAUS. 

VESSELS. 
20,265 

TONS. 

(kcut  Hritain 

5.8o7,.i75 

United  .States 

7,288 

2,j'/3,5:i 

Norway  . 

4.749 

1,410,903 

Italy 

4,601 

1,292,076 

(jermany 

3-45''' 

375.095 

France    . 

3.S58 

7-5.043 

Spain 

2.Q'5 

557.3-0 

Greece    . 

2,121 

426,925 

Holland  . 

I.M3 

3W.903 

.Sweden   . 

2,121 

399. 12S 

Russia     . 

1,78s 

391.95'^ 

Austria   . 

983 

338,6S4 

Denmark 

'.348 

188,958 

Portugal . 

456 

107,016 

South  Americr 

I 

273 

59.45'^ 

Central  Anicri 

ca 

'53 

59.944 

Turkey    . 

305 

48,209 

Belgium  . 

55 

^3.344 

Asia 

42 

16,019 

Africa  (Liberia) 

3 

454 

Total 

58,208 

i5.553.8;'iS 

English  eminence  has  grown  up,  in  part,  from  the  employment  in  her  trade 
of  iron  sailing-vessels,  which  she  found  she  could  build  cheapei  than  sin;  could 
wooden  ones.  No  iron  sailing-ships  have  been  built  in  the  United  States, 
except  one  only,  "The  Iron  Age,"  constructed  at  Wilmington,  Del.,  about  ten 
years  ago. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


583 


/eritas  of  Paris,  it 

.ail-vesscls  of  the 

BLS. 

TONS. 

6S 

5.f<o;.j7S 

88 

2.3'JO,5:i 

49 

1,410,903 

01 

i,2():,076 

56 

375.W5 

5.S 

725.043 

)'5 

557.320 

21 

426,9:5 

43 

399.903 

i\ 

309, 1  :S 

■S5 

391,95s 

)S3 

338.6^4 

34H 

iSS,95S 

456 

107,016 

273 

59.45» 

'53 

59.944 

305 

■tS.icx; 

55 

23.344 

42 

16,019 

3 

454 

208 

I    is,553,8.SS 

CHAPTER     II. 


STEAMHOATS. 

ON'E  of  the  most  imposing  spectacles  of  this  or  any  other  age  is  the  calm 
and  impressive  manner  in  whicii  Knghsh  wr'ters  claim  "  the  glory  of 
iiaviiig  introduced  steam-navigation  to  the  attention  of  the  world,"  Puiton  and 
and  tlie  coolness  with  which  they  say  that  this  invention  —  having,  ''''=>'. 
like  daylight,  fresh  air,  and  other  objects  of  great  utility,  been  born  in  Eng- 
land—  finally  left  its  inventors  "  to  irradiate  the  names  of  others  who  reaped 
the  benefit  of  their  laI)ors,"  the  most  prominent  of  the  "  irradiated  "  being 
Fulton.  The  first  British  steamboat  splashed  its  way  around  a  lake  at  Dalwin- 
hton,  tor  the  first  time,  in  the  middle  of  ()<tober,  1788,  the  event  accruing  to 
the  great  edification  of  the  farm-hands  of  the  regions  adjacent,  who  came 
down  to  see  a  boat  "  driven  by  smoke  "  at  the  rate  of  four  miles  an  hour. 
Vet  experiments  had  then  been  making  with  steamboats  in  America  for  thirty- 
eight  years  ;  and  in  1785,  three  years  before  the  first  English  boat  was  tried, 
John  Fitch  had  navigated  the  Schuylkill  in  a  shallop,  with  a  paddle-wheel  at 
the  stern,  driven  by  steam  ;  and  in  1 786  he  had  made  eight  miles  an  hour  with 
a  second  and  new  steamboat  on  the  Delaware.  The  idea  of  propelling  boats 
by  some  mechanical  device  even  was  not  at  all  new  with  England.  The 
ancient  Egyptians  had  galleys  which  were  worked  by  paddle-wheels  propelled 
by  oxen,  the  power  being  transmitted  somewhat  on  the  principle  employed  in 
a  modern  threshing-machine.  The  Romans  had  the  same  style  of  craft  to 
carry  ,orn  and  sokliers  to  Sicily  in  the  days  of  the  commonwealth.  It  was 
l>roi)osed  at  Heme  to  work  vessels  on  the  duck-principle,  by  constructing  two 
tremendous  web-feet,  which  should  open  and  shut  like  umbrellas,  and  be 
operated  by  steam.  One  ingenious  luiropean  had  also  proposed  to  propel 
boats  by  firing  big  cannon  from  the  stern,  it  being  ascertained  by  experiment 
that  a  moderate- si  zed  ship  might  be  driven  at  the  extraordinary  velocity  of  ten 
miles  a  day  with  thirty  barrels  of  gunpowder.  In  the  romantic  tale  of  "  Amadis 
of  Ciaul "  the  unknown  author  had  described  a  fiery  vessel  rushing  over  the 
ocean  with  the  speed  of  the  wind,  in  a  way  which  really  answered  very  well 
as  a  prediction  and  as  a  description  of  a  modem  Mississippi-river  steamboat 


584 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


racing  down  stream  with  a  rival  vessel,  with  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  ])rcss. 
lire  on  the  boiler,  and  burning  i)itch-i)ine  knots  and  turpentine.  'I'Ik'  wliolo 
idea  of  forcing  a  vessel  througii  the  water  without  the  agency  of  huuuui  labor 
and  independently  of  wind  and  tide,  was  ages  old  when  England  invented  a 
little  twopenny  four-knot  vessel  to  sjjiasli  around  the  i)recincts  of  Dalwinston 
Lake,  and  amuse  the  louts  of  tiie  adjacent  hillsides,  llngland's  sole  credit  in 
the  way  of  i)riority  is  for  the  invention  of  the  steam-engine.  For  that  f^reat 
machine,  all  hail  to  ICnglaiul  !  \\'e  must  put  our  hats  on  again,  however,  when 
mention  is  made  of  the  steamboat. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  romance  about  the  ancient  style  of  propul^iun. 
The  Indian, 

"  Skimiiiiiif!  Oiit.irio's  waters  l)liic 
Like  the  sw.iIKiw's  wing  in  his  l)ark  c.inoc," 

and  the  Venetian  in  his  stately  galley  rowed  with  double  and  triple  banks  of 
oars,  and  the  Yankee  with  his  wonderful  clip])er  and  its  cloml  of  canvas, 
have  been  a  constant  tlieme  for  poets  anil  historians.  Hut,  after  ail,  steam 
speaks  to  poets  and  prose-writers  alike  with  a  more  glorious  voice  tiian  oar  ur 
sail:  — 

"  For  fire  is  chief  like  haughty  gold, 
.And  with  its  glow- 
Fills  all  the  night  with  tlailic." 

So  old  Pindar  sang :  and  the  saying  is  fir  more  true  than  ever  Pindar 
dreamed  ;  for  fire  and  steam  have  given  us  the  greatest  ships  of  all  time,  whose 
achievements  are  of  indescribable  magnitude,  and  whose  influence  is  more 
far-reaching  and  important  than  that  of  any  other  material  agency  under  the 
control  of  man. 

When  the  discovery  of  the  steam-engine  had  set  all  the  world  thinkin;;  of 
a  new  way  to  accom|)lish  all  mechanical  work,  and  long  beff^a'  the  ideas  of 
Watt  were  i)erfected,  it  was  jjroposed  to  apply  steam  to  the  propulsion  ofjioats. 
As  early  as  1750  it  is  said  an  experiment  of  some  kind  had  been  atteini)tcil 
in  .America,  at  Reading,  rcnn.  ;  antl  Oliver  luans,  who  in  176S  proposed  a 
steamboat,  also  made  experiments  at  Philadelphia.  Shortly  after  the  Revolu- 
tionary war,  two  .American  inventors  wh<i  had  been  simultaneotisly  studying 
the  new  idea  —  John  Fitch  of  Connecticut,  and  James  Rumscy  of 
Maryland  —  both  brought  out  patterns  of  boats  to  be  propelled  by 
steam.  Rumscy's  first  idea  was  to  construct  a  boat  which  should  go  u])  a 
river  by  the  force  of  tlie  current  acting  "on  setting-poles."  He  showed  a 
model  of  a  boat  for  navigating  rivers  on  this  principle  to  (len.  Washington  on 
the  Potomac  in  1784,  and  in  1785  he  got  a  ten-years'  monopoly  for  building 
such  boats  from  the  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  Fitch  experi- 
mented from  the  beginning  with  steam.  His  first  vessel  had  a  paddle-whccl 
at  the  stern,  and  was  tried  successfully  on  the  Schuylkill  in  1785.     In  1786  a 


Rumsey. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


885 


fty  poiinil-i  jiR'ss. 
tine.  'I'll!.'  u  111  lie 
of  human  lahur, 
gland  in\ciui'(l  a 
ts  of  Dalwinston 
id's  sok'  cR'ilii  in 
For  tlial  ^rcat 
11,  however,  when 

ile  of  propulsion. 


I  triple  banks  of 
cloud  of  canvas, 
It,  after  all,  steam 
/oice  than  oar  or 


han  ever  Pindar 
of  all  time,  whose 
ntluence  is  more 
igency  under  the 


ivorld  thinking  of 

n-  the  ideas  of 

)pulsion  of  boats. 

been  attempted 

176S  pruj)o-ed  a 

ifter  the   Revulii- 

:\neously  studying 

ames  Rumsey  of 

D  be  ijropelleil  by 

should  go  nj)  a 

'     He  showed  a 

.  Washington  on 

poly  for  liuililing 

I.     Fitch  expcri- 

l  a  paddle-wheel 

785.     In  1786  a 


larger  and  more  practical  steamboat  was  tried  by  him  on  the  Delaware, 
making  eight  miles  an  h(5ur.  This  was  before  the  adoption  of  the  Federal 
('(in-titution,  and  while  patents  were  issued  only  by  the  several  States;  so  that 
I'llc  h  had  to  apply  to  such  of  them  as  he  thought  woidd  give  him  a  favorable 
luaring  each  by  itself.  Pennsylvania  gave  him  a  fourteen-years'  i)atent  in 
i;,S7;  and  Delaware,  New  York,  and  Virginia  followed  her  example.  In 
i;S7  Rumsey  brought  out  an  invention  for  moving  steamboats  by  means  of  a 
])uinp,  water  being  drawn  in  at  tiie  bow,  and  expelled  violently  at  the  stern. 
This  was  the  plan  of  Dr.  Allan  in  England  also,  that  gentleman  believing  that 
the  boat  would  be  rapidly  propelled  ;  "  thereby  imitating  very  accurately  what 
the  Author  of  Nature  has  shown  us  in  the  swimming  of  fishes,  who  proceed 
by  protrusion  with  their  tails."  Rumsey  tried  his  plan  on  the  Potomac,  and 
tiien  took  it  to  Kngland,  where  it  worked  well  on  the  Thames,  making  four 
miles  an  hour.  The  inventor  died  in  1793.  before  he  had  reaped  any  substan- 
tial reward  for  his  invention.  The  next  invention  was  by  I'itch,  and  was 
nothing  less  than  the  ocean-propeller,  —  a  contrivance  which  most  people  yet 
believe  to  be  an  I'.nglish  affair,  and  whicii  the  ICnglish  themselves,  in  their 
large  and  comprehensive  way,  definitely  claim  to  be  the  originators  of.  The 
craft  made  use  of  for  Fitch's  experiment  with  a  propeller  was  a  common  long- 
boat eighteen  feet  in  lengtii.  The  boiler  was  a  ten  or  twelve  gallon  puch's 
iron-pot,  with  a  thick  plank  lid  firmly  fiistened  ilown  upon  it.  The  invention 
steam-cylinders  were  of  wood,  barrel-shaped  outside,  and  firmly  '"="'"=«'• 
!i()()l)ed.  The  connecting-rods,  beam,  and  crank  were  of  ecpially  simple  con- 
struction. The  propeller  was  a  regular  iron  screw,  the  blade,  or  flange,  taking 
three  turns  aroimd  the  shaft.  With  this  device  F'itch  made  six  miles  an  hour, 
the  sheet  of  water  on  which  it  was  tried  being  Collect  Pond,  ninety  feet 
deep,  which  covered  the  ground  where  the  'I'ombs  now  stands  in  New-York 
City,  and  a  large  area  in  the  vicinity.  The  boat  was  afterwards  abandoned 
on  the  banks  of  the  pond,  and  allowed  to  decay.  The  date  of  the  experiment 
is  stated  as  1 796. 

In  1804  Mr.  Stevens  of  Hoboken,  N.J..  made  a  number  of  trips  on  the 
Hudson  River  with  a  small  steamboat  propelled  by  a  wheel  at  the  stern.  He 
afterwards  did  a  great  many  valuable  things  in  tlie  way  of  perfecting  the 
steam-engine. 

S(j  far  there  had  been  nothing  done,  except  in  trying  experiments.  F'itch, 
in  1790.  had  rui;  a  boat  between  Philadelphia  and  Burlington  to  carry  pas- 
sengers, which  was  operated  by  iiaddles  at  the  stern.  But  this  was  only  an 
experiment,  and  was  soon  al)antloned  ;  and  Fitch  had  died  in  1798  a  broken- 
hearted man,  owing  to  die  want  of  ])opular  appreciation  of  his  Fulton's  ex- 
inventions,  l^ut  steam-navigation  was  now  to  be  made  a  success  periments. 
by  Robert  Fulton,  a  native  of  Little  Britain,  Penn.,  who  had  gone  to  Europe 
in  17S6  to  perfect  his  mechanical  education,  and  push  his  fortune.  Fulton 
made  a  great  many  curious  experiments  in  locomotion  in  Europe,  one  of  them 


586 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


m 


being  an  attempt  to  blow  up  th.  Knglish  ships  l)lo(  leading  Brest  in  1801,  with  a 
submarine  torpedo,  in  behalf  of  Napoleon.  He  remained  under  \vat<.r  four 
hours  anil  a  half;  and  would  have  blown  up  an  English  seventy-iuur,  cMcpt 
that  she  moved  out  of  the  way  just  in  time  to  avoid  him.  He  did  not,  in  tiit- 
end,  blow  up  a  ship.  He  afterwarils  tried  to  sell  to  the  Knglish  a  patciii  to 
blow  up  the  French;  without  success,  however.  In  1S03  Fulton  lauiK  lud  a 
steamboat  on  the  .Seine  below  I'aris,  in  behalf  of  himself  and  t'liaiudlor 
Livingston,  our  minister  to  France,  llie  latter  of  whom  had  takm  great 
interest  in  Fulton's  exi)eriments.  This  pioneer  boat  of  I'ulton's  ii'el  \\\\\\  an 
astonishing  mi^haj).     'The  builder  had  miscalculated  the  strengtii  of  the  vessel ; 

^_  and,  when  the  machinery  was 

])laced  in  the  centre,  she  broke 
in  two  in  the  middle,  ami  the 
whole  concern  went  to  the 
bottom.  John  Scott  Rusbeli, 
vice-president  of  the  .Society 
of  Arts  for  ScotlaMil  in  1841, 
who  relates  this  in(  ident,  savs, 
•'Tile  shattered  vessel  was 
raised,  and  was  found  to  lie 
almost  entirely  broken  iiii. 
How  admirable  are  the  les- 
sons inculcate<l  by  a  thorough 
failure  !  The  .American  steam- 
boats have  ever  since  been 
distinguished  by  the  excel- 
lence of  the  strong  and  light 
framing  by  which  their  slender  vessels  are  enabled  to  bear  the  weight 
and  strain  of  their  large  and  powerful  engines."  Fulton,  nothing  (huuit- 
ed,  fished  out  his  machinery  from  the  mud  of  the  Seine,  and  in  the 
fall  of  the  same  yvar  placed  it  in  another  vessel,  sixty-six  feet  long  and 
eight  feet  wide.  The  vessel  had  paddle-wheels,  but  moved  so  slowly  (only 
three  miles  an  hour)  as  to  be  thought  at  first  a  fiiilure  ;  but  Livingston  ami 
Fulton  both  learned  from  it  valuable  lessons,  and  they  prepared  to  carry  the 
benefit  of  their  discoveries  back  to  their  native  land  immediately.  They  at 
once  ordered  an  engine  to  be  built  by  Bolton  and  Watt,  to  be  forwarded  to 
New  York,  to  begin  practical  steam-navigation  in  .American  waters.  Living- 
ston got  a  natent  from  New-York  State  for  the  right  to  navigate  its  waters 
"The  by  steam  for  twenty  years;   and   in  1807  "The  Clermont"  was 

Clermont."  launched,  under  F'ulton's  direction,  on  the  East  River  at  New- 
York.  She  was  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  tons'  burden,  and  was  supplied  with 
side  paddle-wheels.  A  moie  astonished  crowd  of  human  beings  had  never 
collected  on  the  shore  of  Manhattan  Island  since  the  days  when  the  open- 


FII.TON  S    BIRTHPLACE. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


587 


mouthed  red  man  saw  Ilemlritk  Hudson  sail  up  the  bay,  and  cast  anchor  off 
shore,  than  were  assembled  the  day  "The  Clermont"  made  its  first  trial  trip. 
Kvi.ryl)ody  had  said  the  experiment  would  fail.  'I'he  boat  had  been  tailed 
"  Fulton's  Folly  ; "  and  the  whole  scheme  hail  been  the  standing  joke  of  the 
town.  "The  (.Vermont"  had  not  gone  a  hundred  yards  from  shore,  however, 
iRtore  the  multitude  whi<h  was  looking  on  became  a  prey  to  the  liveliest 
siir|irise  and  admiration,  which  almost  (lecpcned  to  alarm  as  they  heard  the 
rai  kct  of  her  madiinery  and  the  terrific  splashing  of  the  water,  and  t,aw  the 
fire  and  smuk';  pouring  out  of  her  chinmey.      i'he  boat 

"  Walked  iIk-  waters  like  a  thing  of  life," 

and  left  the  ovcr\vhelmed  spectators  behind  her  at  a  speed  of  five  miles  an 
hour.  She  made  that  first  trip  to  Albany,  against  the  current,  in  thirty-two 
hour'^,  scaring  the  boatmen  and  farmers  along  the  Hudson  dreadfiilly,  especiallv 
at  night,  by  lier  roaring  and  her  lires.  This  vessel  made  regular  trips  to  and 
from  .Albany,  ami  was  joined  in  1.S07  by  a  second  boat,  built  by  the  same 
owui  rs,  tailed  "  i'he  Car  of  NeiUune,"  and  later  by  a  third,  called  "The  Par- 
agon." 'i'he  two  latter  were  of  three  hundred  and  three  hundred  and  fifty 
tons  resi)ectively. 

Steam-navigation  was  now  a  success,  ( omplete.  i)ractical,  and  triumphant  ; 
ami  the  achievement  took  place  in  the  New  World,  and  through  the  energy 
.iml  genius  of  .Ninericans  alone.     It  was  not  until  1S12  that  "The   ,,,.»,    r  _  . 

f^  The  Comet 

Comet  of  the  Clyde,"  the  first  trading  steam-vessel  of  luirope.  was  of  the 
launched,  and  taken  out  for  a  trial-trip.  John  S<ott  Russell  con-  Clyde." 
gratulates  Amerita  upon  the  benefits  arising  from  I'ulton's  enterprise,  and 
says,  ".Mthough  .America,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  will  look  to 
this  country  as  the  source  from  which  she  derived  this  benefit,  yet  we  heartily 
join,"  &c.  Really  .America  must  be  excused.  R.  I,.  Stevens  of  Hoboken, 
wlio  had  alrea<ly  i)erfected  a  ])ractical)le  steamboat,  would  have  accomplished 
steam-navigation  before  Henry  I5ell  did  on  the  Clyde  in  181 2,  had  I'ulton 
done  nothing  about  the  matter  ;  and  even  if  l-'ulton  was,  in  fact,  preceded 
hy  the  ])eople  on  Dalwinston  I^ake,  and  if  he  really  profited  by  their  experi- 
ments, it  was  his  own  peculiar  and  original  genius  which  accomi)lished  what 
tiiey  could  not,  and  that  was  something  for  which  he  was  not  indebted  to 
Knglish  inventors. 

The  navigation  of  the  Hudson,  though  patented  to  I'ulton  and  Living- 
ston, was  thrown  open  to  the  pul)lic,  by  a  compromise,  in  1815.  Other 
pcoph;  wished  to  build  steaml)oats,  and  |)ul)lic  sentiment  was  un-   .,    .    .. 

'  '  Navigation 

favorable  to  the  monopolizing  of  the  water-courses  of  the  conn-   of  the  Hud- 
try  by  anybody.      I'\ilton  at  first  claimed  the  monopoly  of  the  «o"  thrown 
Western  rivers ;   but  iiis  claim  was  disputed,  and  carried  to  the 
courts,  and  beaten;  so  that,  after  1815,  the  rivers  of  the  country  were  as  free 


588 


INDUSTRIAL    IIISTOKY 


to  wliocvcr  might  <  hooso  to  navi(;ate  thorn  by  steam  as  they  had  prcviniisly 

l)c'cn  to  vessels  unilcr  sail. 

Steamboats  made  their  appearance   in  the  West   in    1812.     The  pidiurr 

boat  was  "The  New  Orleans,"  built  at  Pittsburgh  by   I''iilton  at  a  (n.t  nf 

.  ;|?.io,oo(),  and    provided  widi   a  stern-wheel  and  sails.     She  \\,i,  of 

Appearance  i    ■  i  '^  "i 

of  »team-        between  three  Imndred  and  four  hundred  tons'  burden.     In  Oiio- 
boats  in  the     i,^.^^   ,j^,2^  ^\^^   ,„,„i^.  (i,^.    (^p  fr,„n    Pittsburgh   to    Louisvillr  in 

seventy  hours  :  she  then  made  several  trips  to  Cincinnati,  and  in 
December  went  to  New  ( )rleans,  and  was  there  put  into  the  trade  belwieii 
tiiat  city  and  Natchez.  Siie  was  wrec  kcd  on  a  snag  in  1.S14.  This  boat  |i,ii(i 
for  half  her  cost  the  first  year.  The  second  boat  was  "The  Comet,"  Imilt 
at  Pittsburgh  in  1.S13  by  Mr.  1).  French,  whi(  ii  found  her  way  to  New  ( (rlciiis 
in  1 814,  and,  after  two  trips  to  Nalche/,  went  out  of  existence,  her  ma(  hiiury 
being  taken  out  and  put  into  a  cotton-mill.  The  tliird  boat  was  "I'ho 
Vesuvius,"  also  built  at  Pittsl)urgh  by  Fulton  ft)r  a  < ^mpany.  This  vessel  w.is 
of  three  hundred  and  forty  tons.  She  went  to  New  Orleans  with  the  otlurs, 
and  was  burned  in  liSiT).  None  of  these  boats  had  been  able  to  nsceiid  ilic 
Mississippi  River.  They  went  down  stream  well  enough.  " 'I'he  Vesuviib  " 
had  tried  to  return,  but  failed.  'l"he  ascent  was  not  accomplished  until 
1815,  when  "'l"he  F.nterprise,"  a  small  boat  of  only  seventy  tons'  Inirden,  with 
a  single  wheel  at  the  stern,  for  the  first  time  m.ade  the  voyage  up  the  rixers 
from  New  Orleans  to  Cincinnati,  arriving  there  in  twenty-eigiit  days.  She 
reached  Louisville  in  twenty-five  days,  and  stojiped  there  in  oriler  to  pennit 
a  public  dinner  to  be  given  in  honor  of  the  event. 

The  first  steamer  in  the  coasting-trade  was  built  by  the  Stevenses  at 
Hoboken,  while  Fulton  still  had  a  monojjoly  of  the  Huilson,  and  was  run 
by  the  outside  route  to  I'hiladeiiiliia. 

There  now  remained  only  one  field  for  tl  '  American  steamboat-men  to 
conquer:  that  was  the  home  of  old  Neptune  I  unself,  —  the  open  ocean.  The 
Steamboat-  crossing  of  the  .Atlantic  was  altogether  a  different  matter  from  a 
ing  across  voyage  along  the  coast  and  up  and  down  a  great  river.  AnKTi(  an 
the  Atlantic,  jj^jid^.^s  and  merchants  hesitated  to  attempt  the  undertaking  for 
many  years.  At  length,  however,  the  experiment  was  tried.  \  vessel  i  alkd 
"'I'he  Savannah,"  three  hundred  and  eighty  tons'  burden,  ship-rigged,  with 
Crossing  horizontal  engine  and  paddle-wheels,  was  built  at  Corlear's  Hook, 
of  "The  N.Y.,   by  Crocker  <.V   I'ickitt,   for  a  company  of  gentlemen,  ulio 

l)rop()sed  to  send  her  across  the  ocean  for  sale  to  tiie  lMn|ier(ir 
of  Russia.  She  sailed  from  New- York  City  in  1S19  for  Savannah,  (la., 
making  the  trip  in  seven  days,  four  of  them  under  steam.  From  Savannah 
she  went  direct  to  Liverpool,  making  the  voyage  in  twenty-two  days,  during 
fourteen  of  which  she  was  under  steam,  moving  the  rest  of  the  time  undtr 
sail.  Her  arrival  in  Creat  Britain  created  a  great  commotion.  When  about 
entering  St.  (leorge's  Channel,  off  the  city  of  Cork,  the  commander  of  the 


OF    TltE    UNITED    STATES. 


589 


cy  had  pri'vioiiNly 

Sis.  TIu"  iiiminr 
Iton  at  a  (ct  of 
sails.  Slu'  Nv.is  of 
Ininlcii.  Ill  ()(to. 
I  to  Louisville  in 
("incinnati.  and  in 
llic  tiMik-  iK'tvwiii 
.  This  liii.u  |Mi(| 
I'lic  Comet,"  liiiilt 
ly  to  New  ( irKMiis 
KC,  licr  iua(  hnury 
\  boat  was  '•  Iho 
'•.  'I'll is  vessel  was 
ns  with  the  otlu  is, 
ihk'  to  asceml  the 
"'I'lic  Vesuvine" 
iccompli^luMl  nimi 

tons'  hnnlun,  witii 
yagu  up  the  ii\ris 

-eight  (lays.  She 
in  oriler  to  permit 

the  Stcvcnses  at 
ioii,  ami  wa.i   run 

steaiTiho.at-men  to 
pen  ocean.  'I'lic 
nt  matter  iVoin  x 
ri\er.  Amcri(,ni 
e  undertaking;  tor 
.A  vessel  cillnl 
ship-rigged,  witli 
Corlear's  Hook, 
,1,'entlemen,  wlio 
to  the  laninror 
Savannah,  (la., 
I'Vom  Sa\annali 
two  days,  dnrin}; 
)f  the  time  under 
)n.  When  al)()iit 
)mmander  of  the 


Ilriiish  fleet,  seeing  a  huge  cloud  of  smoke  rising  from  the  vessel  and  covering 
llie  sky,  sent  off  two  cutters  immediately  to  save  her  passengers  and  i  rew 
from  the  destruction  whiiji  he  sujjposed  was  threatening  them.  'I'he  sleamer 
j)aid  no  attention  to  the  cutters ;  and  the  I'.nglislunen,  exasperated  hec  ause 
their  benevolence  was  not  accepted,  rowed  furiously  alongside  several  times, 
uid  Ured  several  guns  across  the  steamer's  bow,  and  finally  hove  her  to  and 
boanleil  lu-r.  The  o('fi<ers,  finding  tli.it  the  steamer  was  all  right,  finally  let 
her  ;^(),  and  she  bore  away.  At  Liverpool  her  arrival  created  a  treniend(jus 
scib.ition.  As  she  <Mme  up  the  harbor  with  sails  furled  and  the  .Amerii  an 
colors  flying  the  piers  were  thronged  with  people,  who  greeted  the  ship  with 
cnllinsiasti('  cheers.  A  great  many  jiersons  of  distinction  visited  her.  She 
fiii.illy  went  on  to  St.  retersi)urg.  She  was  an  object  of  great  curiosity  at  every 
port  at  which  she  stopped,  but  was  not  sold  as  expected  ;  and  accordingly 
she  set  sail  for  home.  The  King  of  Sweden  offered  #  100,000  for  her,  pay- 
aiile  in  hemi)  anil  iron  delivered  in  tli<'  I  nitetl  States;  but  the  cash  was 
wanted,  and  the  offer  was  not  accepted.  The  ship  ran  home  from  Norway 
in  twenty-two  days.  Her  machinery  was  then  taken  out,  and  she  became  a 
sailer.  She  subsecpiently  went  ashore  on  Long  Island,  and  was  completely 
wrei  ked.  The  owners  of  the  vessel  are  said  to  have  lost  over  550,000  by  their 
voy.it;e  to  Kurope.  'i'he  trouble  with  '"'I'lie  Savannah"  was,  that  her  engines 
were  imperfect.  They  consun>ed  so  much  coal,  that  the  ship  could  not  carry 
enough  fuel  for  the  voyage,  and  there  was  no  room  for  cargo  whatever.  It 
was  about  twenty  years  before  the  steam-engine  was  so  |)crfected  as  to  make 
oeeaii  navigation  profitable  ;  and,  when  that  time  arrived,  the  I'.nglish  were  the 
first  to  take  advantage  of  it;  the  pioneer  ships,  "The  Sirius  "  and  "The 
Great  Western,"  entering  New-York  harbor  almost  together  on  the  .3d  of 
April,  18,58.  The  honor  of  the  first  crossing  of  the  Atlantic  remains  with  our 
own  countrymen  ;  but  the  credit  of  establishing  vessels  in  trade  g  ,  u,.  ^ 
belongs  to  the  Knglish.  The  Royal  Mail  (or  Cunard)  steamers  ment  of 
began  running  from  ILalifax  to  Boston  in  1840,  and  they  have 
never  ceased  to  run  to  the  jiresent  day.  Other  lines  were  after- 
wards started,  and  at  the  present  time  England  has  about  a  hunilred  and 
twenty-five  steamers  running  to  the  Uniteil  States,  'i'he  Mills  line  to  Hremen 
(.■\merican)  was  started  in  1847,  and  the  ('ollins  line  to  Liv-  Growth  of 
trpool  in  1850,  as  also  the  (Jarrison  line  to  Hrazil  in  1S65,  —  all  <"her  lines. 
from  New- York  City.  The  Pacific  Mail  line  to  China  was  started  in  186'; 
also.  When  1865  came,  however,  England  had  a  hundred  and  twenty 
bteaniers  running  to  this  country,  and  hail  virtually  monopolized  the  steamship 
traffic,  her  lines  being  sui)])orted  by  the  patronage  of  the  government.  Our 
own  lines  to  Europe  had  been  withdrawn,  'i'he  only  line  wc  have  to  Europe 
to  day  is  that  of  the  American  Company  of  I'hiladelphia,  which  employs  four 
three-thousand-ton  steamers  in  the  trade. 

bi  1 818  the  first  steamboat  was  built  for  the  trade  of  the  Great  Lakes,  then 


first  line  of 
steamers. 


59° 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


steam- 
boating 


beginning  to  be  considerable.     It  was  "  The  Walk  in  the  Water,"  named  after 
a  celebrated  Indian  chief  in  Michigan.     She  was  built  at  Black  Rock,  N.Y. 
on  the  Niagara  River,  her  engines  being  brought  up  from  New- York  City  by 
,  sloops  to  .Mbany,  and  thence  despatched  by  six  and  eight  horse  teams  over- 

|fl|  land  to  the  Niagara  River.    The  different  parts  of  the  engine  arrived  from 

Albany  in  fifteen  to  twenty-five  days'  time.  "  The  Walk  in  tiie  Water  "  was 
brig-rigged,  and  of  tliree  hundred  and  sixty  tons'  burden.  Being  lost  in  a 
gale  in  1821,  she  was  replaced  by  "The  Superior."  The  owner  of  the  two 
boats  was  Dr.  I.  B.  Stuart  of  Albany.  As  trade  on  the  lakes  increased,  more 
steamers  were  put  into  the  business  by  other  people  at  all  the  large  ports. 

These  were  the  beginnings  of  steamboating  in  .\merica.  They  iiave  been 
described  with  great  tninuteness,  because  the  United  States  was  the  i)ioneer 
.  .      country  of  the  world  in  utilizing  the  power  of  steam  in  the  prac- 

pioneer  in  tical  transportation  of  freight  and  passengers,  and  the  history  of 
early  efforts  is  thus  especially  interesting;  and  also  because  in  the 
beginnings  of  an  enterprise  is  infokled  its  whole  subseiiuent  his- 
tory, just  as  truly  as  every  characteristic  of  a  tree  is  outlined  and  predicted  in 
the  little  sprout  that  has  just  poked  its  way  out  of  the  soil.  No  eiiterjirise 
can  be  understood  unless  its  origin  is  known.  If  the  origin  be  tiioroughh- 
comprehended,  the  intermediate  steps  by  which  the  enterprise  attains  its  final 
development  are  of  small  account :  they  are  merely  a  repetition  of  the  steps 
first  taken. 

Steam  was  put  to  service  upon  the  water  in  this  country  about  tliirty  years 
before  it  was  employed  in  traffic  overland  ;   and  it  played  a  most  imi)ortant 
part  in  the  development   of  tiie   country,  and  in  cementing  to- 
gether its  various  communities.     It  brought  the  distant  territories 
in  the  North-West  antl  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  River  at 
once  into  immediate  and  patriotic  relations  with  the  older  com- 
munities, and  was  the  means  of  building  up  a  thriving  exchange 
of  commodities,  and  unity  of  sentiment,  between  them.    The  same  was  true 
of  the  different  parts  of  the  Atlantic  coast.     In  the  settlement  of  tlie  West 
and  South  the  steamboat  greatly  assisted ;  and  so  well  adapted  was  tliis  new 
agency  to  the  work  of  threading  the  chain  of  lakes,  and  to  overcoming  the 
vast  distances  of  the  great  rivers,  that  by  1835  the  building  of  steamboats  in. 
t!ie  West  had  become  very  large,  and  by  1856  tliere  were  more  tlian  a  ti'ou- 
■>  ••^|\  of  this  style  of  craft  actively  engaged  in  the  traffic  of  that  portion  of 
our  domain.     The  steam-tonnage  of  the  Mississippi-river  Valley  at  that  time 
e(iualled  the  magnificent  steam-tonnage  of  the  whole  empire  of  (Ireat  Britain. 
About  1850  the  old-style  steamboat  of  the  West  and  North,  ranging  from  two 
hundred  to  four  hundred  tons  in  size,  began  to  be  found  inade(iuate  to  tiie 
wants  of  trade  because  of  its  small  size.     The  builders  then  began  to  enter 
u])on  the  construction  of  larger  craft ;  and  they  enlarged  their  vessels  year  by 
year,  until  the  latter  have,  in  1878,  attained  a  size,  in  the  trade  of  the  Missis 


Importance 
of  steam- 
navigation 
to  this 
country. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


591 


ater,"  named  after 
Black  Rock,  N.V., 
New- York  City  by 
horse  teams  i>ver- 
gine  arrived  from 
II  tiie  Water  "  was 

Being  lost  in  a 
owner  of  tlie  two 
L's  increased,  more 
;  large  ports. 

They  have  been 
s  was  the  pioneer 
iteam  in  tlie  prac- 
ind  the  history  of 
ilso  because  in  the 
le  subsequent  his- 
.1  and  predicted  in 
il.  No  enterprise 
gin  be  tlioroughly 
'ise  attains  its  final 
tition  of  the  steps 

about  thirty  years 
a  most  imi)ortant 
in  cementinL'  to- 
distant  territories 
ississippi  River  at 

the  older  ( oni- 
thriving  exchange 
le  same  was  true 
nent  of  the  West 
(ted  was  this  new 

overcoming  tlie 
of  steamboats  in. 
ore  than  a  ti'ou- 

that  portion  of 
Uley  at  that  time 
of  dreat  Britain, 
ranging  fr(jm  two 
ladeciuate  to  the 
1  began  to  enter 
ir  vessels  year  by 
ie  of  the  Missis 


si|ipi  at  least,  equal  to  that  of  the  c  lossal  trans-Atlantic  steamers.     One  of 
tliese  huge  Western  boats  will  be  referred  to  hereafter. 

On  the  coast  a  steam-packet  was  running  between  New  York  and  Philadel- 
phia as  early  as  1814,  and  a  regular  line  was  plying  from  New  York  to  Charles- 
ton as  early  as  1832.     After  1830  the  whole  coast  became  alive   „     ^..  ^ 

'  "^  ^  Establish- 

witli  Steamboats.     Lines  were  started  in  Long-Island  Sound  to  ply  mentofcoast 
in  the  routes  to  Boston,  Hartford,  and  other  New-England  cities,  ""=8°' 

.  .  ,  °  '    steamboats. 

tlie  steamers  connectmg  at  proper  points  with  stage-lines  on  the 
mainland,  just  as  they  now  do  with  railroad-lines.  Lines  were  started  in 
Chesapeake  Bay,  in  the  waters  of  Virginia,  and  in  every  large  river  leading 
from  the  interior  of  the  Southern  States  to  the  coast.  The  coasting-steamers 
finally  crept  as  far  to  the  southward  as  to  Savannah,  to  which  point  a  line  began 
running  alx)ut  1848.  In  1848  steamers  began  running  between  Charleston 
and  Havana  in  Cuba,  under  the  patronage  of  our  government.  The  greatest 
coasting-line  of  all  was  authorized  to  be  established  by  the  Act  of  Congress  of 
March  3,  1847,  in  order  to  facilitate  intercourse  between  the  P^astern  States 
and  our  newly-acipiired  territories  on  the  Pacific  Ocean.  We  had  just  obtained 
all  that  vast  territory  lying  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  by  cession  from 
Mexico.  With  the  existing  inadeciuate  means  of  tran-portation,  that  region 
was  practically  as  far  away  from  the  .Atlantic  centres  of  population  as  though 
it  had  been  buried  in  the  interior  of  the  continent  of  Asia.  In  order  to 
settle  this  new  territory,  it  was  necessary  to  have  steamers ;  and  so  Congress 
autiiorized  lines  to  be  started  in  the  same  patriotic  spirit  in  which  it  afterwards 
originated  the  Pacific  railroads.  Two  companies  were  formed,  —  the  United- 
States  >'ail,  to  run  from  New  York  to  .\spinwall  on  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  a 
distance  of  2,000  miles ;  and  the  Pacific  Mail,  to  run  from  Panama  on  the 
Tacific,  3,300  miles,  to  San  Francisco.  The  pioneer  steamer,  ''The  pacific  «,(! 
California,"  1,058  tons,  left  New-York  City  Oct.  5,  1848,  being  steamship 
followed  within  a  month  by  the  "Panama"  and  "Oregon,"  1,087  '=°'"P»"y- 
and  1,099  to"s,  all  three  steaming  for  the  Pacific  by  way  of  Cape  Horn.  The 
first  steamer  of  the  other  line  to  ply  to  Aspinwall,  "'I'he  Falcon,"  891  tons,  left 
New  York  in  December  of  the  same  year.  This  line  touched  at  New  Orleans 
en  route  by  contract.  It  is  seklom  in  the  history  of  the  world  that  a  great 
agency  for  the  performance  of  a  specific  work  is  created  so  opportunely  as 
were  these  two  lines.  'Vhile  "  The  California  "  was  peacefully  wending  its 
way  across  the  tropical  seas  en  route  for  its  distant  service,  and  its  officers  were 
wondering  what  on  earth  they  would  find  at  Panama  to  carry  to  California,  the 
exciting  story  came  to  the  Eastern  States  that  gold  had  been  discovered  in  the 
Sacramento  Valley  in  extraordinary  tjuantities.  The  officers  of  the  two  steam- 
shi])  il,.es  at  New  York  were  at  once  besieged  with  applications  for  passage  to 
California.  "  The  Falcon  "  went  out  loaded  ;  and  when  "  The  California  " 
came  into  the  harbor  of  Panama  to  get  advices  from  home,  before  going  on 
northward,  she  found  a  multitude  of  eager  gold-seekers  there  awaiting  her 


592  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

arrival,  and  she  went  on  her  way  loaded  down  to  the  water's  edge  wiih 
passengers  and  freight.  Her  consorts  had  the  same  experience.  Both  steam- 
ship lines  were  a  magnificent  success  from  the  start;  and  they  themselves  did 
more  to  build  up  our  empire  on  the  Pacific  rapidly  than  a  thousand  sailinir- 
vessels  slowly  working  their  way  around  Cape  Horn  could  have  done.  i!y 
185 1  there  were  nine  large  steamer;;  in  the  Atlantic  line  (one,  "The  Illinois," 
being  of  2,123  ^o"^'  burden),  and  six  in  the  Pacific  line,  one  of  the  licet.  "The 
Golden  Gate,"  being  of  2,068  tons'  burden.  'I'he  two  lines  consolidated  into 
one  in  1865,  and  then  sent  out  steamers  to  China.  Since  the  fouiulation  of 
this  great  enteri)rise  other  coasting  steam-lines  have  been  started,  and  the 
number  of  them  now  is  legion,  'i'hey  ply  on  all  parts  of  the  three  coasts,  and 
between  all  principal  commercial  cities. 

The  growth  of  steam-tonnage  in  the  United  States  will  be  shown  by 
Statistics  of  the  following  table,  the  figures  beginning  in  1823,  because  the 
steam-ton-      steam-tonnage  was  then  first  recorded  separately  :  — 

TONNAGE. 

1823 24,879 

1830 64,472 

1840 202,309 

"850 525.434 

IS60 867,937 

1870 1.075,09s 

1876 1. 172.372 


The  distribution  of  this  tonnage  in  1876  was  as  follows : 


NUMBER. 

2,081 
270 
021 

1,048 

4,320 

tonnai;e. 

Atl.mtic  .ind  Gulf  co.ists 

Pacific  co.ist 

Nurtlicin  lakes 

Western  rivers       .        , . 

665,879 
78,439 

201,742 
226,J12 

Total 

1,172,372 

The  principal  trouble  of  the  early  builders  of  steamboats  in  '}.vm  '  nintry 
was  in  devising  a  proper  way  of  transmitting  the  power  of  the  steam-engine  to 
Difficulties  ''^^'  water.  Fitch  tried  paddle-wheels,  a  bank  of  oars,  and  a  screw- 
o(  early  i)ropeller.     Rumsey  tried  a  jet   of  water.     Subsequent   inventors 

"''  "^'  tried  a  vast  variety  of  devices.  One  was  an  endless  chain  carrying 
a  long  row  of  paddles  to  p!iy  in  the  water  at  the  sides  of  the  boat  or  undcr- 
neadi  the  false  keel.  Another  was  the  side-fan  or  duck-foot  propeller :  boats 
were  supplied  with  a  whole  set  of  fins  on  each  side.    Another  plan  was  the 


er's  edge  with 
.  Both  steam- 
themselves  diil 
ousaiul  saihng- 
ave  done.  l>y 
"The  Illinois," 
the  fleet,  "  The 
)nsoliilateil  into 
:  Ibmnlation  of 
started,  and  the 
liree  coasts,  and 

I   be   shown   by 
23,  because  the 


TIINNAGE. 
24,879 

64,472 
202,309 

525.434 

867.937 

1.075,09s 

'.•72.372 


665,879 

7^,439 
201,742 
226,  12 


1.172.372 


in  <\ys  -- nintry 
steam-engine  to 
irs,  and  a  screw- 
:iuent  inventors 
,s  chain  carrying 

boat  or  undcr- 
iropeiler:  boats 
ler  plan  was  the 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


593 


triple  crank  paddle,  —  a  queer  combination  of  paddles,  guiding-rods,  cranks, 
iVc,  ilie  object  of  which  was  to  employ  three  sets  of  paddles'  and  make  them 
(lip  straight  down  into  the  water,  describe  the  segment  of  an  ellipse  in  the 
water,  and  come  straight  out  again.  Any  nuinber  of  devices  of  that  description 
were  tried.  Then  the  circular  paddle-wheel  was  experimented  with  in  a  hun- 
dred forms.  The  several  paddles  were  made  to  revolve  so  as  to  dip  into  and 
( oine  out  of  the  water  perpendicularly.  They  were  made  to  feather  in  the  air, 
to  fold  up,  and  perform  a  variety  of  other  gymnastic  feats.  Paddles  of  all  sorts 
i>f  geometrical  forms  were  tried,  —  triangular,  oblong,  pointed,  &c.,  —  inventors 
being  possessed  with  the  idea  that  an  imitation  of  the  tails  of  fast-swimming 
fishes  ought  to  be  had.  One  (jueer  invention  was  a  jiaddlc-wheel  which  was 
intended  to  go  without  steam  l)y  a  pendulum  ai)paratus.  It  was  a  rival  of 
I'lilton  who  conceived  this  brilliant  thought.  The  wheels  of  his  boat  revolved 
l.ke  fury,  indeed,  when  the  boat  was  on  tl  •>.  stocks  ;  but  when  it  was  launched, 
,;ml  the  machine  set  in  motion,  the  boat  ditl  not  move  an  inch.  The  builders 
fmally  settled  down  on  the  common  paddle-wheel  an<l  the  screw  as  the  only 
useful  and  practical  devices ;  and,  though  all  the  old  ideas  are  being  continually 
re-invented,  nothing  has  ever  been  found  to  supersede  the  ones  named. 

Five  different  types  of  steamboats  have  grown  up  in  American  waters,  two 
(if  them  i)eculiar  to  America,  and  without  etiuals  in  their  way  in  the  world. 
I  he  five  types  are  those  of  the  common  double-ender  ferry-boat,  ^ 
ijriveii  by  a  powerful,  quick-acting  engine  and  paddle-wheels ;  styles  of 
the  tug-boat,  a  little,  deep-hulled  craft,  with  engines  powerful  ■''<='"»"'- 
(.nough  to  enable  them  to  handle  an  ocean-steamer,  sometimes 
tleinonstrating  four-hundred-horse  power  and  a  speed  of  fifteen  knots ;  the 
great  freight  and  passenger  propeller,  often  of  four  thousand  tons'  burden, 
driven  by  a  screw  at  the  stern,  for  ocean-service  ;  the  American  sitle-wheel 
river-steamer ;  and  the  high-pressure,  side-wheel  Mississippi-river  steamer. 
The  .American  river-steamers  are  models  of  beauty  and  speed,  and  are 
uneiiualled  anywhere  in  the  world.  They  have  fine  clean  runs,  with  long, 
^harp  bows  as  keen  as  razors.  They  diviile  the  water,  instead  of  raising  it  into 
.1  swell  like  the  oKl  style  of  Dutch  and  luiglish  hulls,  and  allow  the  waves 
gradually  to  unite  again  at  the  stern,  so  as  to  leave  scarce  ly  other  swell 
lichind  them  besides  that  raised  by  the  churning  of  the  wheels.  They  are 
remarkably  long  and  narrow,  being  often  twelve  times  as  long  as  they  are 
hroad.  The  hull  is  built  for  lightness.  The  draught  is  generally  moderate. 
Ihe  great  weight  of  the  ma<  hinery  and  boilers  in  the  centre  is  supported  by  a 
truss,  somewhat  on  the  principle  of  a  bridge.  The  arches  of  the  truss  rise  high 
in  (he  air  above  the  vessel,  and  give  to  the  structure  a  wonderful  rigidity.  The 
engines  are  low-jiressure,  and  work  on  the  princijjlc  of  the  Cornwall  pumping- 
cngines,  with  a  remarkably  long,  (juick  stroke  of  the  i)iston,  the  steam  being 
"seil  ex|)ansively.  The  American  river-pistons  often  travel  from  five  lumdreil 
to  six  hundred  feet  a  minute ;  while  in  England  the  usual  rate  is  not  over  two 


594 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


hundred  and  fifty.  The  boats  are  capable  of  a  speed  from  twenty  to  thirty 
miles  an  hour.  Many  of  the  early  steamers  of  the  Collins,  Mills,  VaiKk'ibilt 
and  other  ocean  and  coasting  lines,  were  substantially  of  this  class  of  wsslI 
though  built  a  little  more  substantially  to  meet  the  strain  of  the  ocean-swtlls. 
The  magnificent  "  Adriatic,"  Collins's  last  ship,  —  a  vessel  330  feet  loiv,  ex- 
ceeding 5,000  tons'  burden,  and  costing  over  1^1,400,000,  built  in  1856, —  Iiad 
a  hull  more  of  the  present  fashion  of  ocean-steamers,  and  fliirly  confirinud  the 
latter  style  of  huU  in  ocean-sen'ice.  The  Long-Island-Sound  steamers  are  kA 
the  river  pattern,  and  are  now  the  handsomest  specimens  of  their  class  in  liie 
country.  They  are  about  three  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  long.  One 
peculiarity  of  the  river-steamers  is  their  huge  wheels  and  the  wheel-liouscs 
which  enclose  them.  On  the  Hudson  River  "  The  New  World  "  had  wheels 
forty-si.x  feet  in  diameter  ;  and  "  The  Thomas  Powell,"  forty-feet  wheels.  TIk' 
Sound  steamers  have  from  thirty-five-feet  to  forty-feet  whe.'ls.  Large  wIklIs 
allow  the  blades  to  enter  and  leave  the  water  more  nearly  verlii  ally,  and 
diminish  the  concussion. 

The  Mississippi-river  steamers  are  equally  long,  narrow,  and  sharp  with 
those  just  described ;  but  they  generally  have  higii-pressure  engines,  and  they 
are  somewhat  larger,  and  of  lighter  ilraught.  Their  upper  works  are  some- 
what differently  arranged  ;  and  their  decks  are  broatler,  in  order  to  secure 
more  cargo-room.  In  1876  there  was  launched  at  St.  Louis  one  of  these 
craft,  "  The  Great  Republic,"  which  was  three  hundred  and  forty  feet  long, 
from  ten  to  seventeen  feet  hold,  fifty-seven  feet  beam,  and  a  widtii  of  deck  of 
a  hundred  and  three  feet.  Her  capacity  of  cargo  was  four  thousand  tons ;  and 
she  could  carry  also  two  hundred  and  eighty  passengers,  and  then  have  a 
draught  of  only  two  and  three-fourths  feet  fonvard,  and  four  feet  aft, —  the 
peculiar  and  necessary  feature  of  \Vcstern  travel.  Her  wheels  were  thirty-seven 
feet  in  diameter,  and  her  cost  $200,000.  She  was  the  largest  river-steamboat 
in  the  world. 

The  screw-propeller  has,  within  the  last  twenty  years,  grown  very  popular 
for  ocean-travel.  Though  invented  in  the  United  States,  it  was  neglected 
The  screw-  there  from  the  beginning.  In  1839  Kngland  took  up  the  idea,  and 
propeller.  grad'-ally  introduced  it  into  her  transatlantic  service.  Since  1861 
all  the  American  ocean  and  outside  coasting-steamers  have  adopted  propellers. 
and  the  side-wheelers  have  now  disappeared  from  the  ocean-service.  Only 
one  or  two  steamers  on  the.  coast  still  retain  the  paddle. 

Very  recently,  however,  another  invention  has  appeared,  in  which  propul 
sion  and  steering  are  combined  in  the  same  apparatus.  The  screw  is  the  instru- 
ment employed  ;  but  it  is  so  adjusted  and  operated  as  to  perform  both  fun(  - 
lions.  One  great  advantage  claimed  for  it  is,  the  course  of  vessel  may  be 
almost  instantly  changed,  thus  lessening  the  danger  of  cohioion  and  other 
similar  perils.  This  is  an  American  invention  ;  and  the  story  is  told,  that. 
during  a  recent  trial  in  British  waters,  one  of  the  persons  on  board  the  trial 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


595 


Steamer,  being  desirous  of  knowing  how  quickly  the  course  of  the  vessel  could 
be  changed  by  this  new  apparatus,  was  told  to  give  the  signal  for  making  the 
cliange,  when  his  curiosity  would  be  gratified.  Soon  after,  he  gave  the  signal ; 
and  the  course  of  the  steamer  was  so  suddenly  altered  as  to  lay  him  out 
si)rawling  on  the  deck.  Recovering,  and  picking  himself  up  as  soon  as  he  was 
al)le,  he  declared  that  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  of  the  great  merits  of  the 
invention. 

According  to  Martin's  "  Year- Book,"  the  steam-tonnage  of  the  world  in 
1877  was  as  follows  :  — 


NUMTIEK. 
1,465 

TONNAGE. 

Kngland 

1,470,158 

Unitcil  States 

.... 

1,176,000 

Fr.ince     . 

522 

194,546                              1 

(Itrmany 

i            253 

'67,633 

I'lirtMgal . 

i             39 

36,000                       ; 

Austria    . 

1             78 

57.265                       1 

Italy 

118 

37.8 '0 

liclgiiiin  . 

24 

30.397 

Netherlands 

86 

76,827 

I)cnm;irk 

•23 

27.381 

Greece     . 

16 

6,048 

Chili        . 

22 

9,641 

China  and  Japan 



"*"WFm*: 


■■^n 


596 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


CHAPTER   III. 

IRON   STEAMSHIPS. 

DURIXC/  the  days  of  thi.'  ocean-races  between  the  ships  of  the  Collins 
and  C'unard  steam-lines,  plying  between  New- York  City  and  Liverpool, 
two  splendid  steamers  left  England  tb.e  same  week  for  the  run  to  America. 
Wooden  ^^^^  ^^'^^  "The  Persia,"  o.""  the  Cunard  line  ;  the  other  the  maguifi- 
and  iron  cent  slde-whceler,  "  The  Pacific,"  of  the  Collins  line.     On  tiie  way 

ste«ms  ips.  ,j(,pQ^>^_  (i^g  (y.Q  vessels  met  with  floating  ice.  'I'he  sliarj)  huw 
of  the  iron-hulled  "  Persia  "  cut  the  ice  like  paper,  and  jjasseil  through  in 
safety.  "  The  Pacific,"  a  timber-ship,  was  broken  up  by  the  encounter,  and 
took  its  place  with  the  "  thousand  fearful  wrecks  "  which  strew  the  bottom 
of  the  sea  under  the  ocean  fury.  This  melancholy  event  called  the  attention 
of  the  two  continents  to  the  sea-going  qualities  of  iron  hulls  ;  and  from  that 
day  to  the  present  the  steam-tonnage  which  has  been  launched  to  brave  tiie 
dangers  of  the  open  sea  has  been  built  in  greater  and  greater  degree  of  iron, 
until  at  present  wooden  steamers  for  deep-sea  navigation  are  built  nowhere  in 
the  world. 

Attention  was  turned  to  iron  ship-building  in  this  country  almost  simul- 
taneously with  the  rise  of  the  art  in  ICngland.  The  first  iron  boat  was  probahly 
First  iron  imported  from  England  for  trial;  but  as  early  as  1X25,  only  four 
craft  in  years  after  the  first  iron  steamboat  was  built  in  Europe,  a  little  craft 

merica.  ^^  similar  ilesign  and  material  was  launched  at  York,  IVnn..  fur 
plying  in  the  trade  on  the  Susquehanna  River.  This  little  vessel  was  '•  The 
Codorus."  It  had  a  wooden  frame,  and  drew  twelve  inches  of  water.  This 
was  the  first  iron  boat  ever  constructed  in  .America.  The  bars  in  the  Sus(iue- 
hanna  at  low  water  seriously  interfering  even  with  the  trips  of  so  light  drau;;hl  a 
vessel  as  "  The  Codorus."  she  was  sent  South  to  ply  on  some  river  in  th.u 
section  of  the  country,  and  where  she  was  destinetl  to  a  U)ng  career  of  useful- 
ness. The  buoyancy  and  strength  of  this  preliminary  boat  led  to  the  c(>n- 
struction  of  several  others  in  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  for  river-navi^ation 
within  the  next  ten  years.  They  varied  from  a  hundretl  to  three  hundred  Idus' 
burden.  ♦ 


OF    THE    ULITED    STATES. 


597 


s  of  the  Culliiis 
/  and  Liverpool, 
run  to  Anuric;i. 
iher  tlie  nia.mufi- 
le.     On  the  way 
The   sliarp  bow 
issetl  through  in 
3  encounter,  ami 
trew  the  bottoui 
leil  the  attention 
i ;  and  from  that 
led  to  brave  the 
r  degree  of  iron, 
)uilt  nowhere  in 

ry  ahnost  simul- 
at  was  probably 
1825,  only  four 
)pe,  a  little  craft 
York.  IVnn.,  for 
•essel  was  "  The 
of  water.     'I'liis 
in  the  Susquc- 
o  light  draught  a 
•nie  liver  in  tli.il 
areer  of  useful- 
k'il  to  tiie  icn- 
river-navigation 
ce  hundred  tons' 


In  1839  a  steamer  entirely  of  iron  was  constrncted  at  Pittslinrgh,  Pcnn^ 
called  "  The  Valley  I''orge."  Her  hull  and  lower  deck  were  entirely  of  iron, 
the  former  o{  fourth-inch  plates,  the  latter  of  eighth-inch  i)lates.   , 

^  '  Iron  steamer 

Her   frame    was   of   angle   and   T   iron.      "The  Valley   Forge"   constructed 
was    a    rapid    boat,    easily    managed,   and    i)assed    successfully   "*  '''"^" 
through  several  encounters  with  snags  which  would  have  sunk  a 
wooden  boat.     She  ran  until   the   summer  of  1S45  as  a  packet-boat  between 
Nashville  and  New  Orleans,  and  was  then  withdrawn,  and  cut  up  into  mer- 
cliant-iron,  nails,  spikes,  iVc.     She  was  broken  up,  not  because  she  was  an  iron 
jioat.  but  because  Western   trade   then   required  a  larger  class  of  steamers. 
••  I'he  Valley  Forge  "  carried  only  two  hundred  tons  of  freight,  whereas  thou- 
s.nid-ton  vessels  were  beginning  to  be  needed. 

liy  1842  there  was  a  line  of  iron  steamboats  in  the  coasting-trade  Itetween 
Hartford  and   I'iiiladelphia,  a  line  of  five  iron  boats  on  the  Savannah  River, 
(ia..  and    a    con- 
sideral)le   mimber 
of  iron  tugs  ply- 
ing in  the  harbors 

of    the     Progress 
North.     "nti''842. 

and  on  the  Dela- 
ware and  Karitan 
Canal.  The  light- 
er frames  and 
hulls  and  general 
durability  of  these 

boats  ret  ommended  them  to  shipping-men.  The  building  of  them  stopped 
shortly  before  the  war  of  1861,  however,  for  the  reason  that  our  foreign, 
coastwise,  and  internal  commerce  had  grown  to  enormous  jiroportions,  and 
required  the  use  of  vessels  of  great  size,  for  the  construction  of  which  iron  was 
so  costly,  that  vessels  built  of  tluU  material  coulil  not  it)mpete  with  wooden 
vessels  for  freights.  Besides  Miat.  few  builders  owned  the  cajjital  necessary 
for  i)utting  up  the  expensive  shops  and  i)owcrful  machinery  suited  to  the 
busincs.;. 

The  war,  so  great  a  calamity  to  the  country  in  diverting  from  peaceful 
industry  and  agriculture  for  four  years  millions  of  the  flower  of  our  popidation, 
and  leaving  behind  it  desolated  homes  and  a  great  debt,  was  a  E„ggto. 
};reat  stimulus  to  many  important   bramhes  of  national  industry,   war  upon 

Iron  sliii)-buil<linL;  was  one   of  them.     (Government  contracts  for  ""o"  **"?- 
'  ''  building. 

constructing  the  monitors  and  iron  floating-batteries  of  the  war 
enabled  various   builders   in   places  adjacent  to  the  iron-regions  to  supply 
themselves  with  rolling-mills,  machine-shops,  and  apparatus  of  great  power 
anil  value,  which,  with  the  advent  of  peace,  could  be  emi)loyed  in  construct- 


STEAMSHIP. —  CTNARI)  LINE. 


.TVnP'jr.. 


'''4,y,3 


^iU!v.:i, 


59« 


MVJ I 'S  TK  /A  I.    I  US  T(  K  Y 


:^i!i  5 


1i^ 


iiig  int'r(liantslii])s  of  every  class.  At  the  dose  of  the  war,  pipiroii  \v;is 
fiflyeiglit  tlollars  a  ton;  by  1.S6S  it  liail  ilropped  to  thirty-eiglil  dollaiN  a 
ton.  I'lie  gei\eral  advantages  of  iron  merdiant-sliips  having  (hsposed  ilic 
mercantile  coniniunity  toward  that  type  of  vessels,  orders  were  then  guru 
for  tiie  ({.Mistnu  tion  of  several  :  and  the  art  has  ever  since  been  ])ra(  ti^td  (,ii 
a  continually-growing  scale.  Sime  1.S6S  nearly  all  of  the  steanislii|)s  ImiU 
for  tiie  coasting-trade  of  the  Uniteti  States,  all  of  those  for  the  foreign  traik, 
and  many  for  sonnd,  river,  and  lake  navigation,  have  been  built  of  jiuu. 
It  is  evident,  that,  in  all  these  trades,  iron  hulls  must  eventually  superMck^ 
those  of  the  more  perishable  material,  'liiey  are  lighter,  and  last  twu  e 
as  long.  .American  iron  has  su|)erior  (pialities  for  the  jjurpose  :  it  permits 
the  use  of  lighter  frames  and  plating. 

The   years    1S7::  and    \'^~;},  constituted   a  new  era  in  the  historv  of  this 

The  years       industry.      The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  had  resolved  to  establish  ,1 

>87>-73'  liiK'    of  first  (lass  ocean-steamships  to    run  from   I'hiladelpliia  to 

Liverpool,  to  form    the   sea-division   of  its   line  of   commimication  between 

the  fruitlul  and  i)oi>uU)us  interior  of  the  United  States  and  iMirour 

American  '     *  ■     * 

line  of  Its  interest  in  the  matter  induced  a  number  of  mere  hants  of  l'iii|,\- 

steamersto     d^-ipiiia  to  organize  a  com])any  to  build  a  line  of  American  iron 

Europe.  '  "^  ' 

Steamers  to  run  from  that  city  in  comiietition  with  the  foreign  lines 
from  New  York.  The  railroad  company  became  a  stockholder,  and  guarnn- 
teed  the  bonds  of  the  new  organization  to  the  amount  of  J  1,500,000.  Under 
this  arrangement,  proposals  from  builders  were  asked  for,  William  C'ramii  \ 
Sons  of  Philadelphia,  a  firm  whose  yard  had  been  established  in  1830,  were 
the  successful  bidders.  They  agreed  to  lay  the  keels  of  four  iron  steamshi|)s 
of  3,016  tons'  burden,  355  feet  long,  to  draw  twenty  feet  six  inches  in  fresh 
water,  capable  of  carrying  920  passengers  anil  a  full  cargo,  at  a  speed  of 
eleven  knots  and  a  half  per  hour,  with  a  consumption  of  forty  tons  of  coal 
per  day,  for  J5 2,080,000.  The  firm  comprised  men  of  long  e.xperience;  hut 
they  fortified  themselves  before  beginning  the  ships  by  an  examination  of 
the  yards  on  the  River  Clyde  in  Kngland  and  the  best  specimens  of  foreign 
steam-shipi)ing.  They  resolved  to  build  four  ships  which  should  in  every 
res])ect  excel  those  of  foreign  construction  employed  in  the  traffic  of  tlic 
Atlantic,  and  they  did  build  them  in  a  thorough  manner.  "  The  Pennsyl- 
vania "  was  launched  Aug.  15,  1872;  "The  Ohio,"  Oct.  30,  1872;  "The 
Indiana,"  March  25,  1873:  and  "The  IT  nois,"  June  15,  1873.  The  line 
went  into  operation  in  July,  1873.  This  ;  now  the  only  line  of  steamships 
carrying  the  American  flag  across  the  Atlantic.  Its  captains  are  un-lcr 
positive  orders  never  to  incur  risk  for  the  sake  of  making  a  quick  pas.sage,— 
a  policy  followed  by  the  Cunard  line,  the  oldest  in  the  Atlantic  trade,  and 
successful  in  an  eminent  degree  in  inspiring  the  confidence  of  the  travelling 
comtnunity.  The  ships  have,  nevertf  ^less,  made  better  average  time  than  the 
foreign  steamers  running  out  of  tht  same  port.    The  passage  to  Liverpool 


war,  pig- iron  was 
ty-cij^ht  il(ill:irs  ;i 
ing   ilisposLd  the 

were  tlvjii  gi\i'i\ 
l)ccn  pnulisrd  (.11 
;  stcanislu])-,  liiiilt 

the  fonigii  trade, 
.■en  btiill  (il  iruii, 
jntually  sujiLTsitli.' 
r.  and  last  twice 
iri)us(.' ;    it  i)t'riiiiis 

the  history  of  this 
vi'd  to  L'stalilish  ,i 
mi   I'hiKuk'liiliia  to 
lUniration  bctwuii 
States  and  l'!ur<)|)c. 
ncri  hanls  of  l'hil.\- 
•  of  Anicric  an  iioii 
ith  the  foreign  liius 
iol<ler,  and  giianm- 
1,500,000.     Ulldrr 
William  C'raiuii  >\: 
shed  in  1830,  were 
jur  iron  stcanis!>ips 
six  inches  in  fresh 
go,  at  a  speed  of 
forty  tons  of  loal 
g  experience ;  hut 
an  examination  of 
lecimens  of  forei-n 
1  should  in  cviiy 
the  traffic  of  the 
r.     "The  Pennsyl- 
30,  1872;  "The 
,   1873.    The  line 
line  of  steamships 
:aptains  are   un'i'.T 
a  (luick  passage,  — 
\tlantic  trade,  ami 
ice  of  the  travelling 
:rage  time  than  the 
issage  to  Liverpool 


01-     77//:    CX/T/-:/)    .S7A77:S. 


599 


.iviiagcs  eleven  days  nine  hours      More  favorable  rates  of  insurance   have 

Ikiii  j^jranted  to  these  steamships  than  to  any  others  in  the  Atlantic  service, 

nvi)  Cimartlers    alone   excepted.      The   vessels    have    been   a    success   both 

rm.incially  and  mechanically. 

While  the  Ameritan  line  was  building,  two  iron  steamshi])s  of  large  si/.e 

were  (onstnicting  at  the  yard  of  John   Koac  h  vv:  Son,  a  short  distance  below 

the  t  itv.  —  the  largest  works  of  the  kind  in  the  coiuitry.     'I'hese 

\uir  "The  City  of  IVknig  "  ami  "The  City  of  Tokio."  ordered    [hlj^"!"*"" 

liytiie  Pacific  Mail  .Steamship  Company  for  its  trans-l'acific  service    PacificMan 

to  liiian  and  t'iiina.     They  were  to  be  the  largest  iron  mere  hant-   ^♦'"'"^'''p 
■'    '  •'  '^  Company. 

steamers  in   the  ocean  carrying-trade  of  the  world.     "Thedreat 
Kastern  "  was  the  only  iron  vessel  whi(  h  excelled  them  in  size  ;  but  that  vessel 
was  a  commercial  failure,  and  was  not  actively  employed  in  trade.     The  build- 
ing (if  these  two  vessels  excited  that  extraordinary  interest  in  the  United  States 


STEAMSHIP.  —  »  IIITH-STAK   I.1NB. 


\vhi(  il  daring  enterprise,  and  any  effort  for  the  supremacy  of  the  national  flag 
;u  ^ea,  have  always  aroused.  The  launching  of  "The  City  of  Peking"  in  March, 
1874,  was  made  the  occasion  of  a  great  celebration,  which  was  attended  by  a 
delegation  from  both  houses  of  Congress,  and  by  merchants  from  the  leading 
cities  of  the  country.  "  The  City  of  Tokio  "  was  launched  soon  afterwards. 
Both  shii)s  have  since  been  employed  with  eminent  success  in  the  trade  of 
the  Pacific.  They  each  carry  over  5,000  tons  of  freight  and  1,650  passengers, 
and  are  crack  ships  in  every  respect.  They  are  423  feet  long.  "  The  City  of 
Peking"  made  the  fastest  trij)  ever  made  across  the  Pacific  in  1875,  burning 
forty-five  tons  of  coal  a  day  ;  whil"  the  vessels  of  the  Occidental  and  Oriental 
line,  which  nm  in  competition  with  her,  owned  and  built  in  England,  bum 
sixty  tons  a  day,  running  on  schedule  time.  These  vessels  have  engines  of 
5,000  horse  power,  and  are  driven  ordinarily  at  a  speed  of  fifteen  knots  and  a 
half  per  hour.  They  can  run  to  Hong  Kong  from  San  Francisco  in  twenty- 
t\\'o  days. 


"T'-fir'*" 


?^    '  '■ 


Coo 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


These  ships  placed  upon  the  Iniilding  of  iron  merchant-steamers  in  the 
United  States  the  final  sfau)])  of  success,  and  they  initiated  the  era  of  j.ip'c 
Magnificence  i'^''"''''^'''^  nuuiinj,'  at  f,Teat  speed  with  a  small  consiunpticn  <if  ,,,,1]. 
of  new  Since  tiiey  were  umlertaken,  tlie  nuinlier  of  wooden  steaiiiei-,  lijr 

steamera.  ^^^^  coasting  and  foreign  tratte  built  in  tliis  country  might  nlmost 
i)e  counted  on  one's  fingers.  No  one  now  builds  of  any  thing  except  iron  tor 
those  trades.  Some  maLrnificent  vessels  of  the  river  type  of  steamer,  of  wooil, 
have  been  produced  for  tlie  traffic  tluougli  Long  Island  Sound  between  New 
York  and  tiie  cities  of  New  Mngland.  lint  this  is  not  coasting-navigation 
imijjer :  it  is  more  like  river-navigation.  The  hulls  of  some  of  these  vcasels 
are  of  iron,  however. 

The  class  of  steamsliip  which  has  been  liuilding  for  the  coasting-traijc  is 
unlike  any  other  in  use  in  tlie  world.  It  has  the  beautiful  bow  and  nni  wliu  h 
Ships  (or  the  '^''^^''-'  •^'^^''^y^  characterized  American  \essels.  Hull,  frame,  and 
coasting.  generally  botli  decks,  are  of  iron.  'I'iiey  are  fitted  with  s(  lew- 
*"  '■  propellers,   water-tight    bulkheads,    comjiound    engines,  and    luo 

masts,  though  sometimes  tiiree,  and  range  from  i.Soo  to  2.500  tons'  Ijurden. 
-,     .       ,      Thev  are  of  light  draught,  so  as  to  enter  Southern  harbors  wuh 

Number  of  ?>.-•' 

iron  vessels     fa(  ility  ;   am!  some  of  tiie  recent  vessels  built  at  Chester  contain 

built  since  tanks,  to  be  filled  witii  sea  water  and  emptied,  to  assist  them  (i\er 
1806. 

the    bars    when    needed.     Tiie   numl)er  of    iron   vessels  buih  for 

American  owners  since  1866  was,  in  June,  1877,  as  near  .as  can  be  computed, 

250.     They  raiikeil  as  follows  :  — 

Less  than  icx3  tons 57 

From  100  to  500  tons 73 

From  50010  1,000  tons )o 

From  1,000  to  2,000  tons 61 

From  2,000  to  3,000  tons 9 

From  3,000  to  4,000  tons 8 

(Jver  5,000  tons 2 


The  total  tonnage  June  30,  1877,  was  191,490.  Of  the  whole  nniulHT, 
only  three  were  sailing-craft.  In  addition  to  the  above,  a  number  of  sina'l  iron 
steamboats  were  built,  and  exported  to  South  America  to  run  on  the  .\iiia/(jn 
and  other  rivers. 

Iron  ship-building  keeps  naturally  in  the  vicinity  of  the  iron  and  (oal 
mines :  it  is  leaving  )5oston,  New  York,  and  other  cities  distant  therefrom, 
Location  of  and  Concentrating  on  the  Delaware.  While  the  business  is  des- 
business.  lined  to  reach  such  i)roi)ortions  eventually  as  to  re(iiiire  the  o|ion- 
ing  of  iron  shipyards  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  particularly  on  the  Missis- 
sippi River  ami  the  Western  lakes,  there  are  at  present  only  four  firms  of 
prominence  in  the  business,  and  not  over  ten  in  all.  The  oldest  is  that  of 
William  Cramp  &  Sons  at  Philadelphia.     This  yard  was  established  in  1830 :  it 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


60 1 


t-stenmcrs  in  the 
ihc  era  of  l.ir^o 
lUinptic.n  nt'  (oal, 
)(lcn  stcauicr-i  fur 
ntry  might  a!ni()>t 
ij;  except  iron  fur 
steamer,  of  wood, 
mil  between  New 
oastiii.u'-navig.ition 
e  uf  these  ve.iseli 

;  coasting-trade  is 
ow  and  nni  wlu(  h 
Hull,  frame,  and 
fitted  witli  screw- 
engines,  and  Iwo 
.500  tons'  l)ur(li'i). 
ithern  harbors  widi 
at  Chester  contain 
to  assist  tliem  over 
n  vessels  Imilt  for 
lean  be  cominiled, 


le  whole  nnniber, 
imber  of  snia'l  iron 
in  on  the  Amazon 

the  iron  and  coal 
listant  therefrom, 
e  business  is  des- 
reciuire  the  oi)cn- 
irly  on  the  Missis- 
only  four  firms  of 
oldest  is  that  of 
)lishcd  in  1830:  it 


was  eng.aged  in  building  of  wood  until  i860,  when  it  constructed  "The  New 
biiii-,ides"  and  a  number  of  ironclad,,,  and  has  Ijeen  engrossed  with  iron-work 
tscr  since.     Since  conii)leting  tiie  iron  steamers  for  the  American  line   to 
l.iirope,  it  has  produced  six  iron  colliers  for  the  Reading  Railroad,  of  1,200 
tons'  capacity  each,   and   224   feet  long;    "'I'he  ("olumbus,"  an   iron  screw 
vessel  of  1,850  tons  for  the  coasting-trade,  the  largest  which  in  1874  had  then 
Im  n  built  for  that  service ;  and  a  number  of  other  coasters  and  tugs,  besides 
doing  a  large  amount  of  government  repairing.     The  works  will  employ  12,000 
m\\.     At  Wilmington  are  situated  the  yards  of  the  Harlan  &  Hollingsworth 
('oiiii)any,  and  I'usey,  Jones,  (S:  (■omi)any.     The  former  concern  is  also  exten- 
sively engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  railroad-cars,  and  employs  1,000  men. 
It  has  built  several  of  the  Pacific  mail-steamers,  and  some  of  the  finest  boat;. 
on  the  coast.     'I'he  latter  firm  has  made  a  s])ecialty  of  work   for  the  South- 
American  rivers.     The  princijial  firm  of  iron  shi])-l)uil(lers  is  John  Roach   & 
Son  of  Chester.  I'enn.     Over  $2,000,000  has  been  invested  by  this  concern  in 
sho]>s  and  machinery ;  and  the  most  jjowerfiil  mechanical  appliances  in  the 
cmintry  ,ire  to  be  seen  at  the  yard  at  Chester  and  the  engine-works  in  New 
York.     ( 'ver  5^15,000,000  has  been   i)aid  out  by  the   firm,  from    1872  to  the 
]iresent  time,  for  wages  and  materials  ;  and  thirty-five  iron  ocean-steamers  have 
been  built,  besides  extensively  rejjairing  and  overhauling  tiie  government  iron- 
clads,    '{"hirteen  iron  steamers  were  l)uilt  by  this  yard  in  1877.  from  i.Sooto 
:.5oo  tons'  burden,  to  ply  in  the  traile  to  Southern  jiorts.  the  West  Indies,  ami 
Hia/il.      The  firm  employ  1,800  men.      Tiie   I'enn  Iron-Works  at  Philadelphia 
have  also  been  engaged  in  building  iron  ships  for  several  years.     In  addition  to 
these,  the  Reading  Railroad  Company  has  invested  a  large  amount  of  capital 
in  shops  at  Port  Richmond  on  the  Delaware  for  the  purpose  of  building  iron 
colliers  for  its  large  distribution  of  coal  to  points  on  the  coast.     The  intention 
is  to  have  a  fleet  of  fifty  iron  colliers,     l-'ourteen  of  these  have  been  built  at  the 
other  shipyards  on  the  Del.aware.     They  range  from  525  to  1,500  tons'  burden. 
The  boats  which  are  to  be  built  in  the  fiiture  will  belong  to  tne  larger  class. 
At  Buffalo  the  construction  of  iron  tonnage  for  the  trade  to  the  West  has  been 
going  on  for  five  years.     A  number  of  large  and  stanch  propellers  have  been 
built  for  the  .Anchor  line  of  steamers  plying  beiween  Krie  and  the  Western 
cities  in  the  grain,  provision,  and  [fassenger  trafric,  wiiich  are  in  all  respects 
superior  vessels.     In  1872  13,000  tons  were  built  at  Buffalo,  and  20,000  tons 
in  iiS74.    The  past  year,  only  two  tugs  have  been  produced.     A  yard  has  also 
l)ccn  opened  at  Wyandotte.  Mich.,  and  one  at  New  Orleans. 

It  is  believed  tiiat  iron  hulls  will  eventually  rei)lace  the  old-fashioned  style 
in  the  genera!  business  of  the  Ohio,  Mississipj)!,  and  other  great  Western 
streams.  lOxperience  has  shown  the  wisdom  of  changing  to  iron.  Future  of 
In  a  wooden  vessel  of  3,000  tons'  burden,  500  tons  of  freight-  *>"<»>  vessel*. 
room  are  sacrificed  by  the  thicker  beams  and  shell  of  the  vessel.  A  ship  of 
the  same  outward  size  built  of  iron  carries  500  tons  more  freight.     Besides 


I 


"rrytn  II 


6oa 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


this  great  advantage,  another  is  gained  from  the  fact  that  the  iron  ship  lasts  so 
much  longer.  Those  now  being  prothiced  by  the  American  yards  secure  the 
rating  of  A  i  for  twenty  years,  and  are  hable,  at  tiie  end  of  twenty  years,  to  lie 
useful  for  ten  years  longer  at  least.  A  good  stanch  siiip  will  last  the  nicrdnin 
until  he  is  ready  to  retire  from  business,  anil  turn  over  the  affairs  of  his  huusc 
to  a  younger  generation.  Iron  vessels  have  now  been  tried  for  fifty  years 
under  all  circumstances  of  storm  and  tempests,  collisions  with  ice,  stniiuiing 
on  the  coast,  and  acciilents  of  every  description.  They  have  constantly  slmwu 
their  superiority,  and  have  saved  to  their  owners  millions  of  dollars  wliiih 
would  have  been  lost  in  wooden  vessels  subjected  to  the  s...ne  trials.  'Ihese 
facts  have  rendered  them  popular  with  the  counnercial  world.  No  one  now 
thinks  of  buikling  of  wood  for  the  open  sea,  any  more  than  of  hunting  bulTalo 
with  pop-guns. 

The  fall  in  the  price  of  iron  since  the  war  is  giving  a  great  stimulus  to  this 
business.     It  has  a  briUiant  future  before  it. 


Ol-     TJ/h    UN/ TED    STATES, 


60S 


ClIAlTl'R   IV. 


CANALS. 


at  stiiimlus  to  this 


Till",  project  of  iinilinjj  tlic  dilTcrcnt  parts  ot  our  common  domain  with 
artificial  water-ways  occurred  very  distinctly  to  the  minds  of  the  states- 
men of  the  Revolutionary  period,  who,  not  being  so  embarrassed  condition  of 
as  the  ptiblic  men  of  the  present  (l:iv  with  current  (piestions  of  e»'iy'o«d8. 
vast  and  immediate  importance,  had  i  lore  time  to  think  of  the  future,  and  the 
directions  which  should  be  f^iven  to  development  and  public  effort.  The 
wagon-roads  of  the  country  in  Revolutionary  days  were  in  a  shocking  condi- 
tion. None  of  them  were  what  would  lie  « ailed  good  roads  at  the  present 
(lay;  and  the  majority  were  in  a  dreadful  state,  full  of  ruts  and  pit-holes  where 
the  track  was  dry,  and  corduroyed  with  trunks  of  large  trees  wherever  the 
track  was  wei.  Few  streams  were  bridged  ;  and  the  crossings  of  all  of  them, 
l)y  constant  use,  were  so  worn  as  to  be  difficult  and  dangerous.  The  Cones- 
toga  wagons,  which  did  the  overland  freighting  of  the  country,  were  continually 
being  mired  ;  and  there  was  scarce  a  highway  in  the  land  which  did  not  have, 
as  a  part  of  its  regular  and  necessary  furniture,  a  large  supply  of  rails  lying  at 
the  roadside,  to  be  used  in  prying  unfortunate  teams  out  of  the  mud.  The 
need  of  some  better  plan  of  transportation  was  fully  realizeil  by  the  men  of 
the  (lay,  and  canals  were  among  the  earliest  expedients  suggested.  The 
improvement  of  such  highways  as  were  available  for  foot-routes  received  the 
earliest  attention  of  Congress ;  but  canals  were  discussed  by  the  people  in  the 
several  States,  and  their  value  was  fully  appreciated.  Massachusetts  proposed 
a  canal  from  Boston  to  the  Connecticut  Riveras  early  as  1792,  and  a  hrge 
number  of  schemes  were  originated  in  all  the  States.  The  lack  of  public  and 
private  capital,  however,  jirevented  any  thing  being  done  for  their  construction 
in  the  Revolutionary  period. 

The  war  of  181 2  made  our  people  see  the  danger  of  delaying  the  improve- 
ment of  the  internal  ways  of  communication  any  longer.  It  became  apparent 
that  recourse  could  not  be  had  to  the  open  sea  to  reach  different  parts  of 
the  coast  in  times  of  war,  and  that  wagon-roads  were  inadequate  to  the 
needs  of  the  country  in  such  emergencies.    At  the  close  of  the  Revolution 


<f  ■' 


604. 


/JVD  US  TKIA  r.    ins  TOR  Y 


\ 


Mr.  Morris  had  suggested  the  union  of  tlie  chain  of  Great  I,al\c.s  with  the 
Effctof  Hudson  River,  and  in  1812  he  again  advocated  it.  Do  Witt 
war  of  i8i2  Clinton  of  New  Yorlv,  one  of  the  most  vaUiable  men  of  his  day 
upon  the  \qq\,  up  this  idc  ',  and  brought  the  leachng  men  of  his  State  to  lond 
him  their  support  in  i)ushing  it.  '1  o  chg  a  canal  all  the  way  from 
Albany  to  Lake  Krie  was  a  pretty  formidable  undertaking  :  the  State  of  New- 
York  accordingly  invited  tiie  Federal  Government  to  assist  in  the 

Erie  Canal.  i      •     i  i  •         i 

enterprise,  1  he  canal  was  as  desirable  on  national  grounds  as  on  any 
other.  The  proposition  met  with  a  rebuff,  however ;  and  then  the  Empire  State 
resolved  to  build  the  canal  herself.  Surveyors  were  sent  out  to  locate  a  line  for 
it ;  and  on  the  4th  of  July,  1817,  ground  was  broken  for  a  canal  by  De  Witt 
Clinton,  who*. as  then  governor  of  the  State.  The  canal  (363  miles  long)  was 
built  in  eight  years,  at  an  original  cost  of  $7,143,789.  The  completion  of  the 
work  in  1825  was  the  occasion  of  great  public  reji)icing.  A  boat  loadcl  with 
distinguished  guests  started  from  Lake  I'>ie,  first  taking  on  board  some  u,  the 
water  of  the  lake.  Its  progress  to  the  Hudson  River  was  attended  by  i  con- 
stant succession  of  public  demonstrations  of  the  most  enthusiastic  character. 
When  the  boat  had  reached  the  Hutlson  River,  and  Lake  Erie  was  for- 
mally wedded  to  that  stream  by  pouring  tiie  waters  of  the  lake  into  the  river, 
the  event  was  signalized  by  the  firing  of  a  gun  ;  and  the  news  was  earned  all 
the  way  back  to  Buffalo  the  same  day  by  the  sound  of  signal-guns,  which  were 
Champiain  ready  for  the  event  all  along  the  'ine.  and  which  passed  the  news 
Canal.  along  we;;tward  by  firing  a  salute.     Tiie  same  year  that  the  llrie 

Canal  was  begun,  ground  was  also  broken  in  New-York  State  for  a  canal  from 
Lake  Champiain  to  the  Hudson,  sixty-three  miles  in  length.  This  work  was 
completed  in  1823. 

The  construction  of  these  two  water-ways  was  attended  with  the  most 
interesting  consecjuences.  ICven  before  they  were  completed,  their  value  iiad 
become  clearly  ajiparent.  Hnats  were  placed  upon  the  Erie  Canal 
as  fast  as  the  different  levels  were  ready  for  use,  and  set  to  work 
in  active  transportation.  They  were  small  affairs  comi)arcd  with 
those  of  the  present  dav,  being  about  fifty  or  sixtv  tons'  bunion, 
tlie  modern  canal-boat  being  a  hundred  and  eiglilj  or  two  hun- 
dred tons.  Small  as  they  were,  they  reduced  the  cost  of  transi)oitation 
immediately  to  one-tenth  what  it  had  been  before.  A  ton  of  freight  by  land 
from  Buffiilo  to  Albany  cost  at  that  time  a  hundred  dollars.  When  the  canal 
was  oi)ened  its  entire  length,  the  cost  of  freiglit  fell  from  fifteen  to  twenty- 
five  dollars  a  ton,  according  to  the  class  of  article  carried  ;  and  tiie  time 
of  transit,  from  twenty  to  eight  days.  Wii  at  at  that  time  was  wortli  only 
thirty-three  dollars  a  ton  in  Western  New  York,  and  it  did  not  pay  to  send 
it  by  land  to  New  York.  When  sent  to  market  at  all,  it  was  floated  down 
the  Susquehanna  to  Baltimore,  as  being  the  cheapest  and  best  market.  The 
canal  changed  that.      It  now  became  possible  to  send  to  market  a  wide  vari- 


Effect  of 
canals  in 
cheapening 
transporta- 
tion. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


605 


ed  with  the  most 

tod,  their  value  had 

)on  tlie  I'-rie  Canal 

se,  anil  set  to  work 

airs  compared  with 

sixty  tons'  burden, 

eit^hly  or  two  hun- 

of  transportation 

of  freight  by  land 

When  the  canal 

fifteen  to  twenty- 

0(1 ;  and  tiie  time 

lie  was  worlli  only 

id  not  pay  to  send 

was  floated  down 

best  market.    The 

iiarket  a  wide  vari- 


ety of  agricultural  produce,  —  fruit,  grain,  vegetables,  &c., — whicii,  before  the 
canal  was  built,  either  had  no  value  at  all,  or  which  could  not 
be  disposed  of  to  such  good  advantage.     It   is  claimed  by  the   market  for 
original  promoters  of  the  lOrie  Canal  who  lived  to  see  its  bene-   vast  quan- 
ficial  effects   experienced    by   the   people   of    the   cour.try,   that  *'*'"  °' 
that  work,  costing   less  than   5<S,ooo,ooo,  and    paying  its  whole 
cost  of  construction  in  a  very  few  years,  added  $100,000,000  to  the  value 
of  the  I'arnis  of  New  York   by  opening  up  good  and  ready  markets  for  their 
proiliK  ts.      The    canal   had   another   result.      It    male    New-York   City   the 
commercial  metropolis  of  the  country.     An  old  letter,  written  by  a  resident 
of  Newport,   R.I.,    in    that  age,    has  lately   been   discovered,   which   speaks 
of  New-York  City,  and  says,  "If  we   do  not  I, ok  out,   New  York  will  get 
ahead  of  us."     Newport   was   then    one   of  the    principal   seaports    of    the 
country:  it  had  once  been  the  first.     Now  York  certainly  did  "gee  ahead 
of  us"  after  the  l'>ie  Canal  was  built.     It  got  ahead  of  every  other   ^ow  it  af- 
commereial  city  on   the  coast.      Freight,  which   had    previously   fected  New- 
gone  o\erland  from  Ohio  and  the  West  to  Pittsburgh,  and  thence      °'^''    "*'■ 
to  Philadelphia,  costing  $120  a  ton  between  the  two  cities  named,  now  went 
to  New  York  by  way  of  the   Hudson  River  and   Krie  C'anal  and  the  lakes. 
Manufactures  anil  groceries  returned  to  the  West  by  the  same  route,  and  New 
York  became  a  nourishing  and  growing  emporium  inimeiliatoly.     The  Krie 
Canal  was  enlarged  in  1835,  so  as  to  permit  the  passage  of  boats  of  a  hundred 
tons'  burden  ;  anil  the  result  was  a  still  further  reduction  of  the  cost  of  freight- 
ing, exp;',>;ion  of  traffic,  and  an  increase  of  the  general  benefits  conferred  by 
the  canal.    The  Champlain  (Janal  had  an  effect  upon  the  fiirms  and  towns  lying 
along  Lake  Champlain,  in  Vermont  and  Now  York,  kindred  in  character  to 
that  above  described  in  rcs])ect  to  the  l'>ie  Canal.     It  brought  into  the  market 
lands  and  produce  which  before  had  been  worthless,  and  was  a  great  blessing 
to  all  concerned. 

The  effect  of  the  example  of  New-York  State  was  magical.  All  the  old 
projects  in  New  luigland,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  South,  for  water-ways  from 
point  to  i)oint  in  the  domains  of  the  several  States,  and  to  unite 
the  people  of  one  State  with  those  of  anotlior,  bloomed  again  into  construction 
hcing,  as  though  the  naked  v.  oods  and  sear  hillsides  had  felt  the  of  the  Erie 
breath  of  a  celestial  spring.  T'lie  conseciuonces  of  the  building  fg'jdjhe"""' 
of  the  Krie  Canal  wore  foreseen  by  everybody  before  the  work  was  building  of 

completed  ;  and  public  men  did  not  wait  to  hear  the  firing  of  the   "'"i''"  ""- 
'  "^  dertakings. 

guns  over  the  acliievement  of  De  Witt  ('linton's  great  idea  before 
they  set  about  planning  similar  works  for  the  good  of  their  own  States.  It 
took  several  years  of  agitation  before  much  was  accomplished  ;  but  the  stimulus 
afforded  by  the  building  of  the  Mrie  Can;  1  succeeded  in  bringing  about  the 
execution  of  a  great  many  iiiii)ortant  works.  No  loss  than  twenty  branch 
canals  were  planned  at  once  in  New- York  State,     Among  those  projected  in 


6o6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Other  States  were  one  from  Boston  to  the  Connecticut  River;  one  iioni 
Worcester  to  Providence,  "  on  which,"  it  was  said,  "  there  would  be  a  ini'litv 
transportation,"  it  being  estimated  that  "a  hundred  tons  of  cheese  and  seven- 
ty-five tons  of  pork  would  annually  find  an  outlet  in  it ;  "  "  canal  from  Balti- 
more to  Pittsburgh ;  others  from  Long-Island  Sound  across  the  State  of 
Maryland,  and  from  the  Ohio  River  to  Lake  Erie ;  and  yet  others  in  Vir'inia 
and  Pennsylvania.  It  was  a  period  of  great  excitement  and  public  effort ;  and 
time  would  fail  to  tell  of  the  brilliant  and  extensive  schemes  which  filled  the 
minds  of  all  the  people  at  that  time,  and  whose  merits  were  the  constant  theme 
of  popular  discussion.  Some  of  these  works  were  never  built,  as  the  cai)ital 
could  not  be  commanded  to  construct  them.  Many  of  them  were,  iiowever 
completed,  to  the  great  benefit  of  the  several  States. 

Pennsylvania  was  one  of  the  first  in  the  field  in  practical  work.  She 
resolved  to  build  a  canal  to  the  western  part  of  the  State  for  the  double  ])ur- 
Harr.sburgh  P°^^  ^^  g'V'ng  an  impetus  to  the  agricultural  and  manufac  turing 
and  Pitts-  interests  of  her  own  State,  and  also  in  order  to  secure  to  the  city 
burgh  Canal,  ^j.  phi|a^l^.|pl^ja  a  share  of  the  trade  with  the  West.  A  line  of 
communication  from  Piiiladelphia  to  Pittsburgh  was  accordingly  planned,  and 
undertaken  at  the  State's  expense.  The  project  was  agitated  for  several  years 
before  the  people  at  large  could  be  brought  to  the  point  of  sustaining  a  route 
of  such  magnitude;  and  it  was  not  until  1826,  therefore,  that  ground  was 
finally  broken  for  a  canal;  but  earth  was  turned  at  Harrisburgh  July  4,  1826, 
and  the  work  was  thereafter  prosecuted  with  vigor.  A  good  canal  was  in 
operation  from  Columbia  on  the  Sus  juehanna  to  Pittsburgh  by  1836,  the  route 
being  interrupted  at  Hollidaysburgh  with  a  portage-road  of  thirty-six  miles  to 
Johnstown,  which  did  not  prove  fatal  to  the  value  of  the  canal.  Other 
water-ways  were  planned  in  other  pans  of  the  State,  —  local  affairs  for  coal  and 
grain  transportation,  —  and  many  of  them  were  built  during  this  period,  ihe 
canal-route  from  the  West  was  pieced  out  at  the  eastern  1  nd  by  a  railroad  from 
Columbia  to  Philadelphia,  and  Pennsylvania  thus  had  her  through-route  to  the 
West.  It  reduced  the  cost  of  freight  from  Pittsburgh  to  the  Delaware  River 
from  a  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  a  ton  to  thiny  dollars  ;  and,  though  the 
city  never  got  back  the  trade  which  New  York  had  taken  from  her,  siie  gained 
by  the  new  works  immenselj'.  These  works  were  afterward  sold  to  tiu'  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad. 

Oiiio  was  building  two  canals  at  the  same  j)eriod,  —  one  from  Portsmouih  on 
the  Ohio  to  Clevelanil,  which  was  finished  in  1833 ;  the  other  from  Cim  innati 
to  Lake  Erie,  which  was  finished  in  1843. 

Ma.ssachusetts  ordered  surveys  for  a  water-way  west  from  Boston  in  icS:5, 
and  the  engineers  did  a  good  deal  of  preliminary  work  in  examining  the 
Massachu-  ground  out  toward  the  Connecticut  River ;  but  nothing  was  ever 
setts.  accomplished   by  Massachusetts   in  this   class  of  public  works, 

Public  attention  was  distracted  to  another  style  of  transportation-route.  —  the 


••1IW 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


607 


railroad ;  and  the  energies  of  the  State  were  diverted  from  canal-building,  and 
applied  to  the  work  of  constructing  railroads. 

( )ne  of  the  ancient  projects  had  been  for  a  canal  from  Baltimore  west  to 
the  Ohio  River.  Washington,  Charles  Carroll,  and  other  eminent  men  of  the 
Revolution,  had  favored  this  idea,  and  had  talked  about  it  a  great  „  ,  . 

tsaltiniore 

(leal.     It  had  slumbered  for  forty  years,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  and  ohio- 
means  of  the  young  republic  ;  and  only  when  the  F>rie  Canal  had  '''^" 
been  begun  was  Maryland  aroused  to  a  new  and  realizing  sense 
of  the  value  of  the  idea.     Congress  was  finally  induced  to  vote  $1,000,000  for 
a  canal  from  Georgetown  to  Pittsburgh ;  and  Virginia  and  Maryland,  as  well 
as  the  cities  of  Washington  and  Alexandria,  having  subscribed  $1,250,000 
more,  the  work  was  put  under  way  in  1828,  Charles  Carroll  and  John  Q. 
Ailams  turning  the  first  earth.     The  canal  was  very  hard  to  build,  and  did  not 
make  that  rapid  progress  which  its  projectors  desired.     It  was  not  until  1850 
that  the  work  reached  Cumberland,  Md. ;  and  when  it  arrived  at  that  city  it 
stopped.     It  had  cost  $16,000,000.     Surveys  have  been  recently  made  with  a 
view  to  going  on  with  it  to  Pittsburgh.     It  will  undoubtedly  be  carried  on  to 
that  city  at  some  time  or  other. 

The  Farmington  Canal  in  Connecticut  was  built  during  this  period  of 
excitement,  the  Dismal-Swamp  Canal  in  Virginia,  and  a  number  ParminBton 
of  other  short  local  affairs  in  different  parts  of  the  country.     All  Canai. 
these  enterprises  repaid  their  cost  to  the  public  a  hundred  times  over. 

After  the  first  speculative  era  of  f-anal-building  had  passed  by,  a  number  of 
other  important  canals  were  opened  by  different  States,  which  still,  like  the 
Trie  and  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canals,  play  a  part  in  the  Building  of 
general  transportation-business  of  the  country.  One  was  the  other  canals. 
canal  from  Lake  Micliigan  at  the  city  of  Chicago  to  the  Illinois  River,  a  dis- 
tance of  I02  miles,  which  was  completed  in  1852.  Another  was  wabash  and 
the  Wabash  and  Krie  Canal,  projected  by  the  State  of  Indiana,  ^"'  Canals. 
which,  after  many  reverses  and  stoppages,  was  finished  about  185c,  and  was 
tlie  means  of  creating  another  connection  between  the  trade  of  the  lakes  and 
the  streams  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  Another  great  route  which  has  not 
been  fully  utilized  even  yet  was  across  the  State  of  Virginia.  The  idea  was 
to  connect  the  Kanawha  River,  a  branch  of  the  Ohio,  with  the  James  River 
leading  into  the  sea.  Over  five  million  dollars  was  spent  in  trying  to  connect 
these  two  rivers  ;  but  the  work  was  not  finished,  and  still  remains  uncompleted. 
Congress  has  aided  in  pushing  this  work,  and  it  will  probably  be  finished 
during  the  next  decade.  It  will  open  the  shortest  possible  water-route  to  the 
sea  from  the  grain  States  of  the  West,  and  especially  the  central  States  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  ;  and  there  is  not  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  but  that  it  will  have 
a  great  traffic,  and  will  probably  change  Richmond  into  a  great  commercial 
emporium.  Railroad-building  has  since  1835  largely  diverted  the  energies  of 
the  country   from    the    construction   of   canals ;    but   experiment    has    only 


■'•r>-...„,, ,. 


608 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


railroads 
upon  canals 


demonstrated  the  wonderful  value  and  imperative  necessity  of  such  canals 
Effect  of  ^^  those  which  have  been  particularly  mentioned.  Wherever  ihey 
are  built,  they  are  the  cheapest  route  for  the  transaction  01  a 
heavy  freight-traffic,  and  by  their  cheapness  they  exercise  a  re'u- 
lating  influence  of  the  most  wholesome  description  upon  the  cost  of  trans- 
portation on  the  raikoads. 

It  is  now  held  by  the  statesmen  of  the  country  that  the  building  of  ihe 
Erie  Canal  was  the  wisest  and  most  far-seeing  enterprise  of  the  age.     It  !ias 
Wisdom  of      '^'^  ^  permanent  and  indehble  mark  upon  tiie  face  of  the  repulilic 
building  Erie   of  the  United  States  in   the  great   communities   it   has   tlirrc  ily 
*"'■  assisted  to  build  up  at  the  West,  and  in  the  populous  Inetrol)ull^  it 

created  at  tlie  mouth  of  the  Hudson  River.  None  of  the  canals  which  liave 
been  built  to  compete  with  it  have  yet  succeeded  in  regaining  for  their  Slates 
what  was  lost  to  them  when  the  Erie  Canal  went  into  operation.  This  water- 
route  is  still  the  most  important  artificial  one  of  its  class  in  the  country,  ami  is 
only  etjualled  by  the  Welland  Canal  in  Canada,  which  is  its  closest  rival,  h  is 
now  proposed  to  make  the  lOrie  Canal  a  free  route,  open  without  tolls  to  all 
who  may  wish  to  navigate  it.  If  the  canal  is  really  made  free,  it  will  retain  its 
position  as  the  most  popular  water-route  to  the  sea  from  thedreat  West.  Tlie 
Mississippi  River  will  divert  from  it  all  the  trade  flowing  to  South  .Xmerica  .  nd 
Mexico;  but  for  the  North-West  it  will  be  the  only  water  highway  to  the 
ocean. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


609 


CHAPTKR    V. 


THE    FISHERIES. 


Venice. 


INTIMATELY  connected  with  tlie  subjects  of  shipping  and  transportation 
is  that  of  the  fisheries.     A  large  j)art  of  the  tonnage  of  all  prosperous  mari- 
time nations  is  employed  in  the  catching  of  ocean-fish,  and  it  has  freciuently 
happened  that  a  nation  has  owed  all  its  maritime  prosperity  to  the  schooling  in 
na\igation  which  its  people   acnuiretl   in  this  special   field   of  employment. 
Venice  was  o^-iginally  only  a  collection  of  huts  of  fishermen,  who, 
fiiuling  nothing  to  support  them  on  the  barren  islands  where   For- 
tune had  destined  them  to  reside,  were  obliged  to  live  on  the  fish  they  could 
git  out  of  the  sea,  which  they  either  consimied  themselves,  or  peddled  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  neigliboring  coasts.     Their  mode  of  getting  a  living  led 
tlicm  naturally  into  trade  by  sea,  and  this  was  tiie  origin  and  the  secret  of  all 
their  wonderful  eminence.     The  Dutch  were  mariners  and  traders  for  the  same 
reason.     'I'hey  diil  not  live  on  an  island  :  but  their  country  was  so  inhos|)itable, 
that  liiey  found  it  more  profitable  to  fish  than  to  farm;   and  in  1600  these 
industrious  people  alreaily  had  as  many  as  three  thousand  boats,  or  busses,  at 
sea,  catcliing  herring,  white-fish,  and  wliales.    To  market  the  catch  to  neighbor- 
ing countries  retjuired  six  thousand  vessels   more  ;    and  the   Dutch  built  up 
the  great  city  of  Amsterdam  on  a  foimdation  of  herring-bones,  and  made  it, 
liciiles,  a   centre   of  trade    for  all    Europe.      The    luiglish  also  fished  very 
early  ;  and  it  is  an  interesting  fact,  now  almost  forgotten,  that  the  Scots,  who 
fished  more  than  the  English,  were  once  so  superior  to  them  in   Legijiatio^ 
shipping,  that  the  .-Vnglo-Siixons  were  very  much  alarmed  about  it,   of  Angio- 
—  so  much  so,  that,  in  order  to  eciualize  tilings,  tiie  King  and  Par-     '"'°"*- 
lianient  offered   heavy  bounties  to  tiieir  own  fisliermen,  and  ordered  all  the 
jieopie  of  the  kingtlom  to  eat  fish  on  two  da\s  of  the  week,  so  that  the  Englisii 
might  have  fishing-boats,  a  trade,  and  a  trading-marine,  as  well  as  their  rivals. 
In  our  own  country  the  ocean-fisheries  have  borne  an  important  relation  to 
the  general  shipping-interests  of  the  several  States.     The  men  brought  uj)  on 
liie  coast  where  cod,  mackerel,  and  whales  have  abounded,  have    supplied 
our  trading-marine  with  the  best  sailors  it  has  ever  had  ;  anil  it  was  that  class 


'^"^-r-fTrrr 


6io 


INDLSTRIAF.    lUSTOKY 


of  web-footcd  nion  —  who  li;i(l  learned  reailessly  U)  onc-omitcr  all  ihe  ponl>  of 
the  sea  and  comiuer  then),  and  who  always  sailed  their  ships  in  the  hea\ieit 
weather,  and  "  never  struck  a  topsail  as  long  as  there  was  a  mast  tu  il\  it 
from"  —  that  won  for  our  republic  its  na\al  triumphs  in  1S12.  'I'iicv  are 
to-day  still  the  most  valuable  element  in  the  personnel  of  our  whole  niaritiuie 


\\  *1 


f.-.tablish!nent.  Their  shi])s  have  ever  been  the  ])ioneers  and  reconnoiirii\n 
jiarties  of  our  tradinji-marine.  They  have  exjilored  every  corner  of  the  earth, 
and  always  been  first  in  tlie  field.  The  first  time  the  American  flat;  was  ever 
seen  in  luiyland  was  at  the  head  of  a  wh;ilin^'-ship  which  entered  the  Thames. 
'I'he  early  voyagers  along  the  coast  of  North  .America  remarked  the  abun- 
dance offish  in  the  vi(  inity  of  the  shore  from  the  very  start.     Whales  were  very 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


6ll 


numerous  ;  and  great  shoals  of  them,  of  the  largest  and  best  kinds,  rame  along- 
side of  the  ships  of  the  discoverers,  and  played  sportively  in  the  billows,  some- 
times to  the  great  consternation  of  the  seamen,  whose  vessels  were  not  very 
!:irL;c,  and  who  dreaded  being  nni  into  by  the  big  fellows  and  sunk.  I'Aen 
liciorc  the  settlement  of  the  continent  by  the  English  began,  the  mariners  of 
l',iir()i)e,  having  learned  that  there  was  an  abundance  of  fish  in  America, 
llii(ked  out  with  their  vessels  to  the  Hanks  from  all  parts  of  the  01.1  World.  It 
was  not  an  unusual  sight,  as  early  as  1600,  to  see  six  hundred  or  seven  hun- 
(irt'd  vessels  off  the  coasts  of  New  Kngland  taking  fish.  The  ( ity  of  Bristol 
ill  England  acquired  great  prosperity  from  these  i.cw  discoveries.  1  ler  people 
soiiu  learned  to  send  out  boats  to  .\merica,  and  their  i)rofits  made  a  .sensation 
in  shii)|)ing-circles  in  luigland  kindred  to  a  modern  gold  stampede  or  an  oil 
fx(  itcment.  Whole  fleets  were  sent  out  to  reap  a  ])art  of  the  new  harvest. 
These  boats  were  of  about  a  ium<lre(l  tons'  burden.  They  took  back  to  ICng- 
lanil  loads  that  were  worth  three  thousand  i)ounds,  of  which  twcj  thousand 
pounds  was  ])ure  gain.  Portuguese,  Dutch,  Spanish,  and  Italian  ships  fre- 
qiieuted  tlie  Hanks,  along  witii  the  others,  for  a  long  period  of  t'me. 

It  is  said  tliat  one  of  the  main  ideas  in  fountling  settlements  in  Massa- 
chusetts was  to  builil  up  a  colony  of  fishermen.     There  is  no  (lou])t  but  that 
the  utilization  of  the  fisheries  entered  into  tlie  ])lp.ns  of  tlie  origi- 
nators of  the  colony,     'i'he   charter  of  Massac'nisetts  contains  a   seuVsettled 
clause,  saying.  "Wee  have  given  and  graunted  .  .   .  all  fishes—   to  build  up 
roval  fishes,  whales,   balan,  sturireons,   and   other  fishes,  of  what   ':°'°"y  ° 

'  fishermen. 

kinde  or  nature  soever,  that  shall  at  any  tyme  hereafter  be  taken 
in  or  within  the  saide  seas  or  waters,  or  any  of  them,  by  the  said  "... 
[the  grantees  being  here  named],  "or  by  any  person  or  jjcrsons  whatsoever 
there  inhabiting."  To  take  advantage  of  the  fisheries  was  one  of  the  first 
enterprises  of  the  colonists,  and  it  was  to  assist  them  in  doing  so  tlvit  the 
company  in  London  sent  over  shipwrights  to  build  vessels  on  the  coasts  of 
Massachusetts.  Whales  then  swam  along  within  sight  of  land,  in  such  num- 
bers, that,  even  if  there  had  been  no  premeditated  purpose  witli  respect  to 
the  fisheries  in  sending  the  colonists  to  the  barren  coast  of  New  Mnglaml,  the 
settlers  would  have  been  temjited  to  engage  in  ocean-fishing  at  a  very  early 
(lay,  merely  by  the  siiectai  les  which  passed  before  their  eyes.  But  the  fish- 
eries being  known  before  they  came,  and  the  jiatrons  of  the  colony  doing 
their  utmost  to  encourage  the  settlers  to  embark  in  fishing  enterprises,  it  is 
not  surprising  th.at  Massachusetts  became  a  colony  of  fishermen  and  mariners 
from  the  beginning  of  its  existence.  \dr  was  Massachusetts  alone  in  this. 
The  other  New- England  colonies  followed  closely  in  her  footsteps,  and 
fished  as  well  as  farmed  from  the  date  of  their  settlement.  Every  island 
along  the  coast  became  a  centre  of  fishing  activity,  therefore,  at  a  very  early 
(lay.  I'".very  favored  port  became  crowded  with  boat  and  ship  yards.  .\  row 
of  villages  sprang  up  along  the  beach  from  New- York  City  to  the  St.  John's 


6l2 


/\nCSTA'/U.    IIISTOKY 


m 


\    !•>. 


Effect  of 
wars  of  1776 
and  1812 
upon 
fisheries. 


River,  devoted  exclusively  to  pis<  atori,il  pursuits  ;  and  sonic  ot"  lliLin,  like 
(lloucester,  at'tcrwanls  attained  to  a  great  prosperity  and  reputation.  A>  i  ,iiK' 
as  1 731  Massacluisetts  had  six  luimlred  vessels  and  six  tiiousaiid  sailor,  .u 
sea,  half  of  them  in  the  lisheries.  I'he  Ne\v-l!iiL;landers,  by  their  su])(.ruir 
advantages,  antl  their  iiostiiity  to  the  l'"renel<,  Spanish,  and  l)ut(  h,  soon  -nt 
(oniplete  control  ot'  the  ol'l'-siiore  banks,  and  dro\e  all  other  a(l\eiUurcrs  a<\,i\-. 
Soon,  obtaining  nn)re  fish  and  whale  oil  and  bone  tiian  they  conid  tiieMi-rl\i.s 
consume,  they  carried  them  to  the  otiier  colonies  on  the  continent  and  to 
i'airope,  anil  laid  the  foundation  of  the  connuin  e  ai'al  maritime  eminciK  c 
whicii  have  never  sinct'  dcpaitcil  from  then).  The  ll^herics  were  t\vi( c  .mm- 
iiilateil  !)y  war,  —  namely,  at  the  time  of  'he  Revolution,  and  Ikhh 
1S12  to  1S15;  ami  the  ■vhaiing-interest  s  ilfered  a  se\ere  Mow 
again  when  petroleum  ua->  discovered,  and  when  the  Confeditate 
cruisers  mailed  in  among  the  lleet  in  the  North  I'.k  ific  and  li'niud 
a  large  number  of  the  >hips.  I'lioe  reverses  were  no  more,  how- 
ever, than  all  pursuits  are  sure  to  eniou'Uer  from  time  to  time  in  their 
history  ;  ai''  they  happily  were  not,  in  general,  permanent  in  their  inllueut  e. 
In  most  cases  tlie  lisheries  revi\ed  within  a  few  years  after  the  rt-verses  took 
place.  'I'he  whale-fishery  was  the  only  exception.  There  was  one  tune 
when  the  fishing-cajitains  of  New  I-ngiand  were  one  of  the  most  pros])eriMis 
classes  in  the  country  ;  namely,  from  1.S15  to  iS6c.  .\  fre(iuent  occiureiK  e 
during  that  period  was  the  migration  of  fishing-ca|)tains  I'rom  New  Hedlonl, 
Nantucket,  and  other  fisiiing-towns,  to  the  farms  and  cities  of  the  interior 
of  the  country,  to  New-Vork  State,  and  elsewiiere,  where,  with  their  familiis 
and  their  snug  accumulation  of  well-earned  profits,  t!iey  passed  the  later  veais 
of  their  existence  in  the  pea(  et'ul  enjoyment  of  inland  life.  It  may  be  >>aiil, 
also,  that  no  more  valual)le  citizens  were  found  in  the  inland  havens,  where  the 
cajjtains  took  shelter  alter  their  voyages  were  over,  than  these  same  hanlv, 
uj)right,  and  intelligent  men.  No  more  valuable  element  exists  in  the  pojm- 
lation  of  the  I'nited  States,  indeed,  than  these  fishermen  of  the  New  llngianil 
coast.  Brave,  temperate,  industrious,  jjatriotic,  and  a  strong  reliaiK  e  in  (  ase 
of  war,  with  a  large  i)ercentage  of  i|uaint  characters  among  them,  they  form  a 
most  interesting  and  important  (lass. 

Congress  has  diligently  sought  to  promote  tlie  ol'f->hore  and  open 01  enii 
fisheries  of  the  United  States  from  the  earliest  tlays  of  the  republic.     1'   Ikw 

,     .  ,    .         looked  witli  great  favor  upon  these  emijlovments  as  the  c  radle  of 
Legislation  -^  '  '       • 

of  Congress  tile  iKivy  and  the  men  hant-marine.  The  products  of  the  fisheries 
were,  of  course,  valuable  :  but  thev  were  not  so  essential  to  our 
welfare  as  to  make  it  worth  while  for  Congress  to  levy  taxes  upon 
the  whole  < ountry  in  order  to  obtain  them.  It  was  the  employment  ii-eli', 
and  its  great  public  utility  in  training  up  hardy,  skilful,  and  eiiiigetic  sailois, 
which  won  favor  in  the  eyes  of  Congress,  'i'he  polic;  adopted  toward  the  fi^li- 
eniien  was  to    make  the    tax    0:1    their    tonnage    extremely  liglu,    to    iierniii 


on  the 
subject 


or  ■niE   rxrn-.ii  siaii.s. 


(""^ 


L'  of  ihuiu,  like 
atiiin.  .\>  r.uiy 
msand  Miilm-.  al 
ly   their  su|i(,rli)r 

DllU'll,    snun    Udl 

ilvc'iUuiXTS  .nv.iy. 
.:t)ulil  llK'm>rl\i.s 
onlinciU  ami  ii 
iritiinc  I'luiiu  IK  I' 
were  Uv'k  r  ,ium- 
oUilion,  and  linm 

.■(1     a    SL'VCl'L'     lllllW 

I  tlic  I'lint'cikralo 
iciric  ami  Irinicd 
•ri'  no  moil',  luiw- 
lo    tinu'    in    Uiiir 
\\\  their  inlliieiit  (■. 
r  the  reverses  took 
■re    was   one  lime 
>  most  prosperous 
.■(pienl  occurreiKc 
[om  New  lieiltord. 
■s  ol"  the  interior 
ith  their  families 
jd  tiie  later  years 
It  may  lie  said. 
ia\ens.  where  the 
R'sc  same  hardy, 
usts   in  the  jioiju- 
ihe  Ne\v-l'.ni;land 
reliance  in  ease 
them,  ihey  form  a 

and  open-oecan 
ii'pul.ilic.     1'  h.is 

as  the  I  radle  ol 
cts  of  the  fi-lieries 

essential  to  our 
(,  K'vy  taxes  uiion 
.■mploynienl  ii-^ell, 
1  en''rgeti(-  sailors, 
•d  towanl  the  fish- 

li-lu,   to   permit 


tluin  to  import  salt  for  ciirini,'  fisli  free  of  duty,  to  impose  a  luavy  duty  on 
f)ieij,'n  fish  and  fishinj^'-produi  ts,  to  gise  a  bounty  to  all  employinj;  a  Ixjat 
wliosc  crew  were  three-fourths  Amerieans,  and  to  negotiate  treaties  with 
l',n:^land  to  secure  for  them  fi>hini,'rii;hts  in  tiie  liritish-Anierican  provinces, 
MK  h  as  the  right  to  land  and  <  ore  fi^h  in  Newfomidland,  to  fish  within  the 
three -mile  limit  of  shore,  iVc  The  bounty  to  fishing-ve>sels  was  of  very  early 
dale  ;  in  1S55  it  was  made  three  and  a  half  and  four  dollars  a  ton,  according 
to  ilie  size  of  the  vessel.  Over  .S15.000.000  have  been  |)aid  from  the  national 
Irr  i^urv  to  the  ocean-fisheruien   in  these  tonn.iye  bounties  alone.     Never  was 


AS  AN(  i.v  ui:  \i.::. 


money  better  spent.  The  relief  grante(l  bv  free  salt  has  been  a  valuable  form 
of tticouragemeiit.  Salt  lan  be  importi'ii  in  the  ocean  sti'amers  from  iMigland 
nvich  chea|)er  th.m  it  can  be  l)rouuht  from  New  \'ork  ami  Wisconsin  and 
(Kposited  on  the  coast,  for  the  reason  that  the  original  cost  is  less.  The 
Mi';imers  come  this  wav  witli  very  light  cargoes,  and  they  ;ire  glad  to  load  up 
with  bags  of  salt  for  b.dl.ist.  and  to  carry  it  at  a  ]>urely  nominal  rate  ;  while 
tran-portation  from  the  interior  of  the  I'uited  Slates  to  the  coast  is  expensive. 
Ill  iS;()  the  foreign  salt  consumi-d  in  the  fisheries  already  amounted  to 
''i.ooo.ooo  jjounds  a  year.  The  ( t)nsumption  has  siiue  grown  to  i::6,ooo,ooo 
l"jiiiuls  a  vear, 


M;  i 


■*T7'T?'  w 


614 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


'if: 


ill 


Im 


The  whale  fishery  was  the  first,  anc'  for  a  long  period  the  most  important 
of  the  fisheries.  Hegiimi'ig  vn  iho  shores  of  Lon^'  Island,  at  Nantuc  ket,  .mkI 
The  whale-  in  Massachusetts  and  Maine,  with  the  employment  of  a  few  Ion  .. 
fishery.  bonts,  which  put  out  from  the  shon.   whenever  a  whale  cauR'  in 

sight,  it  developed  until  it  had  viriu  Uly  ilrivon  tiie  whalers  of  all  other  nation- 
dities  from  the  seas  in  open  and  friendly  competition,  and  was  emplovin" 
700  ships  and  16,000  sailors.  From  18.(5  to  iSOo  it  employed  from  650  to 
700  vessels,  the  tonnai^e  ranging  in  different  years  from  iSo.ooo  to  198,000  • 
the  capital  invested  in  the  business  in  shij)s,  boats,  harpoons,  apparatus,  \i-. 
tjeiiig  525,000,000,  and  the  yearly  product  in  whale-oil,  sperm-oil,  and  whalc- 
bo'ie,  being  ij!  12,000,000.  Nantiw  ket  was  originally  the  principal  centre  of 
the  'nterest.  Her  whalemen,  by  long  i)rictice,  bc'-ame  m,"-o  Lxi)ert,  and  con- 
seciuently  more  successful,  than  those  of  other  parts  of  the  coast;  and  siie 
accordingly  soon  came  to  rank  first  in  the  business.  New  Uedford  was  next, 
and  New  London,  Fair  Haven,  South  impton,  Stonington,  and  otiier  ports, 
came  afterwards.  Nantu  ket  now  'lands  only  fourth  upon  the  list,  and  Nl\v 
Bedford  is  the  pr  ncipal  whaling-i)ort  of  tiie  country.  The  first  wiialmg- 
grounds  were,  of  course,  off  siiore,  along  tiie  North-Atlantic  coast.  When 
the  fish  "oegan  to  get  a  little  shy  a. id  scarce,  the  oidps  put  out  for  regular 
voyages,  and  cruised  along  the  (lulf  Stream,  and  off  the  West  Indies  and 
Brf/.il.  As  early  as  i8n(>  they  had  found  their  way  into  the  Pacific  Ocean; 
but  in  th>>se  times  they  rarely  filled  with  oil  there  :  the  captains  preferred  to 
come  Lack  around  Cape  Horn,  and  fill  up  in  tlie  tropics  on  the  way  home, 
taking  sperni-whales  or  right-whales,  as  the  case  might  be.  .M)out  1S50 
the  whalers  began  to  find  it  necessary  to  criiise  in  the  most  distant  waters  ;  and 
the  siiips  went  to  sea  accordingly  e(iuip[)ed  for  a  two-years'  voyage,  and  two 
years  have  been  ever  since  the  regular  voyage  of  New- England  whalers.  The 
system  adopted  for  these  expeditions  grew  uj)  very  naturally  from  the  old  ])rac- 
tice  of  watching  on  shore  for  a  whale  in  the  offing,  rowing  out  and  cap- 
turing the  prize,  and  dividing  the  proceeds  among  those  who  took  part  in  tlie 
capture.  Instead  of  paying  llie  officers  and  men  of  the  ships  in  money  for 
tneir  services,  every  voyage  was  made  a  co-operative  affair.  .'V  certain  share 
of  tlie  catch  was  allotted  to  the  cajitain  as  his  compensation,  a  certain  ofhir 
smaller  share  to  the  lower  officers  and  men,  and  a  certain  jjroportion  to  the 
o'.vner  cf  the  ship  for  profits  on  his  investment.  The  part  allotted  to  eac  h 
man  was  called  his  "  lay  :  "  thus  his  "'  lay  was  on''-sixteenth,"  and  so  on. 
This  system  was  a  great  stimulus  to  enterprise,  and  was  one  secret  of  tlie 
remarkable  vigor  which  the  whaling-marine  displayed.  Many  famous  voyages 
were  made.  Prior  to  181 5,  from  900  to  1,600  barrels  of  oil,  worth  from 
J522,ooo  to  ?40,ooo,  was  the  ordinary  successfiil  catch  :  after  that  the  sliijis 
were  enlarged,  and  from  1,600  to  2.500  barrels,  worth  from  ;?40,ooo  to  ;>62,oo(), 
was  the  standard  fair  catch.  But  now  and  then  a  ship  came  into  jiort  having 
sent  home  during  her  voyage,  or  bringing  with  her,  3,000,  3,500,  or  4,000 


v-'< 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


OIS 


w% 


<,'^*' ' 


most  important, 
il  Nantucket,  ami 
lU  of  a  lew  V)\v^- 
a  wiiale  fame  in 
■  all  other  iKitioii- 
1(1  was  emiiliiviiii^ 
oyed  from  050  to 
),ooo  to  198,000  ; 
lis,  ajiparalus,  \c., 
rnM>il.  and  whalc- 
rhuipal  centre  of 
e  expert,  and  con- 
e  coast ;   and  >he 
Bedford  was  next, 
,  and   other  ports, 
the  list,  and  New 
The   first  whalini;- 
ntic:  loast.     Wluii 
)Ut  out  for  regular 
;  West  Indies  and 
he  Pacific  Ocean ; 
)tains  preferred  to 
on  the  way  ht)nie, 
be.      About   1830 
listant  waters ;  and 
s'  voyage,  and  two 
and  whalers.    'I'lic 
from  the  old  prac- 
ing  out  and  cap- 
took  part  in  the 
lips  in  money  tor 
A  certain  share 
ion.  a  certain  otlur 
proportion  to  the 
t  allottetl  to  each 
nth,"  and  so  on. 
one  secret  of  the 
ny  famous  voyat^es 
jf  oil,  worth  from 
.iter  that  the  ships 
40.000  to  ?C2,000, 
ne  into  port  having 
o,  3,500,  or  4.""<' 


iV 


liirrels  of  right-whalo  oil.  In  1843  "The  Maria"  of  Nantucket  came  back 
Ipiui  a  twenty-tuu  months'  <  ruise  with  2,413  barrels  of  sjerin  oil,  w(<rth 
<;;o,ooo,  this  variety  being  scarcer  and  more  valuable.  In  1S49  "'1  he  Smith 
America  "  of  I'rovi<lence,  R.I.,  which  was  fitted  for  sea  at  a  tot.u  cost  ot 
^40,000,  came  back  with  5,500  barrels  of  oil  and  a  large  supply  of  bone, 
worth  in  all  ^89,000,  paying  her  cost,  and  a  dividend  of  125  percent.  She 
liad  been  otit  twenty-six  months.  '"  The  Russell  "  of  New  IJedford  came 
hack  in  1.849,  after  a  three-years-and-four-moiitiis'  voyage,  with  2,650  barrels 
of  sperm-oil,  worth  ^92,000.  'I'he  most  remarkable  voyage  ever  made,  per- 
iiai'-i,  is  vouched  for  by  .\lr.  .Mexa'ider  Starbuck.  "'I'he  luivoy,"  having  been 
(ondemned  to  be  broken  up,  was  sold  to  \Villiam  C.  ISrownell  of  New  lied- 
fiinl,  who  concluded,  alter  all,  to  send  her  out  once  more,  aii<l  did  send  her 
to  sea  at  a  cost  to  himself  of  jl8,ooo.  The  tmderwriters  declined  to  insure 
her.  'I'he  vessel  freigiited  1,000  barrels  of  oil  from  Wytootache  to  Manila; 
and  tiien,  putting  into  the  North  I  u  ifi(  .  siie  caught  5.300  barrels  of  oil  and 
-5,000  ])ounds  of  bone.  'I'he  receipts  of  the  voyage  were  Si3'8,450.  In 
1853  "The  Favorite  "  of  Fair  Haven  realized  Si  16,000  ;  "  'I'he  Montreal  "  of 
New  liedford,  Sr^6,o23  ;  ami  "  The  Sheflield  "  of  New  liedford,  which  had 
been  gone  four  years,  Si24,cx)o.  "I'lie  I'ioneer  "  of  New  London  made  in 
1S64  and  1865  in  the  North  .\tlantic  the  most  successful  catch  ever  known. 
Her  voyage  realized  Si 50.060.  These  brilliant  results  have  not  been  obtained 
of  kite  years.  .After  1861  the  whale-fishery  ran  down,  owing  to  the  scarcity 
and  shyness  of  the  lish,  the  low  jirices  of  oil  conse(pient  on  the  discovery  of 
|ietroleuni.  and  the  high  cost  of  fitting  out  ships.  In  iSoo  a  1,900-barrel  ship 
could  be  fitted  out  for  Si  2,000:  in  1S60  a  3.800-barrel  ship  cost  S65.000, 
fitted  for  sea.  In  1S77  the  lleet  had  become  reduced  to  171  ships,  of  a 
capacity  of  39,165  tons.  The  right-whales  of  the  North  Pacific,  and  the  sea- 
elephants  of  antarctic  regions,  are  now  the  ])rincipal  deiiendence  of  our 
whaling-men  ;  but  the  game  is  getting  very  scarce.  It  has  been  the  prey  of 
j^enerations  of  eager  men  ;  and  it  will  one  day  become  extinct,  unless  Professor 
Haird,  or  some  such  man,  turns  his  attention  to  their  artificial  propagation. 
Why  should  he  not  ? 

The  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries  are  now  more  important  in  respect  to  the 
tonnage  employed  in  them  than    the    one   just  described.      They  employed 

iiore  tonnage,  indeed,  than  the  whale-fishery  prior  to   1830,  the   cod  and 
figures   for   1S29  especially  being   remarkable;    the  whaling-fleet   mackerel 
heing  only   57,284  tons  in  that  year,  and  the  cod  and  mackerel     *  "'"'  i 
boats  101,797  tons.      Hut  after  1830  tlw    Hank  fisheries  fell  into  .the  second 

aiik  :  and  they  only  came  vc  the  front  again  in  1 86 1 ,  when  the  war,  with  its 
high  ]irices,  jietrolenni,  iVc,  broke  clown  whaling.  The  cod  and  mackerel 
tonnage  is  now  87,000,  and  the  number  of  boats  2.31 1,  nearly  all  of  them 
hcing  under  fifty  tons'  burden,  and  about  half  of  them  under  twenty  tons. 
There  are  over  20,000  men  employed  in  the  business.     The  boats  go  out  to 


6i6 


IND I 'S  TRIA  L    HIS  TORY 


\ 


the  Hanks  on  llio  co-operative  plan,  ea(  h  man  getting  a  stipulated  slian  nf 
the  catch,  and  the  owner  su|)i)Iying  a  certain  portion  of  the  outfit,  and  gelling 
his  pay,  like  the  rest,  in  fisli.  'I'he  cod  and  nuu  kerel  are  liolh  caught  witli  tjie 
line.  'The  former  is  easily  <aiight.  'I'he  hook,  baited  with  any  thing  to  atlract 
attention,  though  generally  with  small  fish,  is  dropped  until  it  touches  liic 
bottom :  it  is  then  hauled  up  slightly,  so  that  with  every  lurch  of  the  Ikmi  it 
will  clear  the  bottom.  \  bile  is  signified  by  a  slight  jerk.  'I'he  line  is  tlu'ii 
hauled  in  rapidly,  hand  over  hand,  llie  fish  unhooked,  and  the  htok  baited  ami 
thrown  out  again.  When  the  fish  l)ite  freely,  three  hooks  can  be  used  on  the 
same  line  ;  and.  in  fact,  they  are  generally  used.  The  crew  of  the  lioat  range 
themselves  along  liie  gunw.Ue  on  both  sides,  and  often  are  kept  in  a  slate  of 
incessant  action  by  the  eagerness  of  the  fisli.  .\l  night  the  fish  are  cleaned 
and  salted  down.  Mackerel-fishing  is  more  exciting,  because  the  fish  are 
gamy,  and  they  dash  madly  about  in  the  water  when  hooked.  'Ihc  ina(  km  1 
swim  in  slioals  ;  and,  wlien  llu'V  are  biting,  there  is  always  a  scene  of  gnat 
activity  anil  excilenunt  on  lioard  liie  boat.  The  rapidity  witli  wliich  several 
barrelfiils  of  fisli  (an  be  l.'.kcn  frniu  the  water  is  wonderfiil.  'I'he  cleaning 
and  packing  in  sill  ,ue  i>erlormed  when  the  fish  lire  sI.k  k  ;  iliat  is,  when  tins 
are  not  biting  well,  or  .it  night.  'I'hese  fi>h  h.ive  sometiiius  litcn  i  aiighl  with 
nets  ;  but  liie  proci'^s  is  iliftii  nil  ami  ims.iti^f.ulory.  and  the  ri^herinen  gciK  imIK 
pilfer  the  line.  The  s.iliie  of  the  proihirt  of  i  oil  and  inai  kerel  fisiieiit^  i-, 
aiiout  ;>9,ooo.ooo  a  ye.ir.  \  iiadv  maikil  is  always  found  for  ihr  fi^li.  aiuj 
tho>e  wlio  are  engaged  in  the  liu>iiK-is  ha\e  only  liie  competition  of  liic 
Canadians  to  fear.  .\s  a  genenil  rule.  thi\  hold  their  own  against  tluir 
Nortiiern  neighbors.  Tiie  state  of  tilings  esisting  ju^t  at  present,  Iiowimt, 
is  unf.nor.ible  to  llu-iii,  lii<.ui>i.  under  the  tre.ity  of  iS;^.  the  I'liited  Slat  s 
market  w.is  tiirowii  o]ien  to  the  (aiiacji.in  fi^herinen  in  e\i  liange  for  llie  rijlit, 
on  our  pari,  to  li>li  witiiin  the  tliiee  mile  limit.  'I'iii'  C.inadi.ins  gained  iiioie 
than  they  lost  by  tliis  ;  and,  altiioiigh  tlie  H.ilifax  (  onmiission  in  i.S^y 
adjudged  that  tlie  Inited  States  ought  to  p.iy  S5. 500,000  for  ilie  Miinrior 
advantages  slie  gained  jiy  that  treaty,  the  decision  was  dearly  iiiijii--t.  and  it 
has  so  increased  the  odd;  ig.iinst  our  fishermen,  that  stejis  were  taken  by 
Congress  in  May,  iiSy.S,  to  hue  the  fi>hery-(lause  of  the  treaty  abrogated. 

One  branch  of  the  fisheries  —  wiiii  h.  however,  is  re.iliy  an  in  slu ire  affair, 
and  has  ne\er  needed  any  sjiecial  protecting  care  from  the  government  —  is 
Oyster-  the  oyster-busiiiess.     The  only  legislation  which  has  been  lueiled 

business.  \^.^^  \>Q{iw  to  jjrevent  the  oystermen  from  infringing  on  ea<  h  oijur's 
rights.  This  species  of  ocean-inhabitant  grows  naturally  in  tlie  cool  waleis  all 
along  the  Northern  coast,  and  attains  a  si/e,  and  delicacy  of  flavor,  iinei|iialled 
anywhere  in  the  world.  The  waters  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  and  of  I.ong- 
Island  Sound  are  the  favorite  haunts  of  the  oyster.  \  favorite  jiractice  in  the 
trade  is  to  breed  the  oyster  in  Virginia  or  Maryland,  and  bring  it  Xortli  by 
the  sloop-load,  and  plant  it  in  the  vicinity  of  New-Vork  City,  and  on  the  I.ong- 


i' -n^" 


OF    THE  UNITED   STATES. 


617 


[iiilatcd  sliaii'  nf 
iilfit,  and  t^itini;,' 
I  caiiglit  Willi  the 
y  tiling  to  attract 
il  it  toiu ins  the 
li  of  the  liii.it  it 
'I'lic  lino  is  then 
iriok  baitt'il  and 
l)i'  iisfd  (in  the 
)!'  llie  Itoat  nni;;i' 
.•pi  in  a  ^)tatc  ot' 
fish  arc  cleaned 
use  the   fisli   :ire 
1.     'I'li(!  nvK  kill! 
a  scene  of  j;reat 
•itii  \vhi(  li  several 
il.     'I'he  cleaniiii; 
that  is,  wiicn  llu  \ 
l)een  <  an^ht  wiiii 
ishernien  generally 
,ckerel  fishein--  i> 
I   fur  the  fish.  .1:11 1 
petition   111'   the 
n    a.n.uiiit   ilnir 
ivsenl.   Imwever, 
the    I'nited  Sl.it  ■> 
-e  for  the  ri,.:ht, 
ns  y.iineil  nioie 
lissioii    in    iN;; 
lor  the  su|»Tior 
Iv  <iiiju-.t.  and  it 
IS  were   taken  hy 
V  alirogatcd. 
in  in  shore  alf.iir. 
^o\-ernnH'n!  -    is 
Kis  lieeil   lU'ei'.ed 
l;  on  ea<  h  oilu  r'-^ 
e  cool  waters  .ill 
llavor,  unei|nalk'd 
id  and  of  l.ong- 
jiracticc  in  the 
rin.i,'  il  North  liy 
nd  on  the  Long- 


IIYSTRKS  DNl:.   TUil|   ANIi    IMHhL'.   NK.NKs  lil.li. 


I^Ian<l  and  ronnertinit  coasts,  where  it  fattens.     Haltiniore  and  New-Vork 

( ,ty  are  the  principal  centres  of  the  oysterdnisiness.     In  both  plac  es  millions 

of    dollars' 

ttorlh    of    the 

liivahe  are  put 

up  annually  in 

cans  and  kegs, 

ami    distrilnit- 

iil  liv  railroad 

li)  all  parts  of 

the     I'nited 

States    and 

( .iiiada.    Of  late  years,  oysters  have  been  sent  to  Mnrope  from  those  <  ities  ;  and 

the  business  is  becoming  considerable,  now  that  the  steamers  have  been  jiro- 

vuled  with  the  facilities  for  keeping  the  oysters  cool  en  route  across  the  sea. 

The  animal  product  is  valued  at  about  5j5.ooo,ooo. 

Among  the  other  treasures  of  the  sea  which  accrue  to  the  profits  of  our 

fishcrineii  and  the  luxury  of  our  tables  are 
the  halibut,  the  shad,  salmon,  blue  lish, 
herring,    white  ^l■^h.    wtak  t'lsh, 

I  I  II.  I  I     Shad,  sal- 

b.iss,  cl.uiis,  lobsters,  eels,  ami    „       , 

other    N.irieties.      'I'lieri'    are    rinK.  lobster, 

about    thirtv  five   kinds   in   all.    "";;■  •'i''^'" 

fish. 

'I'hi'y  ai'e  .ill  t.iken  in  lar^e 
<piaiit:iirs.  Lobsters  are  canned  for  the 
gener.d  m.irket,  and  are  now  exported  in 
considerable  quantities,  as  well  as  oysters. 
( )ne  br.iiirh  of  the  business  not  yet  men- 
tioned has  now  grown  so  huge  as  to  t.ike 
its  |i|.u-e  among  tlu'  st.iple  resources  of 
the  couiilrv,  although  th.e  inhabitants  of 
the  regions  where  il  is  engaged  in  most 
sincerely  wish  that  it  had  never  become 
a  staple  resource,  ami  that  the  fish  would 
sv  iin  away  to  some  hitherto  unheard-of 
'li.irter  of  the  globe,  and  never,  never  come  back.  This  is  the  (  alching 
"I  porgies  and  bony  fish  for  fertili/ing-]Mirposes.  These  little  fishes  swim 
in  immense  shoals,  ntimbcring  milliims  of  fish.  They  are  caught  in  nets  in 
llie  Sound,  and  along  the  northern  coasts  generally.  The  shoals  are  often  so 
laryc  as  to  tow,  against  the  wind,  the  net  and  the  schooner  from  whii  h  il  has 
Ih'cm  tarried  out  ;  and  they  sometimes  carry  away  the  nets.  Hut,  if  the  shoal 
is  not  too  large,  it  can  be  handled.  The  fish  are  valued  for  their  oil,  'vhich  is 
extracted  by  proper  processes,  and  also  because  their  remains  can  then  be 


OYSTERS  (;|((1«1S(,    11 


6i8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


converted  into  guano  for  the  benefit  of  the  farms.  The  establishments  where 
this  manufacture  is  carried  on  waft  a  fragrance  upon  the  breeze  which  docs 
not  remind  one  of  hehotrope  or  the  East  Indies. 

Two  kinds  of  fish  wh'cii  were  remarkably  abundant  when  the  country  was 
new  were  the  shad  an'l  the  salmon.  These  fish  have  almost  disappeared 
Disappear-  ^o"^  ^^"^^  localities,  and  they  are  scarce  in  all.  The  attention  of 
nnce  of  shad  the  government  of  the  United  States  was  called  several  years  a"o 
an  salmon.  ^^  ^j^^  subject  of  tlie  artificial  proi)agation  of  these  and  other  lisli. 
Experiments  were  making  under  Seth  dreen,  in  New- York  State,  for  the  hieed- 
Artificiai  '"S  of  millions  of  lake  and  river  fishes,  anil  the  placing  of  them 
propaga-  in  lakcs  and  streams  to  repopulate  the  waters  which  had  thus 
*'°""  been  almost  emptied  of  their  game  by  local  anglers  antl  spearmen. 

Other  States  were  giving  attention  to  the  subject ;  and  the  United  States  were 
invited  to  consider  the  state  of  the  coast-fisheries,  and  the  propriety  of  pro[ja- 
gating  shad,  salmon,  &c.,  to  replenish  impoverished  waters.  A  law  was  passetl 
Feb.  9,  1 87 1,  for  the  creation  of  a  fish  commissioner,  and  I'rofessor  Spencer 
F.  Baird  was  appointetl  by  the  President  to  that  office.  Since  that  date, 
extensive  and  minute  investigations  have  been  in  jirogress  to  gain  a  prelimi- 
nary idea  of  the  character  of  the  coast  and  of  its  foovl  fishes,  rrofessi/r 
Baird  spent  the  summer  of  187 1,  with  his  assistants  at  Wood's  Hole  on  Cape 
Cod,  the  summer  of  1872  at  Eastport,  Me.,  that  of  1873  at  Portland,  Me., 
1874  at  Noank,  Conn.,  and  1875  '^*-  Wood's  Hole  again.  No  work  was  done 
on  the  coast  in  1876,  owing  to  Professor  Hainl's  presence  at  the  Centennial 
Exhibition  to  take  charge  of  the  general  display  of  hatching-apparatus  and 
methods  of  fish-culture ;  but  research  has  since  been  resumed.  The  studies 
of  the  commissioner  were  attended  with  valuable  results,  and  led  to  the  prac- 
tical hatching  of  shad  and  salmon  for  distribution  to  the  waters  of  the  several 
States  and  Territories.  Up  to  1877,  over  26,000,000  shad,  7,500,000  salmon, 
and  2,670,000  white-fish,  had  been  hatched,  and  placed  in  the  waters  of  the 
United  States  North  and  South>  and  on  the  Pacific,  under  the  supervision  of 
the  commissioner.  The  work  is  still  going  on,  and  on  ar.  increasing  scale, 
supplemented  by  the  active  efforts  of  fish  commissioners  in  a  number  of  the 
States.  It  promises  to  yield  valuable  results  in  a  few  years,  and  to  repay  its 
whole  cost  a  thousand  times  over.  Undoubteilly  the  time  will  yet  come  wiieii 
active  efforts  in  the  way  of  multiplying  the  off-shore  fish,  such  as  the  cod  and 
mackerel,  will  be  attempted. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


619 


CHAl^ER   VI. 

RAILROADS. 

AN  clofjuent  Virginian  in  C'oi.gress,  commenting  on  the  rapid  progress 
of  the  country  in  mechanical  invention,  said  admiringly,  that  tiie 
people  of  America  were  a  race  jiossessing  much  the  same  spirit  as  Mission  of 
the  Normans  of  old,  and  following  much  the  same  career  of  con-  the  present 
(liRst  and  success.  The  only  difference  was,  that  the  Normans  genera*  on- 
subdued  kingdoms  of  men,  whereas  the  Americans  were  achieving  the  still 
more  difficult  task  of  a  con(}uest  over  nature.  The  mission  of  our  generation 
is  to  subdue  the  material  universe,  he  said  ;  and  he  spoke  of  the  people  of  the 
North  as  "  amazing  the  world  by  their  feats  of  mechanical  skill,  and  covering 
the  remotest- seas  with  the  argosies  of  their  commerce,  free  as  the  winds,  and 
iMundless  as  the  waves  that  bear  it."  What  would  he  have  said  could  he  have 
looked  forward  into  the  future  twenty  years,  and  seen  a  continent  subdued 
ami  populated  by  this  same  people  through  the  agency  of  a  new  and  wonder- 
ful mechanical  creation  which  flew  from  one  part  of  the  land  to  the  other 
with  a  speed  which  defied  time,  and  with  a  freedom,  certainty,  and  regularity 
which  laughed  at  storms  and  seasons,  and  which  was  employed  in  the  service 
of  a  now  and  wonderful  conmierce  whose  magnitude  and  wealth  dwarfed  into 
insignificance  that  carrieil  on  upon  .the  sea? 

To  trace  the  rise  and  progress  of  a  railroad  from  its  inception  —  perhaps 
in  the  head  of  some  casual  lounger  around  the  stove  of  a  country  store  — 
to  its  actual  consummation  would  give  a  more  perfect  insight  into  the  genius 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  the  goal  toward  which  civilization  has  so  far 
tended,  than  could  possibly  be  gaineii  by  the  most  profound  study  of  the 
pages  of  Huckle. 

The  moving  causes  for  building  railroads  in  this  country  are,  for  the  most 
part,  jirccisely  the  reverse  of  those  which  lead  to  their  construction  in  Europe. 
In  I'jirope  they  are  built  to  satisfy  existing  retpiirements  for  increased  means 
of  communication  ;  they  are  built  to  meet  the  wants  of  thickly-settled  dis- 
tricts: in  this  country  this  is  but  one,  and  a  minor  one,  of  their  offices. 
Their  characteristic  office  here  is  to  create  such  districts  in  places  where  none 


620 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


exist.  They  are  causes  with  us,  not  effects.  The  brightest  dream  of  tht- 
American  patriot,  irrespective  of  [)olitical  creed,  is  to  "open  up"  some 
portion  of  the  wilderness  of  which  the  great  area  of  his  country  is  couiixistd  ■ 
and  to  do  this  he  looks,  and  rightly,  to  the  railroad  as  his  principal  aid.  It 
must  be  confessed  that  the  poetry  of  the  railroad  as  the  willing  coadjutor  of 
human  aspiration  belongs  to  America,  .in  common  with  all  new  countries 
rather  than  to  luirope,  where  it  is  merely  an  inevitable  seepience  of  an  aciuul 
achieved  status. 

The  period  of  fifty  years  following  the  war  of  iiSi2  was  one  of  restless 
activity  and  Titanic  strides.     The   American   mind  was   displaying  a  fertility 


.1"!  n  I.  Ill    i;?.'.i. 

and  resource  which  had  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Invention 
Half  century  Succeeded  invention  with  astonishing  rapidity  ;  and  scan  e  was 
succeeding  the  public  mind  aglow  with  some  great  idea  for  the  comftirt  and 
waro  I  ij.  convenience  of  the  human  race,  and  government  and  ])e()]ile  at 
work  to  carry  it  into  effect,  when  the  drum-beat  of  a  new  thought  would  be 
iieard,  and  a  -lew  tY'^imr  be  initiated,  which  should  work  wonders  in  the 
(ivilization  and  ha])piness  of  the  people  and  the  development  of  the  wealth  of 
the  nation.  In  no  field  was  progress  more  rapid  than  in  that  of  internal 
transportation.  Hardly  had  plans  for  building  military  wagon-roads  to  every 
part  of  our  extended  domain  been  perfected  —  so  that  the  trains  of  huge, 
canvas-topped,  broad-tireti  wagons  in  use  in  early  days,  with  their  teams  of 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


621 


four  or  six  big  horses  and  "  orchestra  of  bells,"  might  be  made  thoroughly 
useful  to  the  people  —  than  steam  was  invented  for  the  navigation  of  rivers, 
and  canals  were  built  for  increased  ease  and  rapidity  of  communication  between 
distant  parts  of  the  interior.  The  old  way  was  supplemented  or  superseded  by 
sonictliing  better  almost  before  the  capacities  of  the  old  way  had  been  fully 
developed.  In  the  very  year  that  the  public  mind  was  the  most  excited 
about  canals  (1825)  attention  began  to  be  drawn  to  still  another  and  better 
ageiK  y  of  transportation,  which  was  destined  in  time  to  overshadow  all  others 
completely,  antl  work  out  public  results  that  would  have  been  regarded  in 
1825  as  the  wildest  dreams  of  romance,  and  even  in  1878  can  scarcely  be 
graspcil  by  the  human  mind.  Railroads  were  ';'ven  to  tiie  world  in  that  year, 
and  were  discussed  in  tne  United  States,  and  soon  riveted  such  attention,  that 
great  schemes  for  canal-building  were  dropped,  and  effort  concentrated  upon 
the  new  idea.  'l"he  ra|)i(lity  of  progress  which  had  preceded  the  invention  of 
this  style  of  land-transportation  followed  it;  and  in  1878  the  United  States 
with  its  45,000,000  of  people  have  79,000  miles  of  road  in  practical  operation 
(not  of  track,  but  Oi  road)  against  88,000  in  luirope  with  its  300,000,000  of 
people,  and  1 1 ,000  in  the  rest  of  the  world  besiiles  with  its  i  ,000,000,000 
of  human  souls. 

Railroatls  took  their  rise  in  the  tramways  in  use  in  the  mines  of  Kngland 
and  (iermany  for  ( onveying  heavy  masses  of  coal  and  iron  ore  to  the  doors 
of  the  mines,  and  thence  to  buildings  or  yards  for  the  sto--\ge  or   Rajiroads 
manufacture  of  the  minerals,  or  to  wha»-ves  or  ile[)6ts  for  iheir  had  their  rise 
transfer  to  wagons   and   boats   for  distribution.      Coml)ined  with   '"*''"■""'■>"• 
this  idea  was  another,  for  employing  steam  to  propel  carriages  along  com- 
mon roads.     These   two  ideas  were  conceived   in   the   closing  years  of  the 
last  century,  anil  were  not  at  the  time  thought  of  together,  but  were  made  use 
of  as  totally  distinct  inventions.     In  this  country  the  idea  of  a  steam-carriage 
preceded  that  of  the  tramway.     As  early  as   1794  Oliver  Kvans  of  Marylaml 
used  to  say  that  the  t:hiKl  was  then  born  who  would  travel  from  Philadelphia 
to  Hoston  in  a  steam-wagon.     He  was  regarded  as  an  enthusiast;  but  efforts 
were  made  for  thirty  years  to  realize  his  idea.     A  great  many  steam-carriages. 
were  invented.     Rumors  of  the   experiments  reached   England ;  and   in  the 
summer  of  1819  a  London  pajjcr  had  an  item  saying,  "  The  Americans  ha^e 
applieil  the  power  of  steam  to  supersede  that  of  horses  in  propelling  stage- 
coaches.    In  the  State  of  Kentucky  a  stage-coach  is  now  established,  which 
travels  at  the  rate  of  twelve  miles  an  hour.     It  can  be  stopped  instantly,  ami 
set  ajiain  in   motion  with  its   former  velocity  ;   and  is  so  constructed,  that  the 
passengers  sit  within  two  feet  of  the  grouml.     The  velocity  depends  on  the 
sia'  of  the  wheels."     This  item  is  believed  to  be  inaccurate  as  to  the  fact  of 
a  steam-coach  in  practical  use ;    but  it  correctly  sets  forth  what  American 
inventors  were  striving  after. 

Experiments  in  this  directicm  were  tried,  for  many  years.     On  some  routes 


"'7'',T'r  tf 


633 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


of  travel,  like  that  between  Albany  and  Lake  Erie,  forty  or  fifty  horse-coaches 
First  ste»r.i-  Were  often  despatched  in  one  day ;  and,  could  steam  be  usL'd  to 
coaches.  propel  tliem,  a  great  saving  of  expense,  and  expedition  of  business 
would  be  effected.  Steam-coaches  were  exhibited  in  New  York,  Philadelphia 
/! '? U  ^^ '■^^'""gton,  and  elsewhere;  and  in  1824  S.  T.  Conn  of  Virginia  publicly 
'■  advertised  for  capital  to  form  a  company  to  run  a  steam-carriage  on  the  turn- 
pike between  Washington  and  Alexandria.  He  wanted  5 1,200  for  the  purpose, 
-  -  a  modest  sum,  surely,  compared  with  the  millions  of  capital  which  it  now 
takes  to  build  and  operate  a  modern  line  of  steam-railway.     Believing  in  the 


jjossibility  of  steam-coaches,   and  seeing  the  necessity  of  providi 


uu 


a  vjIkI 


hard,  straigiit  road   for  them  to  travel  on,  tiie  State  of  New  York  in   182; 
projected  a  great  wagon-road  from  the  Hudson  River  to  Lake  Erie,  to  cost 


/ 


V 


rilK    S<H,TH    CAKnI.INA,"    183I. 


^ 


\ 


% 


V    ^  $500,000.  and  ordered  surveys  for  it.     Other  States  gave  attention  also  to  the 

n  subject  of  the  improvement  of  tiieir  common  roads. 
The  crude  idea  of  a  steam  road-wagon  was  never  realized,  because  in  18:5 
(N  V  attention  was  'Irawn  to  tiie  subjec  t  of  railways.  The  Storkton  and  D.ulinuton 
Stockton  ana  l^'jibvay  hjid  Jjieeii_ojjieiie<l  in  Knj,dan<j_ni  .order  to  simiiK-  Lomloii 
Darlington  wit,h^ coal,  and  passiMi^jer-cars  were  drauui  s^^  it  by  a  crude  :ort 
of  locomotive  at  the  rate  of  se\x'n  miles  an  hour.  The  stories 
told  about  this  coal-tramway  brought  on  a  d.r.cussion  in  the  Ignited  States 
which  left  the  projected  steam-coach  quite  out  of  sight.  "The  bondnn 
Courier"  said  in  1821;  of  Mr.  Rush,  the  American  minister,  then  soon  to 
return  to  this  country  to  be  secretary  of  the  treasury,  ''  \Vhat(;ver  I'iirlinnient 
may  do  "  [abotit  railways  in  England],  ''they  cannot  stop  the  course  of  knowl- 
edge and  imjirovement.  The  American  Governinent  has  possessed  itself. 
through  its  minister,  of  the  improved  mode  of  maliiif  and  constructing,'  nil- 
roads  ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  their  immediaie  adoption  throughout  that 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


623 


•  fifty  horse-coaches 
I  steam  be  used  to 
ledition  of  business, 

York,  Philadelphia, 
of  Virginia  publicly 
irriage  on  the  turn- 
200  for  the  \)urpose, 
lapital  which  it  now 
yf.  Believing  in  the 
f  providing  a  solid, 

New  York  in  1825 
I  Lake  Erie,  to  cost 


[attention  also  to  the 

i/^'d,  borause  in  iSr, 
Iklon  and  Darlin.L'ton 
llcr_toMililily  bondnn 
l^Titby  a  crude  '  ort 
[n  hour,  '''he  stories 
]in  the  I'nited  States 
light.  "'I'he  l.oiniiiii 
Minister,  then  soon  to 

\Vhat»;ver  Pailiameiit 
\.  the  course  of  know!- 

has  possessed  itsell, 
and  constnicting  rail- 
iption  throughout  that 


country."     There  could  be  noie  whatever  :  for  railroads  were  more  needed  in 
this  wild  and  undeveloped  country  than  in  England. 

There  was  not  a  mile  of  railroad  in  America  in  1825.     In  1826  building /^^ -^ 
bcL'an.    Two   short  roads  were  undertaken  almost  simidtaneously,  —  a  line  /  , 
three  miles  long  at  Quincy,  Mass.,  to  bring  down  granite  from  the  ,  ^ 

(juarries ;  and  a  line  nine  miles  long  at  Maiich  Chunk,  Pcnn.,  to  roads  in 
bring  down  coal  from  the  mines.  Both  were  horse-roads.  The  United 
Mauch-Chunk  road  cost  from  ^2,500  to  $3,000  a  mile,,  being  laiil 
o\er  a  route  i)reviously  used  for  ordinary  wagons!  Wooden  rails  were  laid 
upon  wooden  sleepers  lying  four  feet  apart,  beiiu^  fastened  thereto  by  wooden 
keys.  The  sleepers  were  supported  on  stone  foundations,  and  the  rails  plated 
on  the  inner  edge  with  rolled  iron  bars  from  an  inch  and  a  (juarter  to  an  inch 
and  three-quarters  wide.  A  gravel-path  for  the  horses  was  made  between  the 
rails  covering  the  sleepers.  The  wagons  weighed  from  1,200  to  Description 
1.500  pounds  each,  and  were  mounted  on  flangeil  wheels  two  feet  °'  '*'^'"' 
in  diameter.  They  carried  a  ton  and  a  half  each.  The  cars  were  allowed  to 
nni  down  five  miles  by  tie  force  of  gravity,  and  were  then  towed  to  the  place 
for  dumping  the  coal  by  horses.  On  the  Quincy  road  the  tracks  were  five 
feet  ajjart.  Wooden  rails  six  inches  bytwelve  were  laitl  on  stone  sleeper^ 
lying  eight Jeet^qijart,  which,  in  turn,  were  supported  upon  a  stone  foundation. 
On  the  top  of  the  rails  was  phded  a  scantling  two  inches  by  four,  which  was 
plated  with  bar  iron  from  two  inches  and  a  half  to  two  inches  and  three- 
iiuarters  wide.  The  wagons  weighed  six  tons  each,  cost  four  hundred  dollars 
apiece,  and  were  mounted  on  wheels  six  feet  and  a  half  in  diameter.  Two 
horses  drew  fifty  tons'  weight,  including  the  wagons,  over  this  road,  at  a  speed 
of  four  miles  and  a  half  an  hour.  On  a  canal  the  same  weight  could  not  have 
heen  drawn  by  two  horses  then  faster  than  two  miles  an  hour.  This  road  cost 
511.250  a  mile,  owing  to  the  rock-cuttings  and  trestle-work  which  were 
necessary  upon  it.  The  two  roads  were  finishe<l  in  1827.  A  ptddic  celebra- 
tion took  ]ilace  on  the  opening  of  the  latter.  (Ireat  popidar  interest  was  felt 
in  both,  and  committees  came  to  see  them  from  all  parts  of  the  country. 

\()  railroad  had  yet  been  built  in  the  world  for  the  general  conveyance  of 
passengers  and  goods,  —  not  even  in  England.    So  far,  all  the  railways  had  been 
constructed  for  the  transportation  of  the  products  of  mines  over   Early  linet 
extremely  short  routes.     "I'heir  utility  for  the  purposes  of  general   were  an 
trattic,  however,  was  disclosed  by  these  preliminary  experiments,   *  °'*" 
and  .America  seized  upon  the  new  idea  quite  as  (juick  as  England.     Daniel 
Webster,  Charles  Carroll,  Mr.  Calhoun,  Mr.  Clay,  and  other  public  men,  ex- 
jiressed   a  belief  in   their  ])racticability  ;    and   the   new  era  was  suc-cessfiiUy 
initialed.     Wings  were  now  lent  to  enterjjrise  by  the  rivalry  of  cities.     New 
Vork  had  taken  an  astonishing  start  consecpient  upon  the  opening  of  tmi,  Erie 
(jinal,  and  was  diverting  trade  from  Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  Baltimore,  which 
could  only  be  regained,  if  at  all,  by  the  construction  of  great  transportation- 


l 


-''•fir.'      a'V' 


1 

^ 

■ 

C24 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


yf^i- 


K 

/^-j" 


routes  from  those  cities  ihto  the  interior ;  and  the  busiiiess-men  of  those  places 
set  about  the  unclertai^ing  at  once.  Long  lines  of  railway  were  projected  from 
all  the  most  enterprising  seaboard  cities  into  the  more  thickly-settled  portions 
of  their  own  States,  with  the  idea  of  ultimate  extension  toward  the  West. 
They  were  a'l  originally  planned  to  be  operated  by  horse-power,  or  by  sta- 
tionary engines;  though  the  possibility  of  cni- 
ploying  locomotives  was  kept  in  view,  and  me- 
chanics  were  encouraged  to  study  the  subject 
of  sleam  -  locomotion,  and  try  their  hands  at 
building  engines. 

A  short  road  of  seventeen  miles  from  Albany 
to  Schenectady  h'\d  been  authorized  by  the  New- 
Baitimore       ^'"■"^^  State  Legislature  April  1 7,  1 826, 
■nd  Ohio         to   be   operated   by  horses,  inclined 
"""'  ■        planes,  and  stationary  engines.    On 
July  4,,  1828,  ground  was  broken  for  a  railroad 
from  Baltimore  out  to  Ohio,  the  president  of  the 
day  being  the  venerable  Charles  Carroll,  who  said 
to  a  friend  on  the  occasion  "  that  he  considered 
it  among  the  most   important  acts  of  his  life, 
second  only  to  his  signing  the 
Declaration  of  Independence, 
if  even  it  were  second  to  that." 
Twelve  miles  of  the  road  were 
opened  to  travel  in  May,  1830, 
the  cars  being  drawn  by  horses, 
as  it  was  not  until  a  year  or 
two  later  that  the  certainty  of 
attaining    greater    speed    by 
means  of  locomotives  was  as- 
sured.    At  ''  ni  the  track  was 
laid  on  large  blocks  of  stone ; 
but,  after  passing  the  I'ataps- 
co,  wooden  ties  and  stringers 
were    used,    owing    to    tlicir 


ROLSTON   INCUNEn   RAILWAY. 


greater  elasticity. 


The  Halli- 
and  seml- 


.  /yf{^/moxQ  and  Ohio  Company  acted  with  vigor,  pressing  its  contractors, 
iV  /     ing  committees  to  other  parts  of  the  country  and  to  England  to  stutly  road- 
building  and  the  capacities  of  steam.     In  1832  the  road  was  built  to  Point  ot 
Rocks,  a  distance  of  seventy-three  miles;  and  the  company  had  offered  pre 


V 


7 

^^miums  of  $4,000  and  $3,500  for  locomotives  to  run  at  certain  rates  of  speed 

\Ki      on  the  road  of  the  company,  by  means  of  which  they  obtained  "The  \urk," 

v.M^  \y\i\\\\\.  at  York,  Penn.,  by  Davis  and  Gartner,  which  was  able  to  draw  fifteen  tons 

)  V  ^  ' 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


62; 


men  of  those  places 
were  projected  from 
ckly-settled  ponions 
1  toward  the  West. 
se-power,  or  by  st;i- 
j  possibility  of  em- 
)t  in  view,  and  me- 
)  stiuly  the  suliject 
try   their   hands  at 

1  miles  from  Albany 
horized  by  the  New- 
iature  April  17,  1826, 
by  horses,  inclined 
ionary  engines.    On 
roken  for  a  railroad 
the  president  of  the 
rles  Carroll,  who  said 
"that  he  considered 
int   acts  of  his  life, 
ily  to  his  signing  the 
pn  of  Independence, 
vere  second  to  that." 
es  of  the  road  were 
travel  in  May,  1830,    \'\ 
:ing  drawn  by  horses, 
not  until  a  year  or 
lat  the  certainty  of 
greater    speed    by 
ocomotives  was  as- 
nt  the  track  was 
ge  blocks  of  stone  ; 
)assing  the  l'ata|)s- 
n  ties  and  stringers 
owing    to    tlieir 
isticity.     The  baiii- 
mtractors,  and  send- 
:,dand  to  study  road- 
as  built  to  Point  of 
ny  had  offered  pre- 
rtain  rates  of  si)ced 
tained"  The  York," 
to  draw  fifteen  tons 


6a6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


In  So 
railroad  a. 

Railroads 
in  South 
Carolina. 


/P*^ 


'\ 


\ 


J 


on  a  level  at  a  speed  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour.  The  comjiany  was  delayed 
by  litigation  with  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal  Company,  which  fought 
its  progress;  and  it  was  not  until  1853  that  the  road  reached  the  Ohio 
River. 

h  Caroli:  a  a  company  was  incorporated,  Dec.  19,  1827,  to  build  p 
an  '    lit  to  Hamburgh,  on  the  Savinnah  River,  in  order  to  ojien 
ju,y  ■  '^Uimunication  with  the  ri    •  agricultural  regions  iyiug  in 
vHp    'ion,  the    intervening  d.      (-ts  being  a  wilderness  ol 
swi„;ips.     r     ■>d-States  engineers  made  the  surveys,  as  they  did 
for  all  these  early  railroads.     The  road  was  oj:ginally  built  upon  trestle-work 
nearly  the  whole  distance,  with  a  thin  strap-rail  laid  upon  stringers.     Charles- 
ton was  the  first  city  in  the  country  to  employ  a  locomotive.     In  1830.  when 
the  road  had  been  finishe<l  for  only  eight  miles,  —  several  months  before  the 
opening  of  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  Railway  in  lOngland,  upon  which 
eam-engincs  were  employed,  an  event  which  created  a  furore  of  excitement 
both  sides  of  the  ocean,  —  a  locomotive  weighing  five  tons,  and  called  "The 
Best  Friend,"  was  operated  profitably  on  the  South-Carolina  Railroad.     It  was 
built  at  West  Point,  N.Y.,  under  the  direction  of  Mr,  E.  L.  Miller  of  Charles- 
ton, S.C.,  and  was  the  first  one  used  in  the  passenger  and  freight  business  of 
,   ^       the  United  States. 
\^  ^/^     In  1 83 1  the  Mohawk  and  Albany  Railroad  was  opened  to  use.    The  same 
/  Mohawk  and  y*^^""  ^^*^  ^^^^  f"""'"  R't^hmond,  Va.,  to  Chesterfielil,  tiiirtscn  miles 

'^       Albany  Rail-   long,  the  sccond  One  finished  in  the  United  Stat^i,  was  thrown 
^°°  ■  open,  and  a  little  line  five  miles  long  from  New  Orl'^ans  tc  Lak 

Pontchartrain. 

Pennsylvania's  transportation-route  to  the  West  was  undertaken  at  first  d) 

.eStcite  iiself.     Agitation  for  a  railroad  and  canal  beganjn_i8ji^^s  soon  as  it 

was  seen  what  a  blessing  to  New- York  State  the  Erie  Canal  had 

Yir^t  »ail- 

roads  in  become.     Surveys  were  made  ;  and  in  February.  1828.  the  com- 

mittee on  internal  improvements  reported  to  the  lower  house  of 
the  legislature  that  a  railroad  ought  to  be  built  at  once  from  I'iiila- 
delphia  to  I^ncaster  and  Columbia,  and  thence  extended  to  the  West.  They 
said,  "  This  will  accommodate  a  district  of  country,  which,  from  its  i)rolific  soil 
and  rich  cultivation,  is  considered  the  garden  of  our  country.  ...  A  wise 
and  equal  policy  will  require  its  farther  extension  to  the  West,  for  the  purpose 
of  accommodating  the  populous  and  flourishing  counties '  on  the  southern 
boundary,  and  connecting  them  with  our  own  commercial  njetropolis."  Ihe 
State  built  the  railroad  from  Philadelphia  to  Columbia  (eighty-two  miles),  and 
the  portage  road  from  Hollidaysburgh  to  Johnstown,  so  that  they  were  ready 
for  use  in  1832.  It  also  built  a  canal  from  Johnstown  to  Pittsburgh,  the  total 
cost  of  all  these  works  being  twelve  million  dollars.  This  gave  Philadelphia  a 
route  through  to  the  West,  and  enabled  her  to  meet  the  competition  of  other 
cities.    While  these  works  were  in  progress,  a  number  of  small  roads  in  the 


./^^^ 


Pennsylva- 
nia. 


i^n 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


627 


iny  was  delayed 
\y,  which  fought 
ached  the  Ohio 

1827,  to  build  a 
in  order  to  opin 

I  regions  lying  in 
a  wilderness  of 
veys,  as  they  dii.l 
ipon  trestle-work 
ringers.     C'harlcs- 
.     In  1830.  wlicn 
lonths  before  the 
land,  upon  which 
9>e  of  excitement 
,  and  called  "  'Hie 
Railroad.     It  was 
Miller  of  Chadcs- 
frcight  business  of 

to  use.  The  same 
[leld,  thirteen  miles 
kat-'i,  was  thrown 
w  Orl'ians  tc  Luk 

;rtaken  at  first  ny 
T824.JS  soon  as  it 
e  Erie  Canal  had 
V.  102H.  the  com- 
^10  lower  house  of 
once  from  I'hila- 
the  West.    Tiny 
:om  its  prolific  soil 
intry.  ...  A  wise 
;st,  for  the  purpose 
on   the   southern 
njetropolis."     1  li*-' 
ty-two  miles),  and 
|at  they  were  ready 
ittsburgh,  the  total 
rave  Philadelphia  a 
hpetition  of  other 
mall  roads  in  the 


Sduiylkill  mining-region  were  building  through  private  enterprise,  and  one 
from  Philadelphia  to  Germantown  was  chartered  in  1831. 


ANOTIIKK    VIEW   OF   JACK  S   NARROWS. 


Boston's  first  idea  was  to  construct  a  canal  through  the  State  to  the  Hudson 
River  to  connect  with  the  Erie  Canal,  and  thus  secure  an  uninterrupted  waterr 


628 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


New  Jersey. 


route  to  the  most  distant  regions  of  the  West.  But  in  June,  1825,  (Jov.  Lin- 
Massachu-  coln,  in  spcaking  upon  the  matter  to  the  legislature,  said,  "  AnotlKr 
settt.  means  of  communication  lias  been  suggested  by  tiie  construction  of 

railways."  In  June,  1826,  a  committee  was  ajjpointed  by  the  legislature  to 
report  upon  the  (]uestion  of  a  railway  to  the  Hudson.  Various  routes  were 
surveyed.  The  legislature  was  slow,  however,  in  acting,  and  the  business  nun 
of  lloston  became  impatient.  They  visited  New-York  State  to  urge  tiu- 
people  along  the  Ime  of  tiie  Mrie  Canal  to  build  railroads  connecting  Albany 
with  Lake  I-lrie,  and  besieged  their  own  legislature  with  statements  in  regard 
to  the  benefits  to  Massachusetts  of  a  railway  to  connect  with  the  Ncw-Wnk 

\^H  roads  and  canal.     In  1830  companies  were  chartered  to  build  railroads  from 
Boston  to  Proviilence  and  Lowell ;  and  finally,  in  1831,  a  beginning  was  made 

/  f'-  '  in  the  work  of  building  westwardly,  by  a  charter  to  a  company  to  construct 

abroad  to  Worcester;  which  was  immediately  organized,  and  the  road  l)iult 

/S^and  opened  by  July  4,  1835.      l'^^  Western  Railroad  Cor|^oration  was  chiir- 

.  .   teretl  in  1833  to  build  from  Worcester  to  the  Hudson.     The  work  was  con- 

' "  "^ '  sidered  to  be  of  such  public  utility,  that  the  State  lent  to  the  comi)any  at 

different  times  State  scrip  for  sums  which  amounted  in  the  end  to  four  million 

dollars. 

Whire   those   lines  were   building,   a  communication   was   being  created 
across  the  State  of  New  Jersey  by  the  Camden  and  Amboy  Rail- 
road, between  the  cities  of  New  York  and   Philadelphia.     The 
road  was  begun  in  1831,  and  finished  in  1834. 

At  the  same  time  several  short  lines  were  building  in  New-York  State,  — 
among  them  being  the  Utica  and  Schenectady,  chartered  in   1833,  and  the 
Other  linei     Albany  and  Syracuse,  chartered  in  1834,  —  with  the  design  of  stim- 
buiit  in  New  ulating  the  construction  of  other  connecting  railroads,  which  should 
*"  '  eventually  give  the  State  a  complete  through  line  from  Albany  to 

Lake  Erie.  It  is  an  interesting  fact,  that  even  in  that  early  period,  in  1830, — in 
fact,  when  there  were  only  twenty-three  miles  of  railroad  in  operation  on  this 
whole  continent, — the  great  project  of  a  railroad  from  the  State  of  New  York  to 
the  Mississippi  River  at  St.  Louis  had  been  conceived  by  De  Witt  Clinton,  and 
publicly  advocated  in  a  little  pamphlet,  of  which  only  a  few  rare  copies  are 
now  preserved.  The  road  was  to  be  about  a  thousand  miles  long,  and  to 
cost  fifteen  million  dollars.  It  was  too  vast  a  project,  however,  for  the 
resources,  and  even  the  needs,  of  that  age  ;  and  the  only  real  outcome  of  the 
proposition  was  the  beginning  of  a  chain  of  railroads  through  New- York  State 
to  Lake  Erie,  above  noted.  In  the  two  lines  above  referred  to,  Boston  capital 
was  invested ;  for  it  was  foreseen,  that,  if  the  new  agency  for  transportation 
fulfilled  the  expectations  of  its  advocates,  the  disadvantages  of  Boston's  geo- 
graphical position  wotild  be  annihilated,  and  the  future  all-rail  route  to  the 
West  would  be  of  great  advaritage  to  her.  Besides  the  two  lines  above  men- 
tioned in  New- York  State  as  then  building,  there  were  also  the  Ithaca  and 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


639 


Oswego,  the  Canandaigua  Railway,  a  line  from  the  Hudson  to  meet  the  Wcblern 
Railroad  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  few  other  small  local  lines. 

The  science  of  building  and  operating  railroads  was  not  well  understood 
(luring  the  first  ten  years  of  their  existence,  and  many  wild  and  erroneous 
imtions  were  entertained  in  regard  to  tlieni.     Roads 
wire  planned  to  be  built  on  routes  run-   science o( 
nii)g  over  mountains  and  vales   that   a  raHfoad 

1  111  r  I.I        I  .       building  very 

Stage-coach  would  have  found  it  hard  to   imperfect 

pass.     One   of  the   very   early   charters   durinu  fint 
};ranted  in  New-York  State  was  for  a  rail- 
road from  Catskill  to  Ithaca  direct.    This  was  in 
1.S28;   and,  in  the  ten  years  following,  api)lications 
were  made  at  .Mbany  for  charters  for  about  a  hundred 
•nml  forty  different  companies,  of  which  nuniber  only 
twenty-one  ever  built  the  roads  respectively  projected 
by  them.     It  \vas  not  known  for  many  years  whether 
to  tre.it   the   locomotive   .as   a   toy   or   a   madiine. 
Morses  were  doing  so  well  on  all   the  railroads  in 
operation,  that  it  was  supposed  they  would  not  be 
superseded.     On  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Road   a    :, 
single   horse  would  draw  a  hundred  barrels  of  flour    r 
loaded  upon  four  cars  at  a  speed  oi  seven  miles  an    ^ 
JKUir.     Experiments  were  m.iking  with  locomotives    " 
.It  Philadelphia  and  West  Point,  and  several  of  these 
machines  were  imported  from  England  to  test  their 
abilities.     But  even  as  late  as  1832,  when  Mr.  liald- 
win  of  Philadelphia  had  jJrocUiced   nis  lirst  engine, 
'■  The  Ironsides,"  for  the  (]ermantown  road,  and  it 
had  .attained    a  speed  of   thirty  miles  an  hour,  its 
utility  was  so  much  in  doubt,  that  the  following  ad- 
vertisement appeared  in  a  Philadelphia  newsjiaper : 
''Notice.  —  The- locomotive-engine  (built  by  M.  W. 
Baldwin  of  this  city)   will  depart  daily,  when  the 
wctither  is  fair,  with  a  train  of  jiassenger-cars.     On 
rainy  days,  horses  toill  be  attache,!."    The  engine  was 
treated  merely  .as  a  curiosity.     The  ])roblem  of  the 
locomotive  w.as  solved  in  li^x^.  bv  "The  Lancaster" 
of  Mr.  Baldwin's  make,  and  Peimsylvania  resolved 

to  adopt  that  sort  of  motive-power  for  her  raiIro.id  to  Colum1)ia.  But  even 
then  there  were  many  things  about  an  engine  not  understood ;  and  constant 
experiment  and  expenditure  of  money  h.ad  to  be  resorted  to  before  the  requi- 
•site  knowledge  W£is  obtained. 

In  order  to  facilitate  the  building  of  railroads,  the  States  at  first  extended 


630 


JND  US  TKIA  /,    Ills  TOKY 


5M' 


to  the  companioH  buildint;  tliom  direct  aid  either  from  the  pnhlic  treasiirj ,  -ir 
Granting  of  l)y  a  loan  of  thc  public  rn-dit.  There  was  a  generous  j;I(iw  uf 
public  md.  interest  in  them  in  the  piililic  mind.  'I'Ik'  patriots  never  n.iilm.d 
for  a  Koiirtli-orjiily  c'leliration  or  a  puliiie  dinner  without  drinkinj;  a  Ikmhv 
toast  to  internal  improvements.  The  pa|)ers  were  lull  of  rhapsodies  upon  ilio 
nianii  of  the  new  idea  ;  and  orators  in  ])ul)lic  asseml)la^;es,  and  in  the  ( .iiiiinU 
of  the  state  and   nation,  felt  that   they  had  well  earned  the  puMic  ^ratiinili- 


INTERIOK  OF  SI.F.EPINr.-CAR. 


by  the  ardor  of  their  advocacy  of  railroads,  canafs,  and  military  roads. 
Such  being  the  state  of  the  jjublic  mind,  every  railroad  enterprise  wisely  'on- 
ceived  and  ])rudently  conducted  found  it  easy  to  obtain  State  aid  to  mu  h 
reasona!)le  amount  as  would  enable  its  promoters  to  accomplish  their  work. 
Maryh'nd  was  the  first  State  in  the  country  to  grant  legislative  aid  to  railroads. 
In  1S28  the  smn  of  {5500,000  was  granted  to  the  Haltimore  and  Ohio  line; 
and  in  1835  the  State  subscribed  ?'i3,ooo,ooo  to  the  stock  of  the  comp;my, 
and  thc  city  of  Ualtiniore  $3,000,000  more.     Massachusetts  loaned  $4,000,000 


:^'mn 


Oh     THE    UMTIlli    STATES. 


631 


pulilic  treasury,  <^\ 
I  gencri)iis  ^Inu  y\i 
lots  ncviT  gaihnvd 
.  drinking  a  in  iiiv 
Kipsodics  ii|M)ii  iho 

and  in  tilt'  <  .iiuiiils 
111'  pnlijic  ^ratilmk' 


ind  military  roads. 
Uorjjrisc  wisely  'on- 
Statc  aid  to  Muh 
•()nii)lish  llii-ir  \Mirk. 
ivf  aid  to  raiinKuis. 
ore  and  Ohio  line ; 
;k  of  the  company, 
s  loaned  54,000,000 


to  ilie  Boston  and  Albany  line.  New  York  followed  her  example  by  loaning 
small  sums  to  the  different  companies  building  the  (  hain  of  roads  out  to  Lake 
I'rir,  —  a  stop  which  the  panic  of  1837  made  necessary  in  part,  since  it  dis- 
(oiir.i^ed  the  investment  of  private  (ai)ital.  I'ennsylvania  went  so  far  as  to 
liuild  her  first  rail-route  from  I'hiladelpiiia  to  Coiiunhia  with  its  l)ran(  lies,  and 
the  I  inal  route  on  to  I'ittsburgh,  at  her  own  expense.  The  wealthy  State 
of  \'ii,i;iiiii  constructed  the  iilue- Ridge  Railroad   on  her  own   account,  and 


i-«.iJ 


INTERIOR  01'    FASSENCF.K-CAK. 


sul>MNiuenily  subscr  '>ed  to  the  stock  of  several  lines;  while  Kentucky  loaned 
her  ( redit  for  railroad-building  repeatedly.  South  Carolina  loaned  {?ioo,ooo> 
to  her  first  road.  'I'he  object  of  these  proceedings  was,  in  the  main,  simplv  to 
assist  private  enterprise  ;  and  the  total  amount  of  aid  granted  was  a  very  ',r,iall 
I'art  of  the  total  capital  invested,  being  probably  less  than  ten  i)er  cent.  The 
works  were,  in  the  main,  left  to  private  enterprise. 

Hiiring  this  decade  several  railroads  were  projected  in  Canada  and  the 
iiritish  IVovinces.     'The  (Ireat  Western  Railway  took  its  origin  in  one  of  these 


\ 


j  if- 


'''  -n.., 


'^'■rri"  >'  -wJi!\ 


C'. 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


IS,     / 


projects,  —  the  London  and  Gore  Railroad  Company,  wiiicii  was  chartered 

iiroad    in  '"  ^^3'i-     Nothing  \va'  ever  done  with  that  charter;  and  the  plan 

Canada  and     was  re-organized  in  1845  as  the  Great  Western  Company,  in  order 

British  Prov-   to  provide  for  a  road  from  the  Niagara  to  Lake  Huron,  and  thus 

inces.  tj  7  ■ 

secure  an  all-rail  route  from  the  West,  through  Canada  and  the 
United  States,  to  the  seaboard  at  Boston.  The  road  was  built  under  this  latter 
ciiarter.  A  line  from  St.  Andrew's  in  New  Brunswick  to  Quebec  was  pro- 
posed in  1835,  and  the  home  government  set  apart  ^^  10,000  to  make  the 
surveys  for  it  through  what  was  then  a  perfect  wilderness.  One-fifth  of 
the  sum  was  expended,  and  further  expenditures  were  then  stopped  tuitil 
the  boundary-question  with  .America  could  be  settled.  Work  on  the  road 
was  resumed  in  1847.  The  Erie  and  Niagara  Company  was  also  chartered 
in  1835. 

Rapid  transit  was  a  subject  as  much  talked  about  in  those  early  days  as 
in  these  more  modern  times,  when  a  net-work  of  railroad-lines  and  telegrapii- 
Great  inter  ^^'''^'s  traverses  the  country  in  every  direction,  and  transportation 
est  displayed  and  travel  engage  in  an  eager  race  against  time.  Lines  of  mail- 
in  subject  of    (-QafjiiL's  were  arranged  to  run  in  connection  with  steamboats,  and 

rapid  transit.  ^ 

every  fresh  victory  over  time  and  sjjace  was  heralded  in  tlie 
public  Hints  with  enthusiasm.  In  1821  it  was  announced  as  a  specimen  of 
rapid  travelling,  that  the  distance  between  New  York  and  Providence  had 
been  trave"sed  in  tw^'nty-fue  hours  by  steamboat  and  stage.  In  1824  it 
rpfjiiirpd  gf'yfnty-one  hours  and  a  half  '9  gp  frn\r\,  faij^""  to  Washington ; 
and  that  was  quick  time  too,  the  usual  time  being  about  eighty  hours.  It 
recpiired  nineteen  days  to  go  from  Philadelphia  to  Natchez,  and  tweiijiji:- 
four  days  to  go  to  Ne\v_()rleans.  \\'hen  Baltimore  was  broi'.giit  within  fifty- 
four  hours  of  Saratoga  Springs,  it  was  regarded  as  a  great  achievement. 
These  specimens  of  rapid  travelling  were  due  to  the  improvement  of  the 
wagon-roads  and  the  employment  of  steam  on  the  rivers.  They  stimulated 
travel  gready ;  and  in  1825  it  was  announced  as  a  gratifying  and  remarkable 
event,  that,  during  the  Fourth-of-July  celebration  at  Philadelphia  that  year, 
three  hundred  New-Yorkers  were  said  to  have  been  in  the  city ;  and  in  New- 
York  State  as  many  as  forty  coach-loads  of  passengers  were  then  ariving 
every  day  at  .Mbany  by  the  great  turnpi!;e  ruiming  out  to  tlic  western  part  of 
/j  the  State.  After  1832  this  class  of  items  disappeared  from  the  coliunns  of  die 
newspapers,  and  a  new  variety  appeared.  Rapid  travelling  by  rail  became 
the  exciting  topic  then,  and  astonisliing  runs  from  one  city  to  another  over 
the  new  stjle  of  road  were  recorded  in  the  prints  in  place  of  the  exploits 
of  th«  mail-coaches.  Even  with  cars  drawn  by  horses,  time  was  at  once 
reduced  one-half  from  the  best  achievements  of  the  stages,  and,  as  soon  as 
locomotives  began  to  be  used,  to  one-fourth  and  less.  Wonder  and  curiosity 
fdled  the  publi-.;  mind  at  the  i)erformances  of  the  new  scr\-aiit  of  man.  The 
papers  never  tired  of  talking  about  theiu.     Crowds  flocked  to  the  railroads 


.11  was  chartered 
2r ;  and  the  plan 
ompany,  in  order 
Huron,  and  ilms 
C'anada  and  tlie 
t  under  this  latter 
Quebec  was  pro- 
300  to  make  the 
s.  One-fifth  of 
;n  stopped  until 
ork  on  the  road 
as  also  chartered 

ose  early  days  as 
:s  and  telegraph - 
nd  transportation 
.     Lines  of  niail- 
I  steamboats,  and 
heralded   in   the 
s  a  s])e(;imen  of 
Providence  had 
ige.     In   1824  it 
I  to  Washington ; 
eighty  hours.     It 
lez,  and  tweiitj,- 
'ght  within  fifty- 
it   achievement, 
rovenient  of  the 
'I'hey  stimulated 
and  remarkable 
,'lphia  that  year, 
y  ;  and  in  New- 
re  then  ar-iving 
western  part  of 
.'  coliunns  of  the 
l)y  rail  becanie 
to  another  over 
of  the  exploits 
lie  was  at  once 
and,  as  soon  as 
ler  and  curiosity 
t  of  man.    The 
to  the  railroads 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


633 


jSiliM, 


IKWISroN   NAKRnVVH,   PENN. 


I 

n 


il^ 


p! 


634 


/A'D  L'S  TRIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


to  see  the  locomotives  go  by ;  and  hundreds  of  people  went  travelling  who 
till  now  had  had  a  horror  of  the  long,  rough,  fatiguing  voyages  by  stage.  'l"he 
locomotive  was  hailed  by  all  travellers  with  delight.  It  did  not  reduce  tlie 
cost  of  travel  materially ;  but  it  increased  the  speed,  and  it  gave  an  unwonted 
stimulus  to  travel  and  business-operations  wherever  it  ran.  Railroad-travelling 
has  now  so  improved,  that,  in  1875,  the  run  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco 
was  maile  in  three  days  and  a  half;  which  was  nbout  the  length  of  time  it 
formerly  took  to  go  irom  Boston  to  Washinjjton. 

The  reduction  in  the  cost  of  transportation  by  railroads  was  enormous. 
No  line  twenty  miles  long  was  constructed  anywnere  without  enabling  farmers 
to  send  their  cider,  potatoes,  apples,  cheese,  and  produce  generally,  to  town 
at  from  a  half  to  a  cjuarter  of  what  it  had  cost  them  previously.  It  enabled 
farmers  to  sell  vast  (piantities  of  produce,  wiiich,  before  that,  would  not  pay  the 
cost  of  transportation.  Freight  from  Philadelphia  to  Pittsburgh  was  —  by  the 
railroad  to  Columbia,  and  the  canal  thence  to  tiic  city  last  named  —  reduced 
from  a  hundred  dollarsto  thirty  dollars  a  ton.  It  was  calculated  in  Maryland, 
from  the  experienceof  the  first  low  sections  of  the  road  building  out  to  tlie 
Ohio,  that,  when  the  line  reached  Cumberland,  the  freight  upon  coal,  tiien 
several  dollars  a  ton,  would  be  retluced  to  one  cent ;  and  in  South  Carolina 
the  railroad  to  the  interior  was  found  to  enable  the  i)lanters  to  send  their 
cotton  to  the  seaport  at  a  few  cents  a  bale,  when  it  had  previously  cost  them 
from  three  to  four  dollars  to  gel  it  down  by  the  rough  antl  swampy  wagon- 
roads. 

The  reduction  in  the  expense  of  transportation  by  means  of  railroads  is  not 
the  only  benefit  conferred  by  them.  By  their  creation  it  became  practicable 
to  cultivate  the  soil  far  away  from  rivers  and  lakes,  and  which  to-day  woukl  be 
lying  in  native,  untamed  wildness  excc|>t  {ox  these  mighty  agents  of  civili/ation. 
The  railroads  long  ago  surpassed  the  rivers  in  importance  as  highways,  render- 
ing it  possible  to  acq"ire  from  every  inch  of  the  national  domain  whatever 
riches  it  may  i)ossess. 

These  achievements  of  the  railroads  and  the  performances  of  the  locomo- 
tives, after  1834,  finally  demonstrated  the  va'.ne  of  this  new  agency  01  transpor- 
Superiority  tatiou.  Its  Superior  speed,  cheapness,  and  comfort  were  fully 
of  railroads,  proved,  and,  in  fact,  surpassed  all  prediction  ;  and  there  was 
great  confidence  that  the  defects  of  the  roads  and  tracks  and  rolling-stock 
would  be  corrected  just  as  fist  as  inventors  gave  their  attention  to  them.  .\ 
passion  for  railroad-building  accordingly  set  in.  A  v.i^t  number  of  companies 
were  formed  in  all  the  older  States  to  open  up  rail-communication  between  all 
the  thickly-settled  regio'^'j  of  the  country  ;  and,  as  fast  as  population  advamed 
westward,  the  locomotive  followed  it  closely,  and  united  the  cities  of  the  new 
States  to  their  sisters  in  the  K.ist  with  the  iron  bands  of  civilization.  How 
rapid  has  been  the  progress  will  appear  from  the  following  table,  showing  the 
mileage  of  railway-construction  in  the  United  States  since  1S30  ;  — 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


635 


;nt  travelling  who 
es  by  stage.  'I'he 
d  not  reduce  the 
gave  an  unwonted 
Railroad-travelling 
to  San  Francisco 
length  of  time  it 

ds  was  enormous, 
it  enabling  farmers 
generally,  to  town 
iously.     It  enabled 

would  not  pay  the 
)urgh  was  —  by  the 

named  —  reduced 
lated  in  Maryland, 
building  out  to  the 
it  upon  coal,  then 
1  in  South  Carolina 
Iters  to  send  their 
reviously  cost  them 
lid  swampy  wagon- 

s  of  railroads  is  not 
)ecanie  practicable 
to-day  would  be 
jcnts  of  civilization, 
highwajs,  render- 
domain  whatever 


1S30 
183 1 
1S3: 
i!<33 

>.S35 
KS36 

1837 
183S 

1S39 
1840 
1841 
1842 

1S43 
1844 
1S45 
1S46 
1S47 


184S 
1849 
1850 
1S51 
1852 
'S53 
i!S54 
1855 
1856 
1S57 
1S58 
1 8  59 
i860 
1S61 
1862 
.863 
1S64 
1S65 

isr)6 

1867 

iSf)8 
1SG9 
iS;o 
1S71 
.S72 

'•^73 
1S7, 
.8;, 
1876 


mii.es  in 

ANNUAL  INCREA3B 

Ol'EKATlON. 

OF  MILEAGB. 

23 

.... 

95 

72 

229 

■34 

380 

«S' 

633 

253 

1,098 

465 

'.273 

175 

'.497 

224 

'.9' 3 

416 

2,302 

389       • 

2,818 

5.6 

3.535 

7'7 

4,026 

491 

4,185 

•59 

4.377 

192 

4.633 

256 

4.9.^0 

297 

s.sys 

668 

S.9'J6 

398 

7,365 

1,36$ 

9.021 

1,656 

I0,<>S2 

f.96r 

12,908 

1,926 

'S.360 

2,452 

16,720 

1,360 

i«.374 

1,654 

22,016 

3,642 

24.503 

2,487 

26,9fvS 

2,465 

2S,7.S9 

1,821 

30,635 

1,846 

3 '.286 

051 

32,120 

834 

33. '70 

1.050 

33.908 

738 

35.085 

1,117 

36,827 

1,742 

39.276 

-'.449 

42.25s 

2.979 

47.208 

4.953 

52.898 

5,690 

60,568 

7,670 

66,735 

6,167 

70340 

4,105 

7«.74« 

1,901 

74.658 

'.9»7 

77^470 

2,812 

^36 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


V  :> 


To  the  total  mileage  for  1876  should  also  be  added  the  mileage  of  Canada, 
Miles  built  which  is  4,929,  because  those  railways  substantially  belong  to  and 
during  Bfty  form  an  integral  part  of  the  American  system  of  railway-com- 
''""■  munication.       In   fifty  years  82,443  miles  of  railroad  were  Imik 

and  put   in   practical  operation ;    or,  computing  the  length  of  track  upon 


CONf.M/M(,H     VlAUUCr. 


these  roads,  —  co mting  in  sidings,  double  and  (luadniple  tracks,  &:c.,  —  9S.77,? 
mil'^  of  railroa'';  track  were  laid  on  tiiis  continent  North  of  the  Rio  (liamlc 
in  simply  a  lialf-century  of  effort.  None  of  the  richer  and  older  nations  (an 
present  a  record  like  this. 

'be  following  shows  the  distribution  of  the  railroads  to  the  different  Slates 
and  Territories  in  1876  ;  — 


;T»n'T'T'P'*i 


;age  of  Canada, 
y  belong  to  and 
)f  railway-con I- 
oad  were  bmlt 
of  track  upi,:. 


cs,  &c.,  — 98,77,] 
the  Rio  (liindc 
ider  nations  (.ui 

e  different  Siateu 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


637 


EQUU'MENT  OF  KOADS  OWNED  AND  CONTROLLED. 

MU.F-S  OF 
ROAU. 

STATES. 

LOCOMOTIVES 

CARS. 

COST  OK  ROAU 

1,000 

167 

AND  liQl,lPMENT» 

Maine 

2,8 1 1 

545.314.005 

New  Hampshire 

940 

J2S 

2,728 

23,714,859. 

Vermont  . 

810 

197 

3.038 

33.585.33s 

Rhode  Island 

IS.J 

37 

291 

6,129,023 

Connecticut 

91  s 

260 

4.833 

52,912,022 

Massachusetts 

'.837 

77" 

17,841 

124,675,669. 

New  York 

S.525 

1,667 

ti,i6S 

42i,593..iOi 

New  Jersey 

1,601 

7S7 

23.838 

146,795,016 

Delaware . 

28s 

2 

35 

5,027,202 

Pennsylvania 

5.983 

2.247 

97,f>67 

386,891,860 

Maryland . 

1,107 

762 

»9.37'J 

100,073,120 

Virginia    . 

1,649 

288 

5-252 

89,774,065 

West  Virginia 

584 

- 

5 

163,000 

North  Carolina 

1.570 

116 

'.434 

37.023,418 

South  Carolina 

'.353 

162 

i,SuS 

37.295.123 

Florida     . 

484 

32 

282 

17,420,000 

Georgia    . 

2,306 

3t8 

4.643 

62,038,201 

Alabama  . 

".738 

184 

2,442 

70,641,120 

Mississippi 

1,0.(4 

132 

^^-s^i 

27,302,035 

Louisiana 

539 

•52 

2,280 

48,198,667 

Texas 

2,085 

.84 

3.552 

79,037,900 

Ohio 

4.687 

1,749 

38.225 

373.944.388 

Indiana    . 

4.003 

7'>8 

i6,5<4 

194,496,511 

Illinois     . 

7.285 

1,645 

41,128 

4i5  777,t43 

Kentucky 

',475 

299 

5.030  . 

76,655,260 

Tennessee 

1,645 

>3' 

1,649 

29,555,822 

Arkansis, 

78S 

28 

307 

t, 88  [,.400 

Missouri  , 

3. '46 

543 

16,304 

^458.579 

Iowa 

3.939 

150 

3.25' 

36,352.984 

Wisconsin 

2,707 

291 

6,404 

1  i,728,24i> 

Michigan . 

3.395 

491 

12,569 

1 39,866,082 

Minnesota 

2,020 

'53 

4.039 

79.754.596 

Kansas     . 

2.23S 

217 

4,aSo 

92.523-557 

Nebraska 

i.tso 

34 

728 

19.578.755 

Colorado  . 

957 

30 

57 

30.694.150 

Dakota     . 

275 

4 

74 

12,700,000 

Utah 

5'S 

31 

573 

8,2i,,00O 

Wyoming 
Nevada    . 

459 
680 

33 

713 

4,650,000 

California 

1,919 

80 

2,909 

64,705,<)0() 

Orej^on     . 

251 

«4 

231 

7,361,664 

Indian  Countr) 
Washington 

279 
no 

9 

17' 

6,000.000 

Union-Pacific 

1,038 

168 

3.227 

1 1 5,2 1.1,588 

Central-Pacific 

1,212 

77.470 

228 

4,401 

I4.'!,630,283 

Total 

• 

15,618 

399.924 

$4,087,253,225 

1     .    .      

liclS'lifl 


! 


ml 


^^'^*t|iff! 


I.  t^~:■  ■  "     (i'    1 


4'ti 


638 


IND  US  TKIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


^i*;f>«W.i 


■V     : 


PPI^WPI 


OF    THE    UiVITED    STATES. 


639 


Thus,  in  the  space  of  fifty  years,  there  has  been  expended  in  this  new  and 
wild  country  the  enormous  sum  of  $4,087,253,225  in  building  railroads  be- 
tween the  different  parts  of  our  domain.    That  so  young  a  country,  without 


iHiQims  KiirK. 


wraith,  without  capital,  a  region  inhabited  almost  exclusively  at  first  by  farmers 
and  planters,  should  have  displayed  such  remarkable  resources  of  costof 
cajjital,  will  not  appear  wonderful,  however,  when  it  is  explained   r"*'''o»<'*- 
huw  the  capital  was  obtained.     In  the  early  days  of  railroading  it  was  fd'  that 


640 


INDUSTRIAL    111  STORY 


)^ 


enterprises  of  such  magnitude  as  were  then  proposed  could  only  be  c  anird 
How  money  on  by  the  aid  of  the  people ;  and  accordingly  public  nuctincs 
was  raised,  ^yg^e  held  in  the  cities  and  villages  through  which  the  roads  were 
to  run,  and  the  best  speakers  of  the  day  were  engaged  to  awaken  the  imprest 
of  all  substantial  citizens  in  the  public  and  private  advantages  of  th,"  ro.ids. 
Subscriptions  to  the  stock  of  the  conii)anies  took  the  form,  thercfuri.',  nl  .1 
popular  movement;  and  it  was  the  characteristic  of  the  early  railrca(l-i!)in- 
panies,  that  a  vast  number  of  small  sums  saved  by  industry  anil  frugality  were 
invested  in  them.  'I'he  State  legislatures  aided  many  of  them,  a',  wc  ha\e 
seen,  by  grants  of  credit  and  money.  A  part  of  the  capital  to  build  tiic  mads 
was  also  obtained  in  Loiulon,  whither  the  agents  of  the  principal  lines  \\Lie 
sent,  even  in  the  very  infancy  of  their  respective  enterprises,  to  see  what  (duld 
be  done  in  the  way  of  borrowing  money.  As  railroad-extension  becainc  a 
popular  furore,  borrowing  capital  in  London  became  a  haint ;  and  the  risult 
has  been,  that,  in  the  course  of  these  fifty  years,' a  sum  of  money,  estimated 
at  not  less  than  ;>40o,ooo,ooo,  has  been  obtained  in  England  and  Kuropu  Ibr 
the  building  of  our  American  railroads.  A  large  part  of  the  money  tiuis 
invested  by  foreign  capitalists  was  transmitted  to  the  United  States  in  the  form 
of  railroad-iron.  The  manufacture  of  rails  was  in  its  infancy  in  this  country; 
antl  England  supplied  us,  until  about  five  years  ago,  with  nearly  all  the  mils 
laid  down  here.  Locomotives  and  cars  we  built  ourselves ;  but  we  did  not 
Importation  have  the  flictories  to  make  jyon  r^ils.  From  1840  to  1877  tlare 
o(  rails.  ■^txii  imported  from    Isn^land   q, 200,000   tons  of  rails,  being  a 

iarge  proportion  of  the  whole  quantity  used.  The  cost  of  the  rails  imported 
was  something  over  ^200,000,000,  the  price  per  ton  being  at  times  excessive. 
In  18C4  it  ran  up  one  month  to  a  hundred  and  fiftY-f'^nr  «lnl1,ii-g  |wr  ton, 
though  sinking  back  next  year  ^0  "'i^h^yth'"*^^  doU.irs,  flr^^^  mnpinfr  down  in 
1876  to-farty  dollars  a  ton,  which  is  more  nearly  their  legitimate  value,  iart 
of  the  capital  for  Ijuilding  the  roads  in  the  new  States  of  the  West  was  loii- 
tributed  outright  by  the  General  Government  of  Washington  in  the  form  of 
large  grants  of  the  public  lands,  by  the  pledge  of  which  the  companies  were 
enabled  to  raise  millions  of  money  which  they  could  not  have  otherwise 
secured.  This  policy  of  land-grants  began  in  1850.  The  State  of  Illinois  iuul 
projected  a  grand  system  of  canals  and  railroads  in  1837,  one  feature  of  which 
was  to  be  a  rail-route  from  Chicago  to  Cairo  through  the  central  portioii  of 
the  State.  The  Central  Road  was  begun,  and  ;!;3, 5 00,000  spent  upon  it  I>y 
the  State,  when  bankruptcy  overtook  the  enterprise,  and  work  was  stopiicd. 
Congres-  I"  '^50.  Congress,  in  a  liberal  and  wise  spirit,  granted  to  the  State 
of  Illinois  every  alternate  section  of  the  public  lands  on  each  side 
of  the  i)rojected  road  and  its  branches,  six  sections  in  width,  to 
assist  in  carrying  it  forward  to  completion,  —  a  grant  which  comprised  2,595,000 
acres  of  land,  an  area  larger  than  the  State  of  Connecticut.  The  same  law 
made  grants  of  the  same  description  to  Alabama  and  Mississippi  for  the  exten- 


sional 
giants 


only  be  carried 
public:  iiu'ftiiij,'s 
li  the  roads  wxre 
akcn  tlie  interest 
es  of  th  •  ro.uK. 
,  thcrcfurc,  ot  a 
rly  railrcad-i  1)111- 
nd  I'nigalily  were 
leni,  a',  \vc  have 
J  buikl  tiie  roads 
icipal  lines  wire 

0  see  wbat  cduld 
Mision  became  a 
;  and  the  result 
noney,  estimated 

1  and  Kuroi)e  for 
the  money  tlnis 
Itates  in  the  form 
■  in  this  country  ; 
;arly  all  the  rails 
;  but  we  did  not 
40  to  1877  lliere 
)f  rails,  being  a 
he  rails  imjiorted 

times  excessive, 
dnljjrs  per  ton, 
iliiping  down  in 
late  value,     i'art 
ic  West  was  con- 
in  the  form  of 
companies  were 
have  otherwise 
.te  of  Illinois  iiad 
feature  of  wiiich 
ntral  portion  of 
pent  upon  it  I)y 
)rk  was  stopped. 
nted  to  the  Slate 
nds  on  each  side 
ions  in  widtli,  to 
iprised  2,595,000 
The  same  law 
)pi  for  the  exten- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

sioii  of  the  railroad  from  Cairo  to  Mobile.  In  1851 
Illinois  incorporated  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad 
witii  a  capital  of  $1,000,000,  and  turned  the  land- 
grant  over  to  the  company  in  fee-simple,  stipulating 
only  that  the  company  should  i)ay  5^oo,ooo  at  the 
start  into  the  public  treasury,  and  five  per  cent  on 


641 


the  gross  earnings  an- 
nually thereafter.    The 
c  o  ni  J)  a  n  y    took    the 
lands,  built   the   road 
with  them,  and  proveci 
the  wisdom  of  the  new 
policy  of  the  govern- 
ment by  paying  to  the 
State  nearly  $500,000  per  annum  ever  afterwards  as  its  share  of  the  gross  earn- 
ings of  the  road,  and  by  doubling  the  value  of  the  previously  unsold  govern- 
ment-lands in  the  State  of  Illinois.     Those  lands  had  been  previously  held  at 


BRIIKiE. — CONEWAGO   CREEK. 


''  ::t-i^: 


■■''r^ii 


"▼••.'wr  (« 


642 


IND  US  TRIA  L    II  IS  TOK  Y 


a  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  per  acre,  and  could  not  find  buyers.  After  the 
building  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  they  all  sold  for  two  dollars  and  fitiy 
cents  per  acre,  and  the  government  realized  $9,000,000  for  lands  whic  h  had 
been  valueless  before  they  felt  the  magic  breath  of  the  locomotive.  'I'his 
policy  of  the  government  was  based  upon  the  iilea,  first,  of  developing  ilie 
fertile  lands  of  the  West  by  affording  the  facilities  for  and  inviting  immigra- 
tion ;  and,  secondly,  upon  the  idea  of  enhancing  the  value  of  its  own  lands  hy 
the  process  of  settlement.  So  completely  was  all  anticipation  realized,  llnit 
popular  sentiment  strongly  favored  the  granting  of  lands  to  railroads;  ami  it 
is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  people  have  been  more  willing  to  make  laiiil 
donations  than  the  companies  have  been  to  accept  them,  as  appears  from  liie 


TRACK   AM)   TUACK-TANK. 


circumstance  that  over  4,000,000  of  acres  have  been  given  up  b;  liic  (om- 
panies,  and  surrendered  to  the  government.  These  gifts,  however,  iiavc  1,'i'cn 
so  badly  abused  in  many  cases,  that  public  sentiment  within  a  few  years  lias 
undergone  a  radical  change  in  respect  to  the  recipients,  and  a  marked  disin- 
clination has  shown  itself  in  political  platforms  and  the  action  of  Congress  to 
granting  any  considerable  portion  of  the  national  domain  in  the  future  for 
railroad-purposes.  This  renewal  of  interest  in  the  public  lands,  and  better 
appreciation  of  their  value,  is  one  of  the  favorable  signs  of  national  regen- 
eration. The  extent  to  which  Congress  has  provided  the  railroad-comi)anies 
of  the  United  States  with  capital  is  exhibited  by  the  following  table  of  land 
concessions  from  1850  to  1876  :  — 


-}l)i^ 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


643 


lyers.  After  the 
dollars  ami  filty 
lands  whii  li  liad 
jcomotivc.  This 
if  developing  llic 
inviting  immi^rj- 
■  its  own  lands  liy 
,ion  realized,  llial 

railroads ;  and  it 
ng  to  make  lanil 

appears  from  the 


en  up  1);  tin;  <  om- 
lowever,  have  bocu 
lin  a  few  years  has 
nd  a  marked  disin- 
tion  of  Congress  to 
111  in  the  future  for 
c  lands,  and  l)Cttcr 
of  national  regen- 
railroad-comi)anies 

owing  table  of  land 


STATU. 


Illlnoit  .■•• 
Miuiuippi* 


Al.ibania. 


Flurida  . .  ■ 

Louisiana. 
Aik.insas . 


Missouri 


Iowa 


Miihignn. .. . 


DATE  OP  GRANT. 


Miilil^an  (Res, 
Wisconsin  • . . . 


Sept, 
Sept. 
Sept. 
Aug. 
AiiK. 
Sept. 
M.iy 
Jimu 
June 
June 
June 
June 
M^y 
.M,iy 
M..y 
M;iy 
June 
June 
Vet.. 
July 
Tel). 
July 
Kel.. 
July 
July 
June 
June 
Kel). 

July 

July 
.M..y 
I  June 
M..y 
June 
M.iy 
June 
May 
.\l..y 
May 
May 
June 
June 
June 
June 
June 
June 
June 
March  3 
July  5 
J  line  3 
June      3 


15, 


COMPANY. 


850 

8  50 

850 

856 

8;6 
850 
856 
856 
856 
8;6 
flji) 
85(> 
8,6 
85*. 
850 
8  id 
fiSd 
8511 
8sJ 
8ij(> 

85.) 
8tin 

8rl 
8(>(i 
Slid 
8si 
853 

asj 

86(> 
860 
8,6 
864 
850 
8114 
85" 
804 
856 
85b 
864 
864 
856 
855 
856 
856 
856 
864 
S56 
865 
863 
856 
856 


Illinois  Central 

tMohile  and  Chicago 

.Mobile  and  Uhin  Kivcr 

Vick>il>ur|{  and  Meridian 

Ciuir  and  Ship  Island 

Mobile  and  Ohio  Kiver 

Alaktnia  and  Florida 

Selnia,  Kome,  and  Dallon 

Coosa  and  Tennessee 

Mobile  .ind  (Jirar.l 

Alabama  uul  Chattanoog.t 

South  and  North  Alabama 

Klorul.i  Railroad 

Florid. I  and  Alab.ima 

I  Vnsatol.i  and  ( ie)iri;ia 

Florida,  .Atlantic,  anil  (lull  (..enlral 

North  l.iuiisiana  and  Texas 

New  Orle.uis,  Upelousas,  and  (I't  Western, 

(-'.liro  anil  Fulton 

C.iiro  atid  Fulton 

Memphis  and  Lillle  Riu.k 

Mem|jlus  and  I.iiile  Rock 

Little  Kork  and  Fort  Suiiih 

l.ittle  Rotk  and  Fort  Smith 

Iron  .Mount. tin 

Mannib.d  .uul  St.  Joseph 

Pacitio  and  .Southwest  liianih 

C-'.iiro  and  Fulton 

Cairo  an<l  Fulton 

St.  I.ouis  and  Iron  Mountain 

Iturlitij^ton  and  Missouri  River 

nurliuKton  and  .Missouri  Riser 

C'hi»:aKo,  Rock  Island,  and  F.u  ilic 

CMiica};o,  Kock  Island,  and  P.u  itic 

t'edar  Rapids  and  Missouri  River 

Cedar  R.ipids  and  Missouri  River 

Iowa  Falls  and  Sioux  City 

Dubuipie  and  Sionx  City 

Mc(".rct;or  and  Missouri  River 

Sioux  City  and  St  Paul 

Detroit  and  Milwaukee 

Port  Huron  and  Milwaukee 

Jackson,  Lansing,  and  Saginaw 

Flint  and  P^re  Marquette 

Grand  Rapids  and  Indiana 

Cirand  Rapids  anil  Iniliana 

Marquette,  Moughton,  and  Ontonagon.... 

\\  ly  de  Noipiet 

Chicago  and  North-western 

West  Wisconsin 

Wisconsin  Railroad  Farm  Mort.  Land  Co., 


KfTIMATED 

NUMBRR  np 

At'HKS    IN    LIM- 

ACHES HATKNT- 

ITS  OK  THE 

ED  UP  T<1  Jl/Nl 

liKANT. 

30,  1875. 

a.J9S.o53 

>,595.o53 

1,004,640 

737. '30 

404,800 

«98,o37 

6j5,8oo' 

aju,4oo 

4'9.5a8 

4iy,5Joi 

394.5" 

48 1  ,>>io 

457.407 

133,480' 

^7.784 

840,8801 

504.145 

897,920 

552, '99 

576,000 

436,720 

443,543 

881,984 

165,688  1 

165,688 

1,568,739' 

i,275,aia 

'8.1, "ij' 

37.583 

610,880 

353.3" 

967,840 

7'9.'93 

1,160,667 

1,115,408 

l,04o,cxxi 

194,524 

438,616 

127,238 

3"5.539 

J4,6o6 

53o."i-'5 

550.530 

458,77' 

336,196 

804, ix» 

781,944 

599.03« 

1,161,235 

1,161,204 

2111,26a 

4.017 

182,718 

640,000 

948,643 

292,08s 



97.337 

1,26|,1&[ 

482,354 

i6',37» 

'.=98.739 

782,250 

348,396 

1,226,163 

683,023 

473,606 

1,536,000 

•37.573 

524,800 

396,838 

355.420 

30,998 

3 '2. .384 

6.438 

1,052,469 

742,900 

586,828 

5'3.5a9 

629,182 

629,182 

53'. 800 

317.434 



433.707 

128,000 

128,000 

564,480 

517.908 

999.983 

796,91a 

39.939 

'  No  evidence  of  the  construction  of  any  part  of  these  roads  having  twen  filed  in  the  General  Land  Office, 
the  grants  are  presumed  to  have  lapsed;  but  the  lands  have  not  been  restored,  and  Congress  has  not  yet  taken 
action  in  the  mattc». 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


1.0 


Uit2A    |2.5 

|50     "^       ■■■ 

_        Ki  I2£    |2.2 

1.1     l*^  i- 


1 

1.25      1.4      1.6 

< 

6"     

► 

Photographic 

Sciences 
Corporation 


23  WIST  MAIN  STRUT 

WEBSTIR.N.Y.  I4SS0 

(716)  172-4903 


k 


644 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


111 


Wisconsin.. 


Minnesota  . 


Kansas. 


Corporations . 


June      3 
May      5 

June  3 
May  5 
March  3 
March  3 
March  3 
March  3 
March  3 
March  3 
May  5 
July  4 
July  4 
March  3 
March  3 
•  March  3 
July  25 
July  as 
July  as 
July  I 
July  I 
July  I 
March  3 
July  I 
July  I 
May  6 
July 
July 
July 
July 
July 
July 
July 
March 
March 
May 


March  3 
March  3 


856 
S64 

856 
864 
857 
857 
87, 

857 
857 
857 
864 
866 
866 
863 
863 
863 
866 
866 
866 
866 
862 
862 
869 
862 
862 
870 
864 
864 
866 
866 
866 
866 
866 
87. 
867 
870 
87. 
87. 


St.  Croix  and  I-.al<e  Superior 1 

and  Branch  to  K.-iyflcId I 

St.  Croix  and  Lake  Superior  and  Branch  ) 
to  Bayfield I 

Chicago  and  North-wcsicrn 

Wisconsin  Central 

First  Division  St.  Paul  and  Pacific 

Branch  St.  Paul  and  Pacific 

St.  Vincent  Kxtension  (St.  Paul  and  Pacific) 

Minnesota  Central 

Winona  and  St.  Peter 

St.  Paul  and  Sioux  City 

Lake  Superior  and  M  ississippi 

.Southern  Minnesota 

Hastings  and  Dakota.....* 

I.eavenworth,  Lawrence,  and  Galveston. .. 

Missouri,  Kansas,  and  Texas 

Atchison,  Topeka,  and  Santa  Fd 

Missouri  River,  Fort  Scott,  and  Gulf. 

St.  Joseph  and  Denver  City 

At issouri  River,  Fort  Scott,  and  Gulf 

Union  Pacific 

Central  Branch  (Union  Pacific) 

Kansas  Pacific 

Denver  Pacific 

Central  Pacific 

Central  Pacific 

Burlington  and  Missouri  River 

Sioux  City  and  Pacific 

Northern  Pacific 

Placerville  and  Sacramento  Valley 

Oregon  Branch  (Central  Pacific) 

Oregon  and  California 

Atlantic  and  Pa  :if  c 

Southern  Pacific 

Southern  Pacific 

Stockton  and  Copperopolis 

Oregon  Central 

Texas  Pacific 

New  Orleans,  Baton  Rouge,  and  Vicksburg, 


ESTIMATED 
ACKBS  iN  LIM- 
ITS OF  THE 
GRANT. 


Sa4.7»4 
3-8,737 

565,000' 

600,000 
1 ,800,000 
1,248,038 
1,475,000 
a, 000,000 

643.403 
1,410,000 
1,010,000 

930,000 

735.000 

550,000 

800,000 

1,520,000 

3,000,000 

1,700,000 

2,350,000 

12,000,000 

245,166 

6,000,000 

1 ,000,400 

8,000,000 

1,000,100 

3,441,600 

60,000 

4  7, 000, 'TOO 

200,000 

3,000,000 

3,500,000 

43,000,000 

6,000,000 

3,520,000 

320,000 

1 ,200,000 

18,000,000 
3,800,000 


NU.MnER   OF 

ACRISS  I'ATKNT. 

ED  til'  1(1  JlNtt. 

30.  --875. 


Total,  deducting' the  lands  reverted 008,344,163 


5'4.7'8 
318,740 

546.3^2 
398,865. 

«.a37,44! 
522.925 
780,291 
179,05s 

1,609,748 
929,566 
743.24' 
'65,394 
169,911 

259.830 

977.954 

3,274,686 

22,527 

44'. '58 

13.489 

'.844.297 

iS6,453 

506,55s 
49,8u 

376,977 
387,630 

a.374.o90- 

40,596 

630,717 

494.059- 
236,525 
504,478 
686,118 
41,178 


38,053,530 


As  the  estimated  quantity  of  lands  contained  in  the  grants  is  somewhat 
Total  more  than  the  quantity  which  the  companies  will  realize  from  them, 

•mount  of       owing  to  previous  settlement,  especially  in   Kansas,  Minnesota 
grant.  Iowa,  and  Arkansas,  the  total  grant  is  estimated  in  reality  as  amount- 

ing only  to  183,216,733  acres,  worth  $52,575,000.    The  government  also  aided 

'  No  evidence  of  the  construction  of  any  part  of  these  roads  having  been  filed  in  the  General  Land  Office, 
the  grants  are  presumed  to  have  Upled;  but  the  laadi  have  not  been  restored,  and  Congress  has  not  yet  taker 
•ction  in  the  matter. 


-»j.iiii  ■  iiiiNlfaiMa 


Nl'MtlEU  OF 
ACRUS  I'ATKST- 
ED  IM'  K)  JlNtt- 

30.  -875. 


5'4.7i8 

318,740 

546.3" 
398,865. 

I,»37.44J 
522,92> 
780,291 
179,05s 

1,609,748 
929,5(')6 
743.241 
265. 3'H 
169,911 
259,830 
977.954- 

22.527 

441. '58- 

13.489 

1,844.297 

186,45} 

506,55s 

49,811 

376.977 

387.63<> 

2,374.090 

40.596- 

630.7'r 


494.059' 
236,525 
504.478 
686,118- 
41,178 


38,052,530 


is  somewhat 
ize  from  them, 
IS,  Minnesota 
ity  as  amoiint- 
ent  also  aided 

kneral  Land  Office, 
s  has  not  yet  ul«» 


OP  TITE  UmTED  STATES. 


646 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


in  the  construction  of  the  Pacific  railroads,  as  enterprises  of  great  national 
utility,  by  issuing  to  them  bonds  to  run  for  thirty  years,  payable  from  a  sinking- 
fund  established  by  the  companies ;  the  bonds  being  issued  to  the  companies, 
Oovernment  as  fast  as  they  finished  the  different  sections  of  their  roads,  at  the 
loM*.  jatg  Qf  1 1 6,000  a  mile  on  the  plains,  1148,000  a  mile  through  the 

mountain-ranges,  and  $32,000  a  mile  between  the  ranges.  The  following  table 
exhibits  the  amount  of  the  loans  to  the  different  projects :  — 


Central  Pacific 

Kansas  Pacific    .        .        . 

Union  Pacific 

Union  Pacific,  Central  Branch 

Western  Pacific  . 

Sioux  City  and  Pacific 

Total    .... 


AUTHORiaNG  ACTS. 


July 


I,  1862,  and  July  2, 

M 


1864. 


niiNcirAL. 

$25,885,120 
6,303,000 
27,236,512 
1, 600,0a 
1,970,560 
1,628,320 


$64,621,512 


to  amount 
invMted. 


The  contribution  of  the  government,  therefore,  toward  the  capital  needed 
Ratio  of  aid  ^°'"  Coating  the  railroad-system  of  the  United  States,  was  I144,- 
000,000.  Large  as  is  this  sum,  it  is  only  one  and  three-fiflhs  per 
cent  of  the  whole  amount  of  capital  invested.  That  part  of  it 
which  consisted  in  land-grants  has  been  repaid  to  the  government  by  the 
increased  value  of  its  other  lands. 

Another  plan  resorted  to,  after  railroad-enterprises  attained  a  magnitude 
which  rendered  inadequate  the  old  and  simple  method  of  raising  the  capital 
lMtt«  of  for  them  fix)m  th6  savings  of  the  people  in  the  localities  through 
boBda.  which  they  run,  was  the  issue  of  bonds  by  towns  and  cities.    A 

very  large  number  of  the  short  lines  of  the  country  were  built  by  means  of 
capital  raised  in  this  way.  Some  of  these  bonds  have  not  been  paid ;  but  the 
object  of  their  issue  was  secured,  and  the  roads  constructed,  and  added  to 
the  permanent  wealth  of  the  country. 

The  fifteen  years  just  before  the  civil  war  was  a  period  of  great  activity  in 
railroad-building.  It  was  seen  that  the  growth  of  cities  and  the  mi>rketing  of 
PiftaeD  surplus  products  of  farm,  plantation,  forest,  and  mine,  were  de- 

yeara  prior  pendent  on  the  construction  of  these  avenues  of  communication. 
to  civil  war.  ^  ^zn  many  important  lines  were  projected  and  built  in  that 
fifteen  years,  among  them  being  the  Erie  Railroad,  the  Hudson-river,  the 
Pennsylvania,  the  IlKnois  Central,  and  many  others.  Connecting  links  were 
finished,  so  as  to  open  an  all-rail  route  from  Boston  to  New  Orleans,  and  from 
Chicago  and  St.  Louis  to  all  the  principal  cities  on  the  Atlantic  coast ;  so  that 
the  pint-woods  and  myriad  factories  of  New  England  were  united  to  the 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


647 


cotton-fields  and  cane-brakes  of  the  South,  and  the  waving  wheat  and  com 
fields  of  the  West  to  the  wharves  and  fleets  of  stately  ships  upon  the  ocean- 
coasts.  The  locomotive  sped  through  every  part  of  the  country.  Regions 
which  before  were  impenetrable  wildernesses  became  gardens ;  and  millions  of 
human  beings  came  from  Europe  to  populate  them,  and  And  in  the  midst  of 
them  a  competence  and  independence  which  they  had  never  known  in  the 
previous  part  of  their  lives.  Old  cities  received  a  new  birth,  and  new  ones 
sprang  up  in  magical  fashion  all  over  the  country.  New  industries  were 
planted  by  the  exigencies  of  the  roads.  There  was  plenty  of  work  every- 
where ;  and  the  wealth  of  the  country  developed  in  a  manner  that  astonished 
the  Old  World,  and  formed  the  theme  of  admiring  comment  of  statesmen  and 
writers  everywhere. 

In  the  early  years  of  railway-traffic  the  transportation-system  of  the  country 
presented  the  aspect  merely  of  a  confusion  of  disconnected  and  independent 
roads,  managed  without  regard  io  any  common  purpose,  and  with  conioHda- 
very  little  respect  for  the  wishes  of  patrons  living  beyond  the  ter-  tion  of  rail- 
mini  of  the  several  roads.  The  New- York  Central  route  was  '***'''■ 
composed  of  twelve  distinct  corporations  and  lines  between  Albany  and  Lake 
Erie ;  and  for  twenty  or  thirty  years  there  was  not  a  trunk-line  anywhere  in  the 
country,  in  the  modem  sense  of  the  term.  Every  little  line  of  fifty  miles  of 
track  was  managed  in  delightfully  autocratic  style ;  and  the  only  concem  of  its 
officers  was  to  collect  the  charges  for  the  transportation  of  freight  over  their 
line,  what  became  of  the  freight  after  it  had  passed  on  —  whether  it  was  lost 
or  plundered,  or  stood  for  weeks  on  a  siding  —  being  of  no  earthly  interest  to 
them  whatever.  The  shipment  of  freight  to  any  distance  by  rail  was  thus 
attended- by  all  sorts  of  delays,  vexations,  and  losses.  This  was  a  discourage- 
ment to  trade,  and  thus  both  the  roads  and  the  public  suffered  by  it.  Out  of 
this  state  of  things  arose  several  measures  looking  toward  unity  and  harmony 
in  the  railway-system  of  the  country,  among  them  being  the  consolidation 
of  connecting-lines  into  single  companies,  the  lease  of  connecting-routes  by 
powerful  companies,  —  so  as  to  secure  trunk-lines  from  the  seaboard  to  the 
productive  regions  of  the  interior,  and  between  interior  points,  —  and  the  for- 
mation of  fast-freight  and  express  companies.  The  growth  of  the  trunk-lines 
and  the  rapid-despatch  companies  ^ill  be  separately  mentioned. 

Massachusetts  was  one  of  the  very  first  States  to  discover  the  need  of  a 
railroad  the  whole  length  of  the  State,  and  connecting  at  Albany  with  the  Erie 
Canal.    Dr.  Phelps  and  Daniel  Webster  were  early  and  earnest 
advocates  of  the  measure.     Two  routes  for  a  railroad  were  sur-  ,ettVthefl'rit 
veyed  at  State  expense  —  one  through  the  Northem,  and  one  suteto 
through  the  Southern  countries  —  in  1827  and  the  two  succeed-  J|^",'^]Jj°°* 
ing  years.    The  Boston  and  Worcester  Railroad  Corporation  was 
chartered,  June  23, 1 831,  to  build  the  first  part  of  the  road,  —  forty-three  miles 
and  a  half;   which  task  was  completed  July  3,  1835.    The  road  earned  a 


648 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


little  over  ten  per  cent  on  its  original  capital  of  5 1,000,000  from  the  start. 
In  March,  1833,  the  Western  Railroad  Corporation  was  chartered  to  build 
Boston  and  ^"^  ^o"^  Worcester  to  the  Hudson  River,  with  a  capital  of  I? 2,000,. 
Albany  ooo.    The  Company  did  not  organize  at  once,  owing  to  some  im- 

Railroad.  certainty  in  the  popular  mind  as  to  what  the  State  most  needed 
in  the  way  of  railroads.  There  was  great  agitation  for  a  direct  line  to  Now 
York  from  Worcester  by  way  of  Hartford,  and  for  a  line  to  Norwich,  Conn. 
By  persevering  efforts,  the  Western  Railroad  Corporation  secured  its  capital 
by  subscriptions  along  the  route  of  the  road ;  and  work  began  in  the  winter 
of  1836.     In  January,   1836,  the  governor,  alluding  to  this  project  in  his 


STATION   ON   I'RNNSVI.VANIA  CENTRAL  RAILROAD. 


message,  said,  "  Should  the  work  in  its  progress  stand  in  need  of  resources 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  enterprise  and  means  of  the  individual  citizens  by 
whom  it  is  undertaken,  it  is  believed  that  the  public  patronage  could  be  safely 
extended  to  it  as  a  project  of  vast  general  utility,  whose  successful  execution 
would  form  an  era  in  the  prosperity  of  the  State."  State  aid  was  very  much 
needed  after  1837,  on  account  of  the  business  prostration  of  the  country ;  and 
three  separate  loans  of  State  credit  were  made,  amounting  in  all  to  $4,000,000. 
Celebration  The  road  was  opposed  in  New- York  State  by  influence  from  tlie 
of  event.  ^ity  of  New  York  ;  but  the  managers  overcame  all  obstacles,  and 
on  the  2ist  of  December,  1841,  opened  their  road  from  Worcester  to  Albany. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


649 


Tublic  celebrations  of  the  event  took  place  in  Boston  and  Albany.  The  road 
of  the  Western  Corporation  cost  $7,566,791.  When  the  Western  Road  was 
opened,  a  difference  sprang  up  at  once,  between  the  two  companies  con- 
trolling the  route  from  Springfield  to  Boston,  about  the  rate  of  fare ;  th  i 
Boston  and  Worcester  Road  claiming  an  undue  share  of  the  through  rate. 
A  conflict  on  this  subject  was  carried  on  with  acrimony  for  more  than  twenty 
years,  and  wafi  never  settled  until  in  1868  the  two  roads  were  consolidated 
into  one  conjpany  as  the  Boston  and  Albany  Railroad  Company.  In  1871 
the  Albany  ;ind  West-Stockbridge  Compan)-,  in  New- York  State,  was  consoli- 
dated with  the  corporation,  thus  putting  the  route  from  Albany  under  one 
managemei.it  and  ownership.  The  combined  capital  of  the  three  companies 
was  J>27,3ij5,ooo.  At  Albany  this  road  connects  with  the  New- York  Central 
and  the  E,rie-canal  routes  to  the  West,  and  the  Albany  and  Susquehanna  route 
to  the  coal-mines.  It  has  brought  about  a  great  change  in  the  ancient 
currents  bf  trade.  Now  flour  and  grain  coming  down  the  Erie  Canal  go 
no  longer,  as  of  yore,  down  the  Hudson  and  up  the  Sound,  whence,  in  due 
course  cf  time,  they  reach  Boston  by  doubling  around  Cape  Cod.  All  these 
things  i,ow  go  direct,  and  reach  Boston  in  ten  hours  from  Albany,  against  the 
six  or  '.even  days'  transit  of  the  old  regime.  At  Boston  the  road  has  a  grain- 
elevatfjr  with  a  capacity  of  1,000,000  bushels,  coal-pockets,  warehouses,  and 
other  terminal  facilities,  which  are  not  excelled  in  any  seaport  of  the  United 
States.  Freight  is  supplied  to  three  weekly  lines  of  steamers  to  England. 
The  Boston  and  Albany  Road  has  repaid  its  entire  debt  to  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  is  one  of  the  prosperous  enterprises  of  the  country. 

Another  connecting  link  between  the  New-England  seaboard  and  the 
N^w-York  transportation  routes  to  the  West  was  completed  in  1875  on  the 
li'ie  through  the  northern  counties  of  the  State  talked  of  in  1827  ;  Hootac-tun- 
tMs  is  the  Hoosac-tunnel  Fast  Freight  Line.  It  is  composed  of  "''  Railroad. 
3.  combination  of  railroads,  and  affords  to  the  public  a  choice  of  routes  between 
Albany  and  Boston.  The  component  parts  of  the  line  are  the  Fitchburg 
Railroad  from  Boston  to  Greenfield  (a  hundred  and  six  miles),  the  Troy  and 
Greenfield  Railroad  and  Hoosac  Tunnel  to  the  Vermont  State  line  (forty-four 
niiles),and  the  Troy  and  Boston  Railroad  to  Troy  (forty-one  miles).  The  Troy 
and  Greenfield  Road  with  the  tunnel  were  built  by  the  State  at  a  cost  of  $20,- 
000,000,  and  are  still  owned  by  the  Commonwealth.  The  tunnel  was  opened 
for  the  first  train  Feb.  9,  1875.  The  capacities  of  this  route  are  not  yet  fully 
developed ;  but  it  is  expected  to  reduce  the  cost  of  transportation  to  Boston, 
*nd  thus  increase  the  trade  of  that  port. 

The  beginnings  of  railway  enterprise  in  New-York  State  have  already  been 
lotod.    Two  great  trunk-lines  to  the  West  have  been  constructed  through  that 
"commonwealth  since  the  humble  commencement  made  between  New-York 
'he  th.-n  little  old  towns  of  Schenectady  and  Albany.     For  the  Central. 
*^"rthern  route  fourteen  charters  were  granted;  though  in  1852  the  number  of 


V 


650 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\ 


roads  had  been  reduced  to  twelve  by  the  consolidation  of  the  Auburn  and 
Rochester  with  the  Auburn  and  Syracuse,  and  the  Tonawanda  with  the  Attica 
and  Buffalo  Companies.  This  chain  of  railroads  was  bui!t  economically  and 
honestly.  The  first  of  them,  those  between  Auburn  and  Albany,  were  Liiilt 
originally  to  be  operated  by  horse-power,  and  were  so  operated  at  first ;  Imt 
engines  were  soon  put  upon  them  all,  the  first  ones  being  impcVt^^^l  fron^  I'""K- 
land  for  the  purpose.  Nature  had  marked  out  the  destiny  of\this  chain  of 
roads  as  one  single  route  from  Lake  Erie  to  the  Hudson ;  Init  they  were 
operated  as  distinct  lines  until  1853,  when  an  act  of  the  legislatur-,  pa:;se(l  in 
April,  authorized  their  consolidation.  The  prudence  with  which  tht'y  had  been 
built,  and  the  populous  and  productive  nature  of  the  regions  theV  traversed 
and  tapped,  are  exhibited  by  the  following  table,  showing  the  value  of  the 
roads  at  the  time  of  the  consolidation :  — 


N/ME  O"   KOAD. 


Albany  and  Schenectady  .... 
Utica  and  Schenectady      .... 

Syracuse  and  Utica 

Rochester  and  Syracuse    .... 

Buffalo  and  Rochester      .... 

Rochester,  Lockport,  and  Niagara  Falls  . 

Buffalo  and  Niagara  Falls 

Niagara  Falls  and  Lewiston 

Buffalo  and  Lockport        .... 

Rochester  and  Lake  Ontario    . 

Mohawk  Valley 

Troy  and  Schenectady       .... 

Total  of  stocks  and  convertible  bonds 


STOCKS   AND 
CONVEKTIULK   IIONDS. 


51,621,800 

4,500,000 

3,300,000 

5,608,700 

3,000,000 

2,155,100 

565,000 

354.260 

675,000 

150,000 

1,575,000 

650,000 


524,154,860 


PREMIUM  OP 
THE  STOCK 
(PER  CENT). 


'7 

55 
50 
30 
40 

^5    \ 


25 
25 

55 


contolida- 
tion. 


The  terms  of  consolidation  were,  that  the  stock  of  the  new  comjiany,  to  bC 
called  "The  New- York  Central,"  should  equal  the  aggregate  of  the  stock  of  the 
Terms  of        individual  companies,  and  that,  for  the  premium  which  the  stocl< 
then  commanded,  six-per-cent  bonds   of  the   new  organizatiorj 
should  be   issued  to  the  holders.    The  total  amount  of  bond^ 
issued  under  this  arrangement  was  $8,894,500.    The  debts  of  the  companies 
amounted  to  about  ;$2,8oo,ooo  ;  so  that  the  total  liabi'  'iesof  the  newconii)any 
were  ^535,836, 796.     The  average  cost  per  track  was  $44,485  a  mile.     Karningy 
amounted  in   1857  to  $8,000,000,  or  $14,000  a  mile.     The  distance  fioii; 
Albany  to  Buffalo  was  shortened  to  298  miles.     Another  link  in  the  New- York 
Central  route  was  completed  in   1851,  being  the  Hudson-river  Railroad  \^ 
New- York  City,  142  miles  long,  chartered  in  May,  1846,  and  built  at  a  cos' 


1 

J 


the  Auburn  and 
da  with  the  Attica 
economically  ami 
^Ibany,  were  Iniilt 
•ated  at  first;  but 
p^tcd  from  Kng- 
i  ofvthis  chain  of 
)n  ;  t'»t  they  were 
islatur-%  pa:-.sed  in 
liich  tht-y  had  been 
ions  theV  traversed 
g  the  vahie  of  the 


NDS. 

„eM11.M  of 
TIIR  STOCK 
(PER  tKNT)- 

3 

'7 

0 

55 

0 

5° 

o 

0 
0 

3° 
40 

25 

o 

•  • 

0 

•  • 

o 

2S 

)0 

25 

)0 

55 

» 

•• 

5o 

new  comi>any,  to  be 
te  of  the  stock  of  the 
ium  which  the  stock 
le  new  organi/atioH 
al  amount  of  hond^ 
)ts  of  the  companies 
of  the  new  company 
85  a  mile.  Kariiing^ 
The  distance  from 
ink  in  the  New-Yorlf 
ion-river  Railroad  t(^ 
6,  and  built  at  a  cost 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


65  » 


of ;? 1 1,328,990  or  ^(78,673.     In  1864  the  road  fell  into  the  control  of  the 
Ntw-York  Central,  nnd  in   1870  was  permanently  consolidated  with  it.     It 
was  agreed  that  the  capital  of  the  new  concern  should  be  $45,-   Hudion- 
000,000.     The  stock  being  at  a  premium,  however,  the  company   river  Rail- 
conceived  the  idea  of  turning  the  fact  to  advantage  by  giving  a  '°*'*' 
representative  value  to  the  increased  worth  of  the  road  to  which  the  premium 
was  due  by  issumg  eight-per-cent  certificates,  convertible  into  common  stock 


at  the  option  of  the  holder.  Of  these  certificate* 
1^44,428,300  were  issued,  thus  virtually  increasing  the 
stock  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  to  589,428,300.  Tlie 
corporation  has  since  laid  another  double  track  be- 
tween Albany  and  Buffalo  at  a  cost  of  $25,000,000,  paid  for  by  the  issue  of 
bonds,  thus  securing  a  four-track  road  the  length  of  New- York  State ;  and  has 
leased  the  New- York  and  Harlem  Railroad,  thus  securing  four  tracks  to  the 
city  of  New  York,  without  the  necessity  of  laying  the  additional  two  upon  the 
costly  route  along  the  banks  of  the  Hudson.  The  road's  western  connections 
are  the  I^ke  Shore  and  Michigan  Southern  and  the  Canada  Southern.  It  is 
operated  jointly  with  those  lines  for  Western  business,  and  it  carries  freight  in- 
discriminately both  ways  both  for  Boston  and  New  York.  Its  New-England 
connections  are  the   Boston  and  Albany  and    the   Hoosac-tunnel   route   to 


<Js« 


INDUSTKIAL    HISTORY 


Boston.  Seventy  per  cent  of  its  eastward-bound  freight  goes  to  New  iMi^^laiul. 
The  principal  characteristic  of  the  business  of  the  New-York  Centra!  is  its  enor- 
mous passenger  and  local-freight  traffic.  It  transjjorts  over  7,000,000  passcn- 
jjers  a  year,  and  in  1876  carried  6,800,000  tons  of  freight.  The  cost  of  freight 
has  been  reduced  to  three  dollars  a  ton  from  linffalo  to  Albany.  It  will  be 
recollected  that  the  cost  was  a  hundred  dollars  a  ton  in  the  days  of  wagoning. 


UNION  D^TOT,   I'lTTSDURCH. 

The  Erie-railway  route  was  planned  as  early  as  1825,  the  State  of  New 
York  ordering  a  survey  for  it  in  that  year.  The  public  interest  in  a  railway 
Erie  Rail-  through  the  southcm  counties  of  the  State  was  very  great,  and 
'■°"'*-  a  number  of  public  conventions  were  held  in  regard  to  it.    A 

company  was  chartered  to  build  the  road  in  1832,  the  capital  to  be  ,^10,000,- 
000  j  and  De  Witt  Clinton,  jun.,  made  a  survey  for  it.    This  road  was  built 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


Hi 


iiiider  disheartening  circumstances.  The  region  it  traversed  was  excessively 
rii^;;,'ed,  and  afforded  an  extremely  small  amount  of  local  business  to  the  line. 
No  paying  traffic  could  be  expected  until  it  was  completed  through  to  Lake 
Krie.  The  great  fire  in  New  York  preventeil  many  of  the  stockholders  from 
]);iying  for  their  shares.  The  panic  of  1837  intervened,  and  cripi)led  other 
niun.  ''he  line  was  laid  out  with  such  poor  judgment  in  places,  that  the  work 
liail  to  be  abandoned  as  useless.  The  State  loaned  1^3,000,000  to  the  comjjany 
in  1H40,  and  afterwards  presented  the  loan  to  the  company;  but  it  was  not 
until  185 1  that  the  rails  were  laid  to  the  then  new  harbor  of  Dunkirk  on  Lake 
^;rie,  and  the  through  traffic,  which  alone  sustains  this  great  road,  was  tapped. 
Tlie  company  languished,  however,  until  1868,  when,  under  a  new  manage- 
ment, it  was  equipped  with  steel  rails  and  an  abundance  of  first-class  roUing- 
st()(  k,  and  became  one  of  the  finest  railroads  in  .America,  with  a  large  and 
conjitantly-growing  business  in  the  transportation  of  passengers,  coal,  petro- 
leum, agricultural  produce,  and  general  merchandise.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
New-York  Central,  advantage  was  taken  of  the  increased  worth  of  the  road, 
and  the  expenditures  for  its  improvement,  to  issue  new  shares  in  large  quan- 
tities;  and  during  the  four  years  ending  Sept.  30,  1871,  the  common  stock 
was  increased  from  $46,302,210  to  1^86,536,910,  and  two  years  later  the  total 
liabilities  of  the  road  were  5115,449,211.  The  inability  to  earn  a  dividend 
upon  so  large  an  investment  involved  the  company  in  fresh  trouble,  and  litiga- 
tion without  entl.  The  road  has  been  further  embarrassed  by  the  fact  that  its 
track  has  been  six  feet  wide,  while  connecting  roads  to  the  West  have  been 
only  of  the  standard  width  of  four  feet  eight  anil  a  half  inches.  In  spite  of 
its  troubles,  the  Erie  Road  is  a  magnificent  property,  and  is  transacting  a  large 
business.  Its  terminal  facilities  at  New- York  harbor  are  very  fine  ;  and,  when 
the  gauge  of  the  road  is  reduced  (as  it  will  be  in  a  few  years,  the  work  having 
been  begun),  it  will  be  a  formidable  competitor  for  the  through  business  of 
the  West.  The  road  is  operated  in  conjunction  with  the  Atlantic  and  Great 
Western  and  other  lines  to  St.  Louis,  and  the  Lake  Shore  and  Michigan 
Southern  to  Chicago.  In  1876  it  carried  5,972,000  tons  of  freight.  It  has, 
including  branches,  459  miles  of  main  line,  and  controls  500  miles  of  connec- 
tions. The  comparative  distance  from  the  grain-centres  of  the  West  to  the 
seaboard  by  this  route,  in  comparison  with  other  trunk-lines,  will  be  stated 
farther  on. 

Philadelphia's  route  to  Chicago  is  composed  of  what  were  originally  six 
separate  railroads ;  and  the  route  to  St.  Louis,  of  roads  built  by  thirteen  different 
companies.    These  roads  are  now  all  either  owned,  or  leased  in  pennsyWa- 
peq)etuity,  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  the  most  exten-  ni«  Railroad 
sive  railway  organization  in  the  world.    This  company  now  owns  *^'""P"">'- 
1,505  miles  of  roadway,  not  counting  in  double  tracks  or  sidings ;  and  4,324 
miles  of  road  are  either  directly  controlled  by  or  operated  in  its  interest :  in 
*U>  5.829  miles,  representing  a  capital  of  ^1398,267,000.    These  lines  pass. 


6s  4 


IND  US  TKIA  I.    HIS  TOR  Y 


\ 


through  eleven  States,  and  extend  into  the  heart  of  the  cities  of  St.  I  uuis, 
Chicago,  Cincinnati,  Haltitnore,  IMiihulelpiiia,  and  New  York,  tapping  the 
tommerie  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  and  the  (Jreat  Lakes,  and  coiiiuMtinir 
the  grain,  eoal,  and  iron  regions  of  tlic  interior  with  three  of  tije  great  o(  ean 
harliors  of  tiie  North  Atlantic.  'Die  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Conipaiu  wis 
formed  originally  to  complete  the  work  undertaken  by  the  State  itself  to  j;ivc 
the  city  of  Philadelphia  a  commodious  transi)ortation-route  to  the  wcitirii 
iounties  of  the  State  and  to  Ohio.  'Ihe  State  line  of  works  was  first  upLiad 
in  1830  ;  but  it  was  a  broken  line,  consisting  of  two  pieces  of  railroad,  —  duc 
from  Philadelphia  to  Columbia,  eighty-two  miles;  the  other  from  II()lli(l,iys- 
burgh  to  Johnstown,  thirty-six  miles  (this  one  being  operated  by  stationary 
engines),  the  two  roads  being  sujjplemented   by  two  hundred  and  siviiuy- 

eight  miles  of  <anal.  I'lijladcl- 
phia  was  unable  to  i(iiii|]cic 
with  New  York's  nubiokcii 
routes  by  rail  and  canal ;  an  1 
accordingly  a  <  ompany  was 
formed  to  build  a  railmad  Inini 
Harrisburgh  to  I'ittsburj;!!.  In 
1S57  the  Slate  sold  its  main  line 
of  works  to  the  IVnnsyKania 
Railroad  ('()mi>any  for  .^7,500,- 
000  (they  cost  ^1  j.oon.cioo), 
and  rail  communication  Inmi 
I'liiladclphia  to  l'itt>l>nrL;li  tlirn 
became  continuous  and  i  iVk  uiit. 
During  the  late  war,  the  IVnn 
sylvania  Road  made  enornums 
profits  ;  and  recogni/ing  the  fad 
that  the  business  it  was  then  doing  was  accidental,  and  could  not  be  su'-taiiin! 
except  by  the  extension  of  its  lines  to  the  West,  it  devoted  a  part  of  its  earn 
ings  to  bi.ilding  the  Philadelphia  and  I'".rie  Road,  and  the  completion  of  varioib 
branch  lines  in  the  State  whi(  h  would  bring  traffic  to  the  main  stem.  In  i.Sfif; 
tile  company  assumed  tontrol  of  the  chain  of  roads  constituting  the  l'itt^liiui;h, 
Fort  Wayne,  and  Chicago  route  to  Chicago  as  lessee  for  nine  hundri-d  ami 
ninety-nine  years.  The  same  year  it  secured  a  line  nnder  its  own  <  ontroi  lu 
Cincinnati,  Louisville,  and  St.  Louis  by  lease.  It  leased  the  Northern  Central 
in  1870,  thus  gaining  connections  with  Haltimore  and  with  Canandaigua,  N.\. ; 
and  in  1871  it  secured  control  of  the  iMited  railroads  of  New  Jersey,  thus 
getting  a  direct  line  to  New  York.  The  comj)any  now  owns  twcnty-tuo 
branches,  and  controls  l)ranches  and  extensions  by  lease.  Its  policy  lias  been 
dictated  by  such  sound  judgment,  that  no  part  of  this  vast  network  of  lines  is 
a  burden  upon  the  company,  or  any  thing  except  a  useful  tributary  to  its 


WAThll-1  ASK. 


'»r"^^-""^ii*if  f 


OF    THE    UNITED    ^/ATES. 


(^ss 


business.  Its  capital  stock  is  now  nlnjut  1153,000,000,  and  its  total  liabilities 
alidiit  j5 1 16,000,000,  The  company  has  a  grain-elevator  at  iSaltimore,  two  at 
I'iiiladelphia,  and  two  at  Krie,  I'enn.  ;  and  at  New  York  it  has  millions  of 
(li)ll.irs  invested  in  wharves,  warehouses,  cattle-yards,  oil-dt'pots,  and  other 
terminal  facilities  required  by  a  large  anil  varied  commerce.  l*hiladelp!iia  is 
the  principal  point  of  export,  however,  the  company  having  established  from 
that  port  a  line  of  four  American  iron  steamships  to  Liv«'rpool  by  guaranteeing 
j; 1, 500,000  of  its  bonds.  This  line  operates  at  present  the  only  American 
sic.unsliips  engaged  in  trans-Atlantic  trade.     The  Pennsylvania  Company  is  in 


MUNCV    MOUNTAIN,    NBAR   IIKLI.KHIM  K. 

all  respects  a  colossal  organization  ;  and,  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  danger 
of  permitting  so  vast  a  moneyed  power  to  grow  up  in  this  republic,  it  can  at 
least  be  said  that  its  operations  have  been  of  incalculable  utility  to  commerce 
and  the  country. 

The  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  though  begun  in  1828,  was  not  finished 
through  to  the  Ohio  River  at  Wheeling,  a  distance  of  379  miles,   ^^^  \c\\on 
until  Jan.  i,  1853.     Litigation  with  the  canal  running  parallel  to  it,   of  the  B«Ui- 
and  tlie  opposition  of  other  conflicting  interests,  had  made  great  ^°."'  ■"** 
delays.    The  cost  of  the  road  and  equipment  was  $23,600,000. 
After  the  war,  the  company  leased  a  number  of  connecting  roads  in  order  to 


/^ 


m 


>'Nrr, 


'tftP'UVf 


mms^\ 


PM^j 

li 

;lrPi^''h.f^4^ 


^■*l^■^ 


I* 
1 


'  J  t 


ill 'I 


656 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


secure  the  unity  of  operation  and  establishment  of  through  rates  which  the  other 
great  companies  had  been  striving  for.  In  1866  a  connection  to  Columbus,  (). 
was  leased,  and  in  1869  another  running  to  Sandusky.  In  1870  the  Winchester 
and  Strasburgli  Road  was  leased,  thus  securing  the  business  of  the  Shenaiuloah 
Valley  in  Virginia,  and  paving  the  way  for  obtaining  a  share  of  the  trade  ut' 
North  Carolina.  A  connection  through  to  Chicago  was  secured  by  alliance 
with  other  roads  in  1874,  and  another  recently  to  St.  Louis.  The  liabilities  of 
the  road  now  amount  to  about  $56,000,000.  The  interest  of  die  city  of  balti- 
more  in  sto  .  and  bonds  is  $10,500,000.  The  road  is  wisely  managed,  and 
has  a  large  business  in  coal,  petroleum,  grain,  and  general  traffic.  Its  teiniiiial 
facilities  on  Locust  Point  in  Baltimore  are  not  approached  in  any  other  sea- 
port of  the  country,  e.\CLi)t  at  Boston  :  they  comprise  grain-elevators,  coal- 
shoots,  warehouses,  oil-yards,  and  wharves,  and  are  the  rendezvous  of 
innmnerable  sailing  and  steam  vessels,  and  the  depot  of  the  ocean  steam- 
lines  to  Europe.  During  the  freight  war  between  the  railroad-lines  in  1865 
the  company  established  its  own  steamship  commimication  with  England,  but 
lost  $758,000  in  the  venture,  and  soon  withdrew  the  steamers.  The  road  has 
a  great  future  before  it. 

Another  system  of  railroads  leading  from  the  West  to  the  seaboard  has 
grown  up  north  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  St.  Lawrence  River  within  the  last 
Grand  Trunk  twenty  years,  and  is  termed  the  "Grand  Trunk  of  Canada." 
of  Canada,  'j-j^g  Grand  Trunk  Railway  Company  was  chartered  in  1852, 
with  a  capital  of  ;^3,ooo,ooo,  to  build  a  road  from  Toronto  to  Montreal.  In 
1853  a  number  of  other  companies  consolidated  with  this  organization,  upon 
an  agreement  by  the  latter  to  carry  out  the  contracts  they  had  made.  'I'liese 
contracts  included  the  building  of  roads  from  Toronto  to  Sarnia  on  Lake 
Huron,  from  Point  Levi  to  Richmond,  and  from  Quebec  to  Trois  Pistoles,  and 
also  for  building  the  great  Victoria  Bridge  'at  Montreal.  These  works  were 
completed  at  a  cost  of  ;^2 1 ,000,000.  At  the  same  time  the  company  leased 
for  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  years  the  Atlantic  an  I  St.  Lawrence  Road  of 
Maine,  extending  from  PorUand  to  Island  Pond,  N.H.,  near  the  Canada  bor- 
der. This  system  of  railways  did  not  at  first  secure  so  large  a  shore  of  the 
through  business  from  the  W'estern  granaries  as  was  expected ;  but  an  exten- 
sion from  Port  Sarnia  to  Chicago  has  recently  been  effected,  the  line  has  been 
I)rudently  managed,  and  the  route  has  become  an  important  part  of  tlie  Ameri- 
can system  of  railways.  The  Grand  Trunk  has  secured  a  connection  to 
Boston  by  way  of  the  Central  Verinont  Railroad,  and  now  competes  actively 
with  the  through  lines  centring  at  that  port. 

Thus,  out  of  a  confusion  of  disconnected  railways,  operated  without  regard 
Competition  ^°  ^^  interests  of  each  other  or  the  public,  there  have  grown  up 
amonEraii-  five  great  compact  and  united  systems  leading  from  the  great 
"*■"*"■  trade-centres  of  the  interior  to  the  seaboard.     The  transportation 

abilities  of  each  of  these  five  routes  have  never  been  fully  taxed.     It  is  csti- 


IWrmi 


tes  which  the  other 
n  to  Columbus,  (),, 
870  the  Winchester 
of  the  Shenamloah 
re  of  the  trade  of 
secureel  by  alliance 
.     The  liabilities  of 
3f  ihe  city  of  Balti- 
i'isely  managed,  and 
raffic.     Its  terminal 
d  in  any  other  sea- 
rain-elevators,  ct)al- 
he    rendezvous    of 
i   the  ocean  steam- 
ilroad-lines  in  1865 
1  with  England,  but 
ers.    The  road  has 

o  the  seaboard  has 
Liver  within  the  last 
I'runk   of   Canada." 
chartered   in    1852, 
to  to  Montreal,    In 
organization,  upon 
had  made.    These 
to  Sarnia  on  Lake 
}  Trois  Pistoles,  and 
These  works  were 
le  company  leased 
Lawrence  Road  of 
ar  the  Canada  bor- 
xrge  a  shore  of  the 
ted ;  but  an  exten- 
,  the  line  has  been 
It  part  of  the  Auieri- 
a   connection  to 
V  competes  actively 

ated  without  regard 

lere  have  grown  up 

ng  from  the  great 

The  transportation 

y  taxed.     It  is  csti- 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


657 


m 


V! 


li  ^.td:^- 

[:"!'■* 

1 ;  1'  •' ;  ,  ii 

'^9 

M'    ■.'    ■     "i^ 

\w<^ 

.llil.  \»AKu  WAlKK-l.AH. 


6s  8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


mated  that  the  tonnage  of  each  might  be  tripled.  The  fact  that  no  otc  of  the 
five  lines  has  carried  as  much  freight  as  it  has  been  capable  of  doing  has  led 
to  sharp  railroad  wars  within  the  last  five  years.  )me  of  which  were  waged  at 
great  loss  to  the  lines,  freight  being  carried  at  less  than  cost.  Various  com- 
pacts have  been  made  to  harmonize  the  differences  of  the  lines,  and  agree 
wiiat  the  rates  shall  be  for  through  freight  over  each,  but  without  permanent 
success.  Compacts  have  only  been  made  to  be  broken.  How  nearly 
matched  the  different  routes  are,  with  reference  to  the  fundamental  matter 
of  distance  from  the  West  to  Liverpool,  may  be  seen  from  the  following 
statement :  —  ' 


FROM  CHICAGO, 


Grand  Trunk  to  Montreal       .... 

Grand  Trunk  to  Boston 

N.  Y.  Cent,  and  Boston  and  Albany  to  Boston, 
New- York  Central  route  to  New  York  . 

Erie  route  to  New  York 

Pennsylvania  Railroad  route  to  New  York     . 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  route  to  Philadelphia. 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  route  to  Baltimore 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  R.R.  route  to  Baltimore, 


MILES. 

FROM    SEAK)I!T 
TO   LIVERTOOL. 

Tor.M.. 

842 

1. 143 

2.936 

4.079 

1,020 

2.936 

3.956 

976 

3.o«3 

j.9''<9 

958 

3.0'3 

3.971 

912 

3.013 

3.9:5 

822 

3,200 

4.0:: 

800 

3.338 

4,13s 

S40 

3.338 

4.178 

It  is  estimated  that  the  through  traffic  between  tlie  West  and  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  now  amounts  to  eight  million  tons  annually.  That  por- 
tion of  it  which  is  grain  is  brought  to  the  coast  at  an  average  cost 
of  twelve  cents  a  bushel  from  Chicago,  the  total  cost  from  Chicago 
to  Liverpool  being  about  thirty-four  cents  a  bushel.  This  amazing 
reduction  is  the  effect  of  the  consolidation  of  through  routes,  and 

competition  between  them. 

Unity,  as  we  have  seen,  grew  up  first  between  the  lines  running  to  the 

North-Atlantic  sealx)ard.     Trade  set  the  most  heavily  in  that  direction,  and 
the  four  years  of  war  prevented  for  a  time  an  alliance  between 


Value  of 
traffic  be- 
tween the 
West  and 

Atlantic  tea 
board. 


estabiithed  the  lines  constituting  the  through  routes  from  North  to  South.  But 
since  the  since  the  war  sc  jral  trunk-lines  have  been  fornied,  tra\  ersing  the 
country  in  that  direction.  It  is  expected  that  these  will  bear  .in 
important  part  in  the  future  in  the  trade  with  the  coast  of  the  Gulf,  from  which 
a  large  part  of  the  commerce  with  Mexico  and  South  America  will  he  carried 
on.     The  principal  of  these  lines  are  the  following  :  — 

1.  The  St.  Louis  avid  Iron-Mountain  Railroad,  with  connections  running 
into  the  state  of  Texas. 

2.  The  Missouri,  kansas,  and  Texas  Railroad. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


659 


Lections  ninning 


3.  The  New  Orleans,  St.  Louis,  and  Chicago  Railroad,  connecting  at 
Cairo,  111,,  with  the  Illinois  Central. 

4.  The  Mobile  and  Ohio  Railroad,  running  also  to  Cairo. 

5.  Tlie  Louisville,  Nashville,  and  Great  Southern  Railroad. 

6.  Three  series  of  lines  running  from  Washington  through  Virgini?,  by 
different  routes,  to  the  South  and  South-West ;  which  may  be  designated  as  the 
Virginia  and  Tennessee  Route,  the  Atlanta  and  Richmon*!  Air-line,  and  the 
co:ist-line  running  through  Weldon,  N.C.,  to  Savannah,  and  connecting  with 
all  the  Southern  States. 

These  important  highways  of  commerce  have  great  capacity,  and  thus  all 
exert  a  regulating  influence  on  freight-rates  between  the  South  and  North. 
riic  trip  from  Boston  to  New  Orleans  can  now  be  made  by  rail,  by   Economy  of 
the  lines  leading  in  that  direction,  in  three  days.     In  the  olden  f«»''"o«<i»- 
time,  before  the  days  of  the  locomotive,  the  trip  required  twenty-four  days. 
What  a  marvellous  change  in  fifty  years  ! 

The  express-business  really  took  its  rise  in  the  days  of  stage-coaches,  or  at 
least  before  the  railway-system  had  grown  beyond  its  early  infancy.     It  grew 
out  of  the  robberies  of  stage-coaches,  and  of  a  practice,  still  com-   yc\%k  of 
moil  in  all  the  new  parts  of  the  country,  of  forwarding  packages  of  Express 
money  and  valuables  by  passengers  travelling  by  stage.    Before  the     """P""  '•• 
establishment  of  the  railroads,  mercliaiits  and  banks  employed  members  of 
the  legislature,  and  other  trustworthy  citizens,  in  their  journeys  to  New  York, 
Boston,  Albany,  and  other  large  cities,  to  take  with  them,  and  deliver  to  their 
correspondents,  the  remittances  which  they  did  not  dare  put  into  the  United- 
States  mail-bags  for  fear  of  robbery.     On  the  Western  plains,  down  to  within 
ten  years,  many  a  passenger  has  had  his  fare  paid  to  the  States  from  the 
mining-regions,  in  consideration  of  his  carrying  with  him  in  the  coach,  and 
delivering  to  the  railways  on  the  Missouri,  the  bars  of  gold  and  silver  which 
there  was  no  other  method  of  transmitting  to  the  States  so  cheaply  and  safely. 
In  1840  this  irregular  practice  took  the  form  of  a  legitimate  business  through 
the  efforts  of  Mr.  Alvin  Adams  of  Boston,  the  founder  of  the  Adams  Express 
Company.     There  was  then  no  railroad  to  New  York  ;  and  Mr.  Adams  began 
carrying  letters  and  parcels  to  New  York  by  stage,  to  AUyn's  Point,  Conn.,  and 
thence  by  steamboat  to  the  metropolis.     He  was  a  man  of  singularly  engaging 
manners  and   manly  character,  and  he  soon  won  such  confidence  that  he 
giined  a  very  large  patronage.     In  a  short  time  the  business  grew  so  large, 
liiat  he  ceased  to  travel  himself,  and  engaged  messengers  to  make  the  trips  to 
New  York  for  him.     Then  boxes  and  bundles  began  to  ho  sent,  and  a  man 
with  a  wheelbarrow  was  hired  to  do  the  collecting  and  distributing  in  Con- 
necticut.    Then  a  wagon  was  hired  for  the  same  purpose.     This  latter  was  so 
important  a  step,  that  there  was  much  meditation  about  it  in  advance,  before 
Mr.  Adams  decided  upon  it.     When  the  New- York  and  New-Haven  Railroad 
was  completed,  the  company  offered  to  give  Mr.  Adams  a  car  for  carrying 


I 


660 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


money  and  valuable  packages  for  $1,700  a  month.  The  offer  was  accepted 
with  fear  and  trembling,  but  proveil  a  success  from  the  start.  From  this 
beginning  the  business  grew  up,  until  Mr.  Adams  had  agencies  in  every  part  of 
Adams  '^^  country  from  San  Francisco  to  Boston.     The  Adams  Kxi^rcss 

Express  Company  was  then  formed  with  a  capital  of  Si, 000,000,  and  has 

ompany.  ^^^^  since  transacted  a  colossal  business.  In  New-Vork  State  the 
express-business  took  its  rise  almost  simultaneously  with  the  start  in  \(.\v 
England,  the  pioneer  in  the  work  being  Mr.  Henry  Wells  of  Aurora,  N'.V.  It 
began  in  the  same  way,  Mr.  Wells  travelling,  however,  by  rail,  and  cnrrying 
^g„j  his  bundles  with  him  in  the  car.     The  express-company  of  Wells, 

Fargo,  &         Fargo,  &  Company,  which  he  organized,  has  had  as  extensive  a 

ompany.  ramification  over  the  country  as  that  of  Mr.  Adams.  It  was 
followed  by  other  companies  in  different  parts  of  the  country ;  and  tiie  insti- 
tution now  forms  so  intimate  and  necessary  a  part  of  the  transportation- 
business  of  the  country,  that  no  raih '.id,  however  short  or  local,  is  now  withuut 
its  special  accommodations  for  express-packages.  The  companies  are  an 
adjunct  of  the  railroad-system  of  tiie  country.  They  rarely  own  cars  of  tiieir 
own  ;  but  they  jierform  the  service  to  the  public  which  they  have  been  <  ailed 
into  existence  to  discharge  by  contracts  with  t;te  different  connecting-lines, 
which  secure  the  rapid  and  uninterrupted  transmission  of  jiackages,  regardless 
of  the  conflicts  of  interest  of  the  different  roads,  and  the  obstacles  they  throw 
in  each  other's  way  in  the  transaction  of  ordinary  business. 

The  fast-freight  system  is  only  the  application  of  this  idea  to  the  transmis- 
sion of  ordinary  commercial  freight.  Tids  system  has  grown  up  entirely 
Fast-freight  within  the  last  fifteen  years.  The  necessity  for  fast-freight  corn- 
system,  panics  did  not  arise  from  the  dangers  of  rol)bery  of  the  cars,  but 
from  the  detentions  of  freight  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  owing  to  the  discord- 
ance of  interests  among  connecting  and  competing  lines.  Despatch  and 
safety  could  not  be  secured  without  the  creation  of  some  responsible  agency 
distinct  from  the  railroads  themselves,  with  which,  on  the  one  hand,  the  public 
could  deal  direct,  and  which,  on  the  otlier  hand,  would  secure  that  concert  of 
action  among  the  roads,  as  far  as  freight  was  concerned,  which  the  roads 
could  not  achieve  themselves.  'I'he  experience  of  the  express-companies 
showed  how  these  desirable  ends  could  be  secured. 

The  first  form  of  fast-freight  transmission  was  introduced  by  the  (ireat- 
Western  Despatch  Company  on  what  is  known  as  the  private  line  sviitem. 
The  company  furnished  its  own  cars,  made  contracts  with  the  various  connec  t 
ing  railroads,  paying  the  roads  specific  sums  for  the  privileges  granted,  and 
then  established  its  own  freight-agencies  in  the  various  cities.  The  (Ireat 
Western  was  (juickly  followed  by  the  Merchants'  Despatch,  the  Union,  the 
National,  the  Star,  the  Diamond,  Globe,  Empire,  and  various  other  lines, 
nmning  over  all  the  great  routes  of  the  country.  There  is  scarcely  a  great 
railroad  in  the  United  States  now  over  which  two  or  three  or  more  of  these 


OF  THE    UNITED    STATES. 


66 1 


;r  was  accepted 
urt.     From  this 
in  every  part  of 
Adams  Kxpress 
)oo,ooo,  ami  has 
w-Vork  Slate  the 
lie  start  in  Niw 
Aurora,  KA'.     It 
ail,  and  cnrryini; 
Mnpany  of  WVlls, 
id  as  extensive  a 
Adams.      It  was 
ry  ;  and  the  in^^ti- 
le  transportation- 
:al,  is  now  witliout 
:ompanies   are   an 
own  cars  of  their 
y  have  been  called 
t  connecting-lines, 
ackages,  regardless 
bstaclcs  tliey  throw 

to  the  transmis- 
grown   up  entirely 
fast-freight  com- 
y  of  the  cars,  but 
uiK  to  the  disconl- 
I)esi)atch  ami 
responsible  agenc  y 
le  hand,  the  public 
urc  that  concert  of 
,  which  the  roads 
express-companies 

iced  by  the  (Ireat- 

rivate  Une  system. 

le  various  connei  l- 
lileges  granteil.  ami 
]  cities.  The  C'reat 
Ih,  the  Union,  the 
larious  other  lines, 
is  scarcely  a  great 

le  or  more  ot  these 


rs. 


lines  do  not  run.  The  private  lines  ofTered  great  advantages  to  the  pul)lic : 
they  insured  safety  and  speed,  and  reduced  the  cost  of  transportation. 
Aliout  1870,  .however,  the  railroad-companies  began  to  find  that  this  new 
system  was  not  so  profitable  to  them  as  it  was  to  the  public.  The  fast-freight 
lines  not  only  absorbed  the  entire  profits  of  the  through   traffic,  but  often 


COATESVILLE   URIUGE,   TENNSVLVANIA. 


proved  a  weight  upon  the 
roads  themselves  by  tak- 
ing from  them  all  tlie  pay- 
ing business.  This  led  to 
the  establishment  of  an- 
other form  of  fast-freight- 
ing, called  the  "  co-oper- 
ative," established  by  the 
roads  themselves.     Each 

connecting  railway  between  principal  points  supplied  a  quota  of  cars  toward 
the  common  equipment  of  a  co-operative  line.  This  class  of  lines  took  the 
designation  of  particular  colors  ;  and  we  have  now,  in  consequence,  the  Orange, 
Blue,  Red,  White,  Purple,  and  other  lines.  The  private  lines  are  gradually 
being  superseded  by  the  latter  class.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  has  assumed 
the  management  of  the  Star,  Union,  and  Empire  lines ;  and  the  same  ten- 
dency is  visible  in  other  parts  of  the  country.     The  fast-freight  system  has 


1 


\. 


662 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


//. 


> 


been  of  vast  benefit  to  the  commercial  community,  and  is  now  a  ])er 
manent  feature  of  railway-transportation :  it  employs  60,000  cars.  The 
Empire  Line,  the  largest  of  the  lines,  has  4,500  cars ;  the  Re^  Line,  4,000  • 
the  White,  3,000 ;  and  the  Blue,  4,000. 

We  now  come  to  speak  of  a  step  in  railroad  construction  which  gave 
to  our  system  of  internal  transportation  a  world-wide  importance :  this  was 
Pacific  the  building  of  a  railway  across  the  plains  and  through  the  iiioim- 

Raiiroad.  tain-ranges  of  the  Far  West  to  connect  the  seaboard  of  the  llast 
with  that  of  the  distant  Pacific.  Since  railways  were  invented,  the  world  lias 
been  running  to  short  cuts  and  rapid  transit.  The  slow  and  leisurely  methods 
of  our  ancestors  are  being  gradually  laid  upon  the  shelf.  The  world  moves 
faster  than  of  old,  and  nothing  satisfies  now  except  the  most  rapid  movement 
of  commerce  and  travel  which  it  is  possible  to  bring  about.     When  the  route 

to  India  by  way  of  the  Cape  of  (lood 
Hope  was  discovered,  the  merchants 
of  Portugal  and  the  Netheriands  wea- 
content  if  their  big,  bluff-bowed  ships 
came  back  from  their  voyages  of  trade 
in  two  years  from  the  time  they  left 
port  at  home.  For  three  hundred 
and  fifty  years,  trade  was  transacted 
chiefly  by  that  circuitous  and  tedious 
route.  When  California  was  settled, 
and  the  discovery  of  priceless  depos- 
its of  gold  was  made,  merchants  were 
long  content  to  trade  by  way  of  the 
long  route  around  Cape  Horn,  their 
ships  returning  only  at  the  expiration 
of  a  year.  The  age  became  impa- 
tient at  the  pace  at  which  trade  was  moving.  The  Panama  Railroad  was  built, 
shortening  the  trip  to  California  many  months ;  and  then  the  Suez 
Canal  was  opened,  shortening  the  voyage  from  China  to  eighty 
days.  But  there  was  yet  much  to  do  in  abbreviating  the  route  to  Asia.  From 
New-York  City  to  Panama,  and  thence  to  Canton,  is  1 1,850  miles :  from  Kng- 
land  to  Canton  by  the  same  route  is  14,630  miles,  or  half  the  circumference 
of  the  earth.  But  were  there  a  railroad  across  the  American  continent  in 
as  direct  a  lirte  from  New  York  as  could  conveniently  be  built,  the  trip  from 
that  metropolis  to  Canton  would  be  only  10,845  niiles  long,  and  from  Eng- 
land to  New  York,  and  thence  to  Canton,  13,845  miles;  the  distance  from 
England  to  Canton  by  way  of  the  Suez  Canal  being  12,000  miles. 

There  had  been,  for  several  years,  t^lk  about  a  railway  to  the  Pacific. 
The  war  accelerated  the  national  impulse  in  favor  of  such  a  work  by  showing 
the  need  of  an  inland  route  to  California,  and  facilities  for  the  rapid  transpor- 


nRST  OFFICB,  CENTIIAL  PACIFIC  RAILROAD. 


Panama 
Railroad. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


663 


i  is  now  a  \¥tx 
3,ooo  cars.  The 
Re^  Line,  4,000 ; 

iction  which  gave 
lortance ;   this  was 
through  the  iiumn- 
iboard  of  the  I'.ast 
ited,  the  world  has 
d  leisurely  methods 
The  world  moves 
)st  rapid  movement 
t.     When  the  route 
if  the  Cape  of  ("lOud 
ered,  the  merchants 
he  Netherlands  wea' 
ig,  bluff-bowed  ships 
heir  voyages  of  trade 
m  the  time  they  left 
For  three  hundred 
rade  was  transacted 
rcuitous  and  tedious 
;alifornia  was  settled, 
■y  of  priceless  depos- 
lade,  merchants  were 
trade  by  way  of  the 
id  Cape  Horn,  their 
inly  at  the  expiration 
age  became  impa- 
|a  Railroad  was  built, 
and  then  the  Suez 
,m  China  to  eighty 
oxite  to  Asia.    I'ro'" 
o  miles :  from  Kng- 
flf  the  circumference 
nerican  continent  in 
le  built,  the  trip  from 
Jong,  and  from  Kng- 
;   the  distance  from 
|o  miles. 

Iway  to  the  Pacific 

a  work  by  showing 

Ir  the  rapid  transpor- 


tation of  troops  to  those  far-away  western  portions  of  our  domain.  In  July, 
1862,  two  companies  were  incorporated  by  Congress  to  build  the  road.  The 
Union  Pacific  was  to  begm  at  <.)maha,  and  go  westward  :  the  Central  Pacific, 
starting  at  San  FranciscOjjvas  to  build  out  to  meet  it.  The  Act  of  1862,  and 
a  subsequent"'one~passed  in  186^,  granted  to  the  companies  a  right  ot  way 
two  himdred  feet"wide  th  ough  the  public  domain,  and  twenty  sections  of 
land  per  mile,  and,  in  addition  to  this,  a  loan  of  government  credit  to  the 
amount  of  $16,000  per  mile  on  the  prairies,  $32,000  per  mile  between  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  Sierra  Nevadas,  and  $48,000  per  mile  for  a  distance 


SNOW-SHEDS. 


of  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  across  each  of  those  two  ranges.  Work  began 
in  1863.  The  Central  Pacific  consolidated  with  the  Western  Pacific  Railroad 
out  to  San  Jos^,  the  San  Francisco,  Oakland,  and  Alameda  Company,  the  San 
Joaiiuin  Valley,  and  the  California  and  Oregon  Companies.  The  work  was 
prosecuted  on  both  ends  of  the  line  with  great  energy,  attracting  the  attention 
and  admiration  of  the  whole  civilized  world.  In  1868  three  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  hatl  been  completed  on  the  Union  Pacific,  and  track-laying  was  going 
on  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  a  day.  In  May,  1869,  the  two  roads  met  at  Oeden. 
Utah,  and  an  all-rail  line  existed  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  Oceans.  The 
last  spike  driven  was  made  of  gold  ;  and  the  event,  telegraphed  instantly  to  all 


/ 


\    (j 


y 


664 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY  OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


parts  of  the  Union,  was  the  occasion  of  public  rejoicing  and  excitement  every- 
where. Flags  were  exhibited,  cannon  fired,  and  meetings  of  public  congrutu- 
lation  held,  to  celebrate  the  completion  of  the  great  national  work. 

There  is  a  great  future  before  these  roads.  They  have  been  successful  jn 
obtaining  a  share  of  the  commerce  from  Asia  both  for  United-States  ace  oiint 
Future  of  and  for  European.  Connecting  with  the  steamships  at  San  Fran- 
theie  roads,  cisco,  they  have  shortened  the  transit  from  Yokohama  to  New 
York  an  average  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  days  to  thirty ;  and  they  are  hriiiLMiig 
into  the  States  east  of  the  Mississippi  River  now,  in  large  quantity,  the  teas 
and  other  commodities  which  formerly  took  the  slower  routes  vid  Panama  or 
Cape  Horn.  To  England  they  deliver  teas,  put  on  board  the  Atlantic  steamers 
at  New  York,  in  forty  days,  which  England  cannot  obtain  in  less  than  a  hunilrcd 
and  twenty  by  steamer  vid  the  Suez  Canal.  This  through  business  will  doubt- 
less be  shared  in  the  future  by  competing  Pacific  railways ;  but  the  country 
along  the  Union  and  Central  Roads  is  being  rapidly  developed  through  the 
agency  of  the  roads  themselves,  and  will  give  them  in  the  fiiture  a  local  traffic 
which  will  more  than  replace  the  falling-oflf  in  the  through  business. 

The  total  volume  of  the  through  commerce  will,  however,  be  largely 
increased  when  the  three  new  Pacific  railways  now  projected  are  completed. 
Northern  Competition  will  reduce  the  transportation-charges,  and  lead  to  an 
Pacific.  expansion  of  trade.    The  three  roads  referred  to  are  the  Northern 

Pacific,  chartered  in  July,  1864,  with  a  land-grant  and  a  loan,  which  now  lias 
over  five  hundred  miles  of  road  in  operation  west  from  Dpluth  on  Lake  Supe- 
rior ;  the  Canadian  Pacific,  organized  in  1873,  with  a  capital  of  ;?io,coo,ooo,  a 
grant  of  50,000,000  acres  along  the  main  line,  and  a  subsidy  of  $30,000,000 ; 
Texas  and  the  southern  route  to  Pacific,  which  is  building  by  two  com- 

Pacific.  panies, — the  Texas  and  Pacific  from  the  East,  and  the  Southern 

Pacific  from  the  West,  —  each  company  having  a  land-grant  from  Congress, 
and  the  latter  the  enormous  one  of  60,000,000  acres  from  the  State  of  Texas. 
This  latter  route  is  well  under  way,  and  should  be  finished  in  two  or  three 
years. 


iEBiLT:nEKSi8£'::Tijr 

• 

^^^ 

w 

< 
■■♦, 

BOOK 

IV. 

MINES 

AND   MINING,  AND 

OIL. 

CHAFITIR   1. 


MINING. 


GENERAL    HISTORY. 


THE  place  which  the  mining-industries  of  a  country  deserve  to  hold 
among  the  pursuits  of  a  nation  is  not  to  be  estimated  by  the  market- 
value  of  the  product  as  compared  with  the  market-value  of  other  importance 
products  of  labor ;  for,  if  it  were,  mining  would  be  entitled  to  a  of  mineral 
very  insignificant  rank.  We  manufacture  every  year  to  the  extent  '"°  "'^**' 
of  nearly  six  billion  dollars ;  we  market  our  agricultural  products  for  some- 
thing like  three  billion  ;  while  the  total  yiehl  of  all  our  mines  does  not  sell  for 
two  hundred  million.  The  development  of  agriculture  and  manufacturing 
has  been  peculiarly  dependent  upon  the  use  of  metals,  the  implements  and 
machinery  necessary  thereto  being  made  almost  entirely  from  mineral  sub- 
stances. In  other  regards  —  in  building,  illuminating,  transportation,  printing, 
travel,  and  human  intercourse  —  we  are  so  utterly  dependent  upon  metals,  that 
we  may  truly  say  they  have  been  the  means,  f  more  than  any  thing  else  mate- 
rial, of  the  world's  ci\"' .nation.  Thus  viewed,  American  mining-industry  attains 
pre-eminent  importance.  Nevertheless,  owing  to  the  tardiness  with  which  we 
discovered  the  extent  of  our  mineral  resources  and  to  some  other  disadvan- 
tages, the  development  of  these  interests  was  greatly  retarded,  and  belongs 
chiefly  to  the  last  half-century  of  the  country's  history. 

By  the  alx)rigines  a  little  was  known  of  the  existence  and  value  of  copper, 
petroleum,  and  silver,  on  this  continent ;  and  the  former  two  were  Aborigine* 
used  in  the  region  now  included  within  the  United  States  ages  ignorant  of 
before  the  white  man  set  foot  on  the  American  continent.  *"**'  '' 

The  hope  of  finding  mineral  treasure  was  one  of  the  incentives  that  led  the 
early  colonists  hither,  and  they  were  quite  diligent  in  searching  for  metals. 
All  along  the  Atlantic   coast,    almost   immediately  after  the  first  se„ch  for 
settlements,  discoveries  were  made  of  silver,  lead,  copper,  iron,   metaUby 
tin,  antimony,  coal,  and  other  valuable  minerals ;   but  they  were  '*''''"'•*"• 
found  generally  in  small  quantities  ;  and,  in  competition  with  foreign  produc- 

667 


1 , 


668 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


tion,  the  working  of  mines  was  frcciucntly  found  iinremtinerative.  Then,  too, 
the  presence  and  hostihty  of  Indians  made  siu  h  enterprises  dangerous.  Iron 
ore  was  sent  to  England  from  near  Jamestown  in  1608,  the  year  after  Vir(,'inia 
was  first  permanently  settled  ;  and  in  1620  a  hundred  and  fifty  skilled  work- 
men were  sent  to  the  colony  to  erect  anil  operate  iron-works.  An  Indian 
massacre  two  years  later,  however,  put  a  discouraging  end  to  proceedings, 
Another  discouragement  grew  out  of  such  blunders  as  the  supposed  discovery 
of  gold  in  Virginia  by  Capt.  John  Smith.  A  shipload  of  the  glittering  dust 
was  sent  to  Kngland,  and  there  pronounced  to  be  nothing  but  iron  pyrites. 

However,  the  plucky  colonists  persevered  in  spite  of  all  depressions  and 
Early  effortt  obstacles,  and  made  very  creditable  beginnings.  Iron-mining  was 
In  mining.  resumed  permanently  in  Virginia  in  1715.  The  metal  was  found 
in  Massachusetts  in  1628  and  later,  and  a  company  was  formed  to  'vork  it  in 
1643.  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania  followed  suit. 
Penn  had  discovered  iron  as  early  as  1683  ;  but  no  forges  are  mentioned  on 
his  grants  earlier  than  1719-20.  Lead-mining  began  in  Missouri,  then  belong- 
ing to  France,  in  1720;  and  the  old  Southampton  silver-lead  mine  was  openjd 
in  Massachusetts  in  1765.  Copper-mining  is  first  heard  of  in  Connecticut, 
the  Simsbury  mines  being  worked  as  early  as  1 709  ;  but  they  were  abandoned 
as  unprofitable  about  the  middle  of  that  century.  The  Schuyler  mine,  near 
Belleville,  N.J. ,  was  dibcovered  in  1 719,  and  is  historic  as  the  scene  of  the 
building  of  the  first  steam-engine  in  America  in  1 793-94.  The  Lake  Superior 
copper  was  first  mined  by  the  whites  in  17  71,  and  in  small  quantities.  In  the 
early  colonial  days  the  settlers  used  wood  for  fuel,  and  charcoal  for  the  forge 
and  smelting-works.  Coal,  however,  was  found  in  Rhode  Island  in  1 768,  and 
mined  for  use.  The  great  bituminous  seam  near  Pittsburgh,  Penn.,  was  struck 
in  1 784.  Previous  to  this  time  coal  was  found  in  quantities  in  Virginia ;  and 
canals  were  cut,  connecting  parallel  rivers  to  facilitate  its  transportation.  By 
1 789  quite  an  export  trade  with  adjacent  colonies  had  been  built  up. 

At  numerous  other  points  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  these  and  other 
metals  were  found  prior  to  the  Revolution.  Smelting-works  and  forges  were 
erected  to  reduce  the  ores,  some  of  which,  however,  were  exported.  The 
home  government  discouraged  the  manufacture  of  metals  in  this  country, 
though,  at  that  period  ;  which  was  a  damper  upon  mining-industry. 

In  the  following  chapters  we  trace  more  in  detail  the  steps  in  the  history 
of  each  branch  of  mining  in  this  country.  Suffice  it  here  to  say,  that,  from  the 
Effect  of  humble  beginnings  just  mentioned,  but  slow  advances  were  made 
Revolution-  for  several  decades.  The  Revolutionary  war,  by  cutting  off  sup- 
•ry  war.  pjj^g  ^^^^  England,  and  creating  a  special  demand  for  iron  and 
copper  ordnance  and  lead  bullets,  as  well  as  other  metal  for  domestic  and  other 
implements,  gave  a  peculiar  stimulus  to  mining,  although  the  army  so  drained 
the  country  of  men  as  to  leave  few  for  such  occupations. 

It  was  not  until  a  quarter  of  the  present  century  had  passed  that  we  see  any 


Then,  too, 
rous.  Iron 
fter  Virj^inia 
killed  work- 

An  Indian 
)roceedinj,'s, 
d  discovery 
ttcring  dust 
pyrites, 
■essions  and 
-mining  was 
il  was  found 
3  'vork  it  in 
ollowed  suit. 
entioned  on 
then  belong- 

was  open'.'d 
Connecticut, 
!  abandoned 
ir  mine,  near 
scene  of  the 
ake  Superior 
:ies.    In  the 

or  the  forge 

1768,  and 

was  struck 

^inia;  and 

ation.    By 

p. 

and  other 

forges  were 

orted.    The 

his  country, 

the  history 
lat,  from  the 

were  made 
ing  off  sup- 
er iron  and 

:  and  other 

so  drained 

;  we  see  any 


670 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


marked  strides  in  the  mining-business.  In  1820  attempts  were  made  to  mix 
Mining  since  anthracite  coal  witli  charcoal  in  iron-smelting :  but  the  experiment 
'825-  was  not  successful  until  183 1,  when  the  hot-blast  was  invented' 

then  both  the  coal  and  iron  industry  took  a  tremendous  start.  In  1835  'e^d- 
mining  received  a  wonderful  impetus  in  Missouri  and  Iowa  from  new  dis- 
coveries. Copper-niining  was  revived  along  Lake  Superior  about  1842,  and 
made  a  sudden  jump.  The  California  gold-fever  of  1849  was  the  beginning 
of  the  search  and  procurement  of  that  metal  on  a  considerable  scale.  Petro- 
leum came  prominently  into  notice  for  the  first  time  in  August,  1859,  wlien  the 
V^  Drake  well  struck  oil ;  and  the  Comstock  lode  was  discovered  in  Nevada  that 
same  year,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  our  present  silver-mining  business. 
These  are  the  points  from  which  the  present  development  of  our  mineral 
resources  dates. 

A  review  of  the  history  of  mining  during  this  important  period  shows  that 
our  operations  have  been  characterized  by  intense  excitement  and  magnified 
Speculative  speculation,  by  gross  blunders  and  by  great  waste.  Says  Kimball, 
character  of  [It]  "  is  an  instructive  narrative  of  fluctuating  fortune,  rangng 
"""'"*■  through  all  the  intermittent  vicissitudes  of  prosperity  and  stagna- 

tion, of  factitious  inflations  and  calamitous  recoils,  of  blind  delusion  and 
credulity,  of  stolid  unbelief,  of  highest  popularity,  and  general  distrust."  The 
possibility  of  making  a  great  deal  of  money  in  a  short  time  always  crazes 
people ;  and  the  discovery  of  large  deposits  of  metal,  both  the  baser  and  the 
precious,  affords  just  such  inviting  possibilities  to  the  workman  and  to  the 
capitalist.  And  so,  in  the  case  of  each  of  the  great  discoveries  of  lead,  copper, 
gold,  oil,  and  silver,  a  large  proportion  of  the  country's  population  has  been 
rendered  frantic.  An  immense  rush  has  set  in  toward  the  centre  of  inter- 
est ;  fortunes  large  and  small,  often  augmented  by  extensive  borrowing  from 
credulous  friends  and  relatives,  have  Jjeen  invested  in  land-claims,  and  stock 
companies  to  work  therr. ;  towns  and  villages  have  sprung  up  almost  in  a  day, 
like  Jonah's  gourd.  The  hopes  of  but  few  out  of  many  would  be  reahzcd ; 
disappointment  and  ruin  ensued ;  and  not  only  were  poverty,  sickness,  and 
death  often  the  result,  but  whole  towns  of  the  mushroom  type  have  been 
almost  as  suddenly  wiped  out  of  existence. 

In  this  mad  rush  of  greed  and  excitement,  other  blunders  besides  those  of 
investing  in  unprofitable  lands  have  been  made.  Furnaces  for  smelling  have 
been  located  without  due  regard  for  getting  fuel ;  costly  machinery  for  crushing 
ore  has  been  bought,  and  forwarded  to  the  scene  of  action,  without  knowing 
whether  ore  would  be  found  at  all,  or  whether  the  apparatus  was  suited  to  the 
ki.id  of  ore  discovered;  new  processes  for  extracting  metal  have  been 
resorted  to,  without  reliable  inforniation  as  to  their  value ;  and  other  such 
ruinous  mistakes  have  been  committed  by  frenzied  speculators. 

There  has  also  been  an  enormous  waste  of  valuable  minerals  in  conse- 
quence of  this  same  impetuous  desire  for  wealth.     In  the  lead-regiuns  ot  tlic 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


671 


were  made  to  wix 
but  the  experiment 
blast  was  invented ; 
art.     In  1835  lead- 
;owa  from  new  dis- 
ior  about  1842,  and 
3  was  the  beginning 
arable  scale.    I'etro- 
gust,  1859,  when  the 
ered  in  Nevada  that 
ver-mining  business. 
nent  of  our  mineral 

nt  period  shows  that 
sment  and  magnified 
vaste.     Says  Kimball, 
iting  fortune,  rangng 
jrosperity  and  stagna- 
f  blind  delusion  and 
eneral  distrust."    The 
»rt  time  always  crazes 
3th  the  baser  and  the 
workman  and  to  the 
•veries  of  lead,  copper, 
population  has  been 
the  centre  of  inter- 
nsive  borrowing  from 
|and-claims,  and  stock 
^  up  almost  in  a  day, 
ly  would  be  reah/.cd; 
loverty,  sickness,  and 
•00m  type  have  been 


Mississippi  Valley  argentiferous  galena  is  quite  common,  and  often  the  lead 
is  entirely  wasted  in  the  extraction  of  the  little  silver.     In  the 

.  •.!,,.  1  ,-1  Waste. 

coal-regions,  especially  before  the  organization  of  the  present 
large  companies  and  their  combination  in  monopoly,  only  the  richer  measures 
woidd  be  worked,  leaving  a  large  quantity  of  inferior  yet  valuable  coal  on 
higher  levels  to  be  lost  by  caving.  Such  recklessness  in  handling  was  p^ainised, 
that  from  a  third  to  a  half  of  the  product  was  lost.  The  same  stite  of  things 
has  been  found  in  the  silver  country.  Mines  have  been  neglected  as  soon  as 
the  rich  surface-deposits  were  procured,  and  the  accumulation  of  water  and 
rubbish  have  mrde  it  next  to  impossible  to  work  what  were  really  paying  shafts. 
But  a  re-action  has  set  in  of  late  years  in  these  regards,  and  this  extravagance 
is  steadily  lessening. 

The  two  great  causes,  which,  after  the  discovery  of  our  great  resources 
and  the  passion  for  w  \lth,  have  stimulated  American  mining,  are  the  govern- 
ment's general  poll  of  encouragement,  and  the  advancement  in  principal 
mechanic  and  natur  1  science.  Under  the  old  English  laws  the  causes  of  im- 
crown  was  entitled  to  the  gold  and  silver  found  on  government  p'"^""'"*- 
lands,  and  a  certain  proportion  of  other  minerals.  But  in  this  country,  although 
legislation  has  been  very  slight  until  recently,  and  the  gold  and  silver  miners 
of  the  Pacific  coast  were  ruled  only  by  self-made  regulations,  the  government 
has  favored  the  free  occupation  and  investigation  of  the  rocks  for  minerals, 
and  facilitated  the  cheap  purchase  and  lease  of  mining-lands,  'ihere  has 
been  a  protective  tariff,  too,  on  foreign  metals  at  times,  the  heaviest  having 
been  since  i86r ;  and  this  has  greatly  promoted  the  development  of  our  iron, 
copper,  coal,  and  other  minerals. 

.\mong  the  most  serviceable  inventions  in  practical  mining  and  metallurgy 
for  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years  are  the  California  stamp-mill  for  crushing 
quartz,  the  mercury  amalgamation  process  for  gold,  the  pan  process  for  silver, 
the  hydraulic  process  of  gold-mining  in  alluvial  regions,  the  application  of  new 
explosives  to  rocks,  new  methods  of  drilling,  new  blast-furnaces,  and  new 
methods  of  converting  iron  into  steel. 

Our  independent  schools  in  mining  and  engineering  date  from  1865.  Mr. 
Abram  S.  Hewitt,  speaking  in  1875  of  their  rapid  increase  in  number,  said, 
"  Many  of  them  compare  favorably  in  theoretical  instruction  at  Mining- 
least,  and  several  of  them  in  the  apparatus  of  instruction,  v.-ilh  the  «=hoois. 
famous  schools  of  the  Old  World.  The  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 
at  Bciston,  the  School  of  Mines  of  Columbia  College  at  New  York,  the  Shef- 
field Scientific  School  of  Yale  College  at  New  Haven,  the  Stevens  Institute  of 
Technology  at  Hoboken.  the  Pardee  Scientific  Department  of  Lafayette  Col- 
lege at  Kaston,  the  excellent  school  at  Rutgers  College  under  the  direction  of 
Professor  Cook,  the  new  Scientific  Department  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey, 
the  School  of  Mining  and  Metallurgy  of  Lehigh  University  at  Bethlehem,  the 
School  of  Mining  and  Practical  Geology  of  Harvard  University  at  Cambridge, 


!■ 


67a  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

the  Scientific  Department  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  at  Philadelphia 
the  School  of  Mines  of  Michigan  University  at  Ann  Arbor,  the  Missouri 
School  of  Mines  and  Metallurgy  at  Rolla,  the  Polytechnic  Department  of 
Washington  University  at  St.  Louis,  and  the  similar  department  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  California  at  Oakland,  and  perhaps  some  which  I  have  omitted  to 
name,  —  this  is  a  list  of  schools  for  instruction  in  the  sciences  involved  in 
mining  and  metallurgical  practice  of  which  we  need  not  be  ashamed." 

Other  agencies  for  the  advancement  of  science  in  this  class  of  industry 
National  ^^  ^^  appointment  and  reports  of  a  national  commissioner  of 
commis-  mining-statistics  since  1866,  the  organization  of  the  American 
sionerof  Institute  of  Mining  Engineers  in  1870,  and  the  publication  of 
periodicals  especially  devoted  to  such  subjects,  the  most  prominent 
of  these  being  "The  American  Mining  and  Engineering  Journal." 

The  following  table,  made  up  from  the  census  of  1870,  shows  the  value  of 
the  principal  mineral  products  of  this  country  that  year:  the  figures  for  1878 
would  doubtless  raise  the  total  very  nearly  fifty  million  dollars  more  :  — 

Coal $73,524,992 

Iron  ore 13,204,138 

Gold  (placer-mined) 7,266,613 

Gold  (hydraiilic-niinnl) 2,508,531 

Quartz  (40  per  cent  gold  and  60  per  cent  silver)  .        .        .  16,677,508 

Copper 5,201,312 

Petroleum 19,304,224 

Lead 736,004 

Zinc 788,880 

Cinnabar 817,700 

Nickel '       .        .        .        .  24,000 

Asphaltum "  .        .  450,000 

Peat 8,200 

Quarrying  (including  marble  and  slate)         ....  12,086,892 

Total $1521598.994 


^ 


^M 


--►-T^nY 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


673 


CHAPTER  II. 


GOLD. 


Drake. 


ALTHOUGH  some  specimens  of  gold  were  collected  in  North  Carolina 
and  Virginia  previous  to  the  Revolution,  no  excitement  about  the  sub- 
ject arose  until  the  discovery  in  Cahfornia  in  1848.     Before  then  Early  di»- 
the  gold-miner  had  pursued  his  occupation  quietly,  and  without  coveriesof 
ever  dreaming  of  enormous  riches  suddenly  acquired ;    but,  with  '^°  " 
the  discovery  on  the  Pacific  coast,  aH  was  changed.     Gold  had  been  found  in 
California  prior  to  t  .s  time ;   for  Hakluyt  (in  his  account  of  the  voyage  of 
Sir  Francis  Drake,  \\i\o  spent  five  weeks  in  June  and  July,  1579, 
along  the  coast)  says,  "  There  is  no  part  of  the  earth  to  be  taken 
up  wherein  there  is  not  a  reasonable  quantity  of  gold  and  silver."     Although 
this  statement  was  highly  overdrawn,  yet  it  probably  contained   a  basis  of 
truth ;  for  the  Mexicans  found  placer-gold  near  the  Colorado  River  at  various 
intervals  between    1775  and  1828.     Still  these  discoveries  were  regarded  as 
unim])ortant ;  and  even  so  late  as   1835,  when  Forbes  wrote  his  History  of 
California,  he  says,  '•  No  minerals  of  any  particular  importance   pigcers  of 
have  yet  been  found  in  Upper  California,  nur  any  ores  of  metals."   San  Fran- 
Three  years  later  the  placers  of  San  Francisquito,  forty-five  miles  "•'i"'*°' 
north-west  from  Los  Angeles,  were  discovered.     The  deposit  of  gold  was 
neither  extensive  nor  rich ;  but  it  was  worked  steadily  for  twenty  years.     In 
1841  the  exploring-expedition  of  Commodore  Wilkes  visited  the  coast;  and 
its  mineralogist,  James  1).  Dana,  made  a  trip  overland  from  the 
Columbia  River,  by  way  of  Willamette  and  Sacramento  Valleys,  to 
San  Francisco  Bay  ;  and  in  the  following  year  he  published  a  work  on  miner- 
alogy, in  which  was  mentioned  the  discovery  of  gold  in  Sacramento  Valley, 
and  of  auriferous  rocks  in  Southern  Oregon.     Dana  did  not  regard  his  dis- 
covery as  of  any  practical  value  ;  and,  if  he  said  any  thing  about  it  in  Cali- 
fornia, no  one  heeded  his  words.     Nevertheless,  many  persons  believed  the 
country  was  rich  in  minerals;   and  on  the  4th  of  May,  1846,  Thomas  O. 
Larkin,  at  that  time  United-States  consul  in  Monterey,  wrote  in  an  official 
letter  to  James  Buchanan,  who  was  then  secretary  of  state,  "There   is   no 


Dana. 


674 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


doubt  but  that  gold,  silver,  quicksilver,  copper,  lead,  sulphur,  and  coal  mines 
are  to  be  found  all  over  California ;  and  it  is  ecjually  doubtful  whether,  under 
their  present  owners,  they  will  ever  be  worked." 

Seven  years  later,  on  the  nineteenth  day  of  January,  1848,  —  ten  days  belore 
the  treaty  of  (niadalupe  Hidalgo  was  signed,  and  three  months  before  llic 
Marshall's  ratified  copies  were  exchanged,  —  James  W.  Marshall,  while  en- 
discovery,  gaged  in  digging  a  race  for  a  saw-mill  at  Coloma,  about  tliirtv-five 
miles  eastward  from  Sutter's   Fort,  found  some  pieces  of  yellow  melal  which 


SUTTER  S  SAW-MtLL. 


he  and  tlie  half-dozen  men  working  with  him  at  the  mill  -magined  were  gold. 
Feeling  confident  that  he  had  made  a  discovery  of  great  importaiKC,  but 
knowing  notliing  of  chemistry  or  gold-mining,  he  could  not  prove  tiie  iiatuir 
of  the  metal,  or  tell  how  to  obtain  it  in  paying  quantities.  livery  morning  he 
went  down  to  the  race  to  look  for  gold ;  but  the  rest  of  his  companions 
regarded  Marshall  as  very  wild  in  his  ideas,  and  continued  their  labors  upon 
the  mill  and  in  sowing  v^heat  and  planting  vegetables.  The  swift  cuiant  ot 
the  mill-race  washed  away  a  considerable  body  of  earthy  mi.Uer,  leaving  ihe 
coarse  particles  of  gold  behind  :  so  Marshall's  collection  of  specimens  con- 
tinued to  accumulate,  and  his  as'sociates  began  to  think  there  might  be  some- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


(>1S 


r,  ami  coiil  mines 
ful  whether,  uiulcr 

—  ten  days  before 
nonths  before  the 
larshall,  \vliile  en- 
a,  about  thirty-five 
yellow  metal  which 


,VA'-;.-   -• 


^^D 


I  M-nagined  were  gold. 
Ireat  importame,  hut 
lot  prove  the  naluve 
1     Every  mornin;:  lu- 
L  of  his  conii);uiioiis 
led  their  labors  upoii 
The  swift  current  ot 
ly  muner,  leaving  the 
In  of  spe(-imens  con- 
lere  mit;ht  be  some- 


thing in  his  gold-mine,  after  all.  About  the  middle  of  February  one  of  the 
party  employed  at  the  mill  went  to  San  Francisco  for  the  purpose  of  learning 
wiiether  this  metal  was  precious,  and  was  there  introduced  to  Isaac  Humphrey, 
who  had  washed  for  gold  in  Georgia.  The  experienced  miner  saw  at  a  glance 
that  the  true  stuff  was  before  him,  and,  after  a  few  inquiries,  was  satisfied  as  to 
the  richness  of  the  deposits.  He  made  immediate  preparation  to  go  to  the 
,  and   tried  to  persuade  some  of  his  friends  to  go  with  him ;   but  they 


nil 


thought  it  would  be  only  a  waste  of  time  and  money  :  so  he  went  with  Bennett 
for  his  sole  companion. 

Arriving  at  Coloma  on  the  7th  of  March,  he  found  work  at  the  mill  going 
on  as  though  no  gold  existed  in  the  neighborhood.    The  next  day  he  took  a 
pan  and  spade,  and  waslicd  some  of  the  dirt  from  the  bottom  of  washing 
the  mill-race  in  places  where  Marshall  had  found  his  specimens,  'ofeoid. 
and  in  a  few  hours  declared  the  mines  to  be  far  richer  than  any  he  had  seen 
or  heard  of  in  Georgia. 

He  now  made  a  rocker,  and  went  to  work  earnestly  washing  for  gold ;  and 
every  day  he  found  ap  ounce  or  more  of  metal.     The  men  at  the   Renews  his 
mill  made  rockers  for  themselves,  and  all  were  soon  busy  in  search  ''f"""**- 
of  tiie  shining  stuff. 

I'^ery  thing  else  was  abandoned  ;  yet  the  nimor  of  the  discovery  spread 
slowly.  In  the  middle  of  March,  Pearson  B.  Residing,  the  owner  of  a  large 
ranch  at  the  head  of  the  Sacramento  Valley,  happened  to  visit  other  dis- 
Siitter's  Fort ;  and,  hearing  of  the  mining  at  Coloma,  he  went  coveries. 
thither  to  see  it.  He  said,  that,  if  siiriilarity  of  formation  could  be  regarded 
as  proof,  there  must  be  gold-mines  near  his  ranch  :  so,  after  observing  the 
method  of  washing,  he  went  away,  and  in  a  few  weeks  was  at  work  on  the  bars 
of  Clear  Creek,  nearly  two  hundred  miles  in  a  north-westerly  direction  from 
Coloma.  A  few  days  after  Reading  had  left,  John  Bidwell,  formerly  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  northern  district  of  the  State  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress, 
came  to  Coloma ;  and  the  result  of  his  visit  was  the  organization  of  a  party 
of  Indians  belonging  to  his  ranch  to  wash  for  gold  on  the  bars  of  Feather 
River,  seventy-five  miles  from  Coloma.  Thus  the'  mines  were  opened  at 
several  distant  points. 

The  following  was  the  first  printed  notice,  in  a  California  newspaper  pub- 
lished in  San  Francisco,  of  the  discovery  :    "  In  the  newly-made  p^xnttA 
race-way  of  the  saw-mill  erected  by  Capt.  Sutter  on  the  Ameri-  notice  oi 
can  Fork,  gold  has  been  found  in  considerable  quantities.     One  '*'"°*"y- 
person  brought  thirty  dollars  to  New  Helvetia,  gathered  there  in  a  short 
time." 

On  the  29th  of  May,  the  same  paper,  announcing  that  its  publication  would 
be  suspended,  says,  "  The  whole  country,  from  San  Francisco  to 
Los  Angeles,  and  from  the  seashore  to  the  base  of  Sierra  Nevada, 
resounds  with  the  sordid  cry  of  '  Gold,  gold,  gold  1 '  while  the  field  is  left  half 


i 


676 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


planted,  the  house  half  built,  and  every  thing  neglected  but  the  manufacture 
of  picks  and  shovels,  and  the  means  of  transportation  to  the  spot  where  one 
man  obtained  a  hundred  and  twenty-eight  dolL^rs'  worth  of  the  real  stuff  in 
one  day's  washing ;  and  the  average  for  all  concerned  is  twenty  dollars  per 
diem." 

Towns  and  farms  were  deserted,  or  left  to  the  care  of  women  and  children  • 


CAUFORNIAN  GOLD-FINUUK  I'KUSi'UCTING  TIIK  GKOUN'U. 


while  rancheros,  wood-choppers,  mechanics,  vaqueros,  and  soldiers  and  >ailors 
Rush  for  who  had  deserted,  or  obtained  leave  of  absence,  devoted  all  ihoir 
the  mines.  energies  to  washing  the  auriferous  gravel  of  the  SacrauiLMito  basin. 
Never  satisfied,  however  great  their  profits,  they  were  continually  looking  tor 
new  places  which  might  yield  them  twice  or  thrice  as  much  as  they  had  made 
before.  Thus  the  area  of  their  labors  gradually  extended  ;  and,  at  the  em!  of 
1848,  miners  were  at  work  in  every  large  stream  on  the  western  slope  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada,  from  the  Feather  to  the  Tuolumne  River  (a  distance  of  a 


F^''"''1|ff 


t  the  manufacture 

\e  spot  where  one 

if  the  real  stulT  in 

twenty  dollars  per 

imen  and  children ; 


^tj 


Id  soldiers  and  >;ul<"s 
Ince,  devoted  all  their 
Ithc  Sacramento  basin. 
lontinually  locking  for 
]ich  as  they  had  made 
\  ■  and,  at  the  end  of 
western  slope  of  the 
Iver  (a  distance  of  a 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


677 


hundred  and  fifty  miles),  and  also  at  Reading's  diggings  in  the  north-western 
corner  of  the  Sacramento  Valley. 

The  news  of  the  gold  discovery  was  received  in  the  Atlantic  States  and  in 
foreign  countries  with  incredulity  and  ridicule  ;  but  soon  the  receipts  of  the 
precious  metal  in  large  quantities,  and  the  enthusiastic  letters  of  Reception  of 
army-officers  and  of  men  whose  word  was  unquestioned,  changed  news  in  At- 
tlie  current  of  belief,  and  created  a  wonderful  excitement.  Ore-  ""*'"^  "'"' 
gon,  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  and  Sonora  sent  their  thousands  to  share  in  the 
auriferous  harvest  of  the  first  year ;  and  in  the  following  spring  all  the  adven- 
turous young  Americans  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  wanted  to  go  to  the 
new  Kldorado,  where,  as  they  imagined,  everybody  was  rich,  and  gold  could 
be  dug  by  the  shovelful  from  the  bed  of  every  stream. 

Though  the  phrase  "golden  sands"  is  often  heard,  gold  is  found  in  a 
tougli  clay,  which  envelops  gravel 
and  large  bowlders  as  well  as  sand. 
This  clay  must  be  thoroughly  dis- 
solved :  so  the  miner  fdls  „gje  of 
his  ])an,  —  which  is  made  washing 
of  sheet-iron  or  tinned  '"  8°''*- 
iron,  with  a  flat  bottom  about  a  foot 
in  diameter,  and  sides  six  inches 
high,  inclining  outwards  at  an  an- 
gle of  thirty  or  forty  degrees,  —  and 
goes  to  the  bank  of  the  river,  scpiats 
down  there,  puts  his  pan  under 
water,  and  shakes  it  horizontally, 
so  as  to  get  the  mass  thoroughly 
scaked  ;  then  he  picks  out  the  larger 
stones  with  one  hand,  and  mashes  up  the  largest  anfl  toughest  lumps  of  clay, 
and  again  shakes  his  pan  ;  and  when  all  the  dirt  appears  to  be  dissolved,  so 
that  tiie  gc'd  can  be  carried  to  the  bottom  by  its  weight,  he  tilts  up  the  pan  a 
little  to  let  the  thin  muil  and  light  sand  run  out ;  and  thus  he  works  until  he 
has  washed  out  all  except  the  metal,  which  remains  at  the  bottom. 

The  rocker,  which  was  introduced  into  the  California  mines  at  their  dis- 
covery, is  made  somewhat  like  a  child's  cradle.  On  the  upper  end  is  a  riddle, 
made  with  a  bottom  of  sheet-iron  punched  with  holes.  This 
riddle  is  fdled  with  pay-dirt ;  and  a  man  rocks  the  machine  with 
one  hand,  while  with  a  dipper  he  pours  water  into  the  riddle  with  the  other. 
Being  agitated,  the  licjuid  dissolves  the  clay,  and  carries  it  down  with  the  gold 
into  the  floor  of  the  rocker,  where  the  metal  is  caught  by  traverse  riffles,  or 
cleats ;  while  the  mud,  water,  and  sand  run  off  at  the  lower  end  of  the  rocker. 
which  is  left  open.  The  riddle  can  be  removed,  thus  enabling  the  miner  to 
throw  out  the  larger  stones  which  are  mixed  with  the  clay. 


f/i: 


'  ff  1 


678 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


The  year  1850,  two  years  after  Marsliall's  discovery,  was  marked  l)y  a  nml. 
titude  of  "  rushes,"  or  sudden  niiyratioiis  in  search  of  imaginary  ri(  h  di-r. 
gings.  The  miners,  although  generally  men  of  rare  intelligence  (dnipaivd 
Early  ideas  with  the  laborers  in  oilier  countries,  had  vague  ideas  of  the 
of  miners.  geological  distribution  of  gold;  and  the  marvellous  amounts  du-r 
out  by  them  (sometimes  a  single  miner  extracting  thousands  of  dollars  |)lt 
day)  excited  their  imagination  so  highly  as  to  jjrevent  tht  formation  ot  a 
sound  judgment,  even  if  they  had  possessed  the  re(iuisite  information  upon 
which  to  act.  Many  believed  that  there  must  be  some  volcanic  souno  lioiu 
which  the  gold  had  been  thrown  up  and  scattered  over  the  hills;  and  ihcy 
thought,  that,  if  they  could  only  find  that  place,  they  would  have  nothing;  lo  do 
except  to  shovel  up  the  precious  metal,  and  load  their  mules  with  it.  Mdic 
than  once,  long  trains  of  pack-animals  were  sent  out  with  the  cunfidnii  (.x- 
pectation  of  getting  loads  of  gold  within  a  few  days. 

No  story  was  too  extravagant  to  command  credence.  Men  who  had  nucr 
earned  more  than  a  dollar  a  *lay  before  they  came  to  California  were  dissatis- 
Learning  ^^'^^  when  they  were  clearing  twenty  dollars,  and  were  always  roady 
from  expert-  to  Start  oiT  on  sonic  expedition  in  search  of  distant  diggin,:;s  wiiich 
were  expected  to  yield  more  abundantly.  Although  the  miners  of 
to-day  have  better  ideas  of  the  auriferous  deposits  than  those  had  wlio  tmlni 
sixteen  years  ago,  and  no  longer  count  upon  digging  up  the  pure  gold  by  the 
shovelful,  yet  they  are  now,  as  they  luve  ever  been  since  the  disccjvcry  of  tiic 
mines,  always  prepared  for  emigration  to  any  new  field  of  excitement. 

Of  course  the  chief  want  of  the  placer-miner  is  an  abundant  and  con- 
venient supply  of  water ;  and  the  first  noteworthy  attempt  to  convey  the 
needful  element  in  an  artificial  channel  was  made  at  Coyote  Hill, 
in  Nevada  County,  in  March,  1850.  This  ditch  was  about  two 
miles  long,  and,  proving  a  decided  success,  was  imitated  in  many  other  ])lai  cs, 
until,  in  the  course  of  eight  years,  six  thousand  miles  of  mining-canals  had 
been  made,  sujjplying  all  the  princijjal  placer-districts  with  water,  and  furnish- 
ing the  means  for  obtaining  the  greater  portion  of  the  gold  yield  of  the  .State. 
Many  of  the  ditches  were  marvels  of  engineering  skill. 

The  problem  was  to  get  the  largest  amoimt  of  water  at  the  greatest  altifule 
above  the  auriferous  ground,  and  at  the  least  immediate  expense,  as  money 
_.    ,  was  worth  from  three  to  ten  per  cent  per  month  interest.     .\s  the 

Early  expe-  '  ' 

dients  for  pay-dirt  might  be  exhausted  within  a  couple  of  years,  ami  as  tiie 
anticipated  profits  would  in  a  short  time  be  sufficient  to  pay  for  a 
new  ditch,  durability  was  a  point  of  minor  importance.  There 
was  no  imperial  treasury  to  su])ply  the  funds  for  a  durable  aciueduct  in  every 
township,  nor  could  the  impatient  inincrs  wait  a  decennium  for  the  conii)letion 
of  gigantic  structures  in  stone  and  mortar.  The  high  value  of  their  time,  and 
the  scarcity  of  their  money,  made  it  necessary  that  the  cheapest  and  most 
expeditious  expedients  for  obtaining  water  should  be  adopted.     Where  the 


First  canal. 


obtaining 
water. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


679 


i  marked  by  a  iinil- 
imagiiury  rirh  dijr. 
L'Uigcnce  lompaivd 
ague    ideas   (.'I   tho 
L'Uous  amounts  iIu.l,' 
;ands  (jf  dollars  jjcr 
tire   formation  of  a 
e  information  upon 
olcanit:  soun  c  from 
the  hills  ;  anil  they 
I  have  nothin;;  to  <lo 
miles  with  it.     More 
th  the  cunfukiu  ex- 

Men  who  had  never 
lifornia  were  disvUis- 
nd  were  always  ready 
listant  iliggini^s  \vhi(  h 
though  the  miners  of 
those  had  who  toiled 
I  the  pure  gold  by  llit 
the  discovery  of  the 
excitement, 
abundant  and  con- 
lempt   to   convey  the 
made  at  Coyote  Hill, 
ditch  was  about  two 
[in  many  other  i)la(es, 
f  mining-canals  had 
|th  water,  and  furuhh- 
Id  yield  of  the  Stale. 

It  the  greatest  altit'ule 
le  expense,  as  money 
\m\.\\  interest.    .\s  the 

of  years,  and  as  the 

jsufficient  to  pay  for  a 

importance.    There 

lie  afpieduct  in  every 

|m  for  the  completion 

le  of  their  time,  and 
cheapest  and  most 

idopted.     Where  the 


surface  of  the  ground  furnished  the  proper  gratle,  a  ditch  was  dug  in  the 
earth  ;  and,  where  it  did  not,  flumes  were  built  of  wood,  sustained  in  the 
air  by  framework  that  rose  sometimes  to  a  height  of  three  hundred  feet  in 
cro^^ing  deep  ravines,  and  extending  for  miles  at  an  elevation  of,  a  hundred 
or  two  htmdred  feet. 

All  the  devices  known  to  mechanics  tor  conveying  water  from  hill-top  to 
hill-top  were  ado])ted.    Aqueducts  of  wood,  and  pipes  of  iron,  were   Aqueducts, 
suspended  upon  cables  of  wire,  or  sustained  on  bridges  of  wood  ;   s'p»i°"9.  *=• 
and  inverted  siphons  carried  water  up  the  sides  of  one  hill  by  the  heavier 
pressure  from  the  higher  side  of  another. 


1  Kl-.^.sl  Kl;-ll't\-,  \\\\.\    ]t\\VM. 


The  ditches  weie  uswally  the  property  of  companies,  of  which  there  were 
at  one  time  four  hundred  in  the  State,  owning  a  total  lengtli  of  six  thousand 
miles   of  canals  and   flumes.      The   largest   of  these,   called  the 

Ditches. 

Kureka,  in  Nevada  County,  has  two  hundred  and  five  miles  of 
<iitehes,  constructed  at  a  cost  of  nine  hundred  thousand  dollars  ;  and  their 
receii)ts  at  one  time  from  the  sale  of  water  were  six  thousand  dollars  per  day. 
Unfortunately,  these  mining-canals,  though  more  numerous,  more  extensive, 
and  bolder  in  design,  than  the  aqueducts  of  Rome,  were  less  durable  ;  and 
some  of  them  have  been  abandoned,  and  allowed  to  go  to  ruin,  so  that 
scarcely  a  trace  of  their  existence  remains,  save  in  the  heaps  of  gravel  from 
which  the  clay  and  loam  were  washed  in  search  for  gold. 


68o 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


As  the  placers  in  many  districts  were  gradually  exhausted,  the  demand  for 
Destruction  water,  and  the  profits  of  the  ditch-companies,  decreased  ;  ami  tin; 
of  ditches.  more  expensive  flumes,  when  blown  down  by  severe  storms,  carried 
away  by  floods,  or  destroyed  by  the  decay  of  the  wood,  were  not  repaired. 

The  construction  of  hundreds  of  ditches  within  three  or  four  years  afitr 
the  successful  experiment  at  Coyote  Hill  createc'  i  fresh  impulse  to  i)la(  or- 
inveniionof  mining,  and  greatly  modified  its  character.  New  inventions, 
the  "torn."  though  of  the  rudest  description,  were  multiplied  to  facilitate  the 
process  of  gathering  the  yellow  metal.     Among  others  was  the  introduction  of 


HYUHAIM.IC   MINING.  — WASHING  DOWN   A   BANK. 


an  implement  which  had  been  previously  used  in  (Georgia,  called  liy  tlic  short 

and  unclassic  name  of  "  torn."     This  was  a  great  imi)rovenient  ujion  'he 

rocker;  yet  it  was  soon  superseded  by  a  still  greater,  —  the  shii<"0, 

The  sluice.  •'  '  ,       , 

whi  h  is  a  broad  trough  from  a  hundred  to  a  tiiousand  feci  Ioiil', 
with  transverse  cleats  at  the  lower  end  to  catch  the  gold.  With  a  (1ls(  cnt  of 
one  foot  in  twenty,  the  water  rushes  through  it  like  a  torrent,  bearing  down 
large  stones,  and  tearing  the  liim])s  of  clay  to  pieces.  The  miners,  of  wlioin 
a  dozen  or  a  score  may  work  at  one  sluice,  have  little  to  do  save  to  tiirow  in 
the  dirt,  and  take  out  the  gold. 

Occasionally  it  may  be  necessary  to  throw  out  some  stones,  or  to  shovel 
the  dirt  along,  to  prevent  the  sluice  from  choking ;  but  these  attentions  cost 


iTTf"''? 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


68 1 


;d,  the  (Icmand  for 
ecreascd  ;  ami  tho 
^ere  storms,  carrictl 
e  not  repaired, 
or  four  years  after 
impulse  to  pl.K  cr- 
Ncw  invciUioiis, 
lied  to  facililate  thu 
the  introduction  uf 


%  '^^^ 


''" '  W*-"^ 


W-- 


(\'\llcd  by  tl>c  sliort 
Jrovemcnt  upon  'he 
greater,  —  the  slui<'c, 

thousand  feet  Ion?. 

With  a  descent  of 

[rrcnt.  l)carin,u  down 

[he  miners,  of  whom 

llo  save  to  throw  in 

Istones,  or  to  sliovel 
liese  attentions  cost 


nous 
methodi. 


relatively  very  httle  time.     'l"he  sKiicc  is  the  best  device  heretofore  used  for 
washing  gold,  and  is  supposed  to  be  unsurpassable.     It  has  been   superiority 
used  in  California  more  extensively  than  elsewhere  ;  although  it  °' ""  »iui<:«- 
has  been  introduced  by  American  miners  into  Australia,  New  Zealand,  IJritish 
Columbia;  'I'ransylvania,  anil  many  other  countries. 

The  sluice,  though  an  original  invention  here,  had  been  previously  used  in 
Brazil ;  but  it  was  never  brought  to  much  excellence  there,  nor  pornjerw 
used  extensively ;  and  no  such  implement  was  known  in   1849  in   used  in 
the  industry  of  gold-mining.  Brazil. 

The  shovel  could  not  bring  earth  to  the  sluice  fast  enough,  and  the  wages 
of  a  dozen  workmen  must  be  saved,  if  possible  :  so  in  1852  lOdward  IC.  Matti- 
son,  a  native  of  Connecticut,  invented  the  process  of  hydraulic  Hydraulic 
mining,  in  which  a  stream  of  water  was  directed  under  a  heavy  ">'ni"B- 
pressure  against  a  bank  or  hillside  containing  placer-gold,  and  the  earth  was 
torn  down  by  the  fluid,  and  carried  into  the  sluice  to  be  washed ;  and  thus  the 
expense  of  shovelling  was  entirely  saved. 

The  man  with  the  rocker  might  wash  one  cubic  yard  of  earth  in  a  day ; 
with  the  torn  he  might  average  twice  that  quantity ;  with  the  sluice,  four  yards; 
and  with  the  hytlraulic  and  sluice  together,  fifty  or  even  a  hundred 
yarils.     Tiie  difference  was  immense.     The  force  of  a  stream  of  ness  of  va- 
watei  rushing  through  a  two-inch  pipe,  uniler  a  pressure  of  two 
hundreil  feet  perpendicular,  is  tremendous  ;    and  the  everlasting 
hills  themselves  crumble  down  before  it  as   if  they  were  but  piles  of  cloud 
blown  away  by  a  breath  of  wiiul,  or  dissiiiated  by  a  glance  of  the  sun. 

And  yet  even  this  terrific  power  has  not  sufficed.     When   the  hills  have  ^  ^* 
been  dried  by  months  of  constant  heat  and  drought,  the  clay  „  ^ 

■'  0     >  /     Hydraulic 

becomes  so  hard,  that  the  hydraulic  stream,  with  all  its  momentum,   mining  not 
(lid  not  steadily  tlissolve  it ;  and  often  the  water  ran  off  almost  as   "'wy» 
cluariy  as  ever  through  the  sluice,  and  conseipiently  was  wasted. 

The  sluice  could  wash  more  dirt  than  the  hydraulic  stream  furnished  when 
the  clay  was  hard  and  dry  ;  and,  to  prevent  this  loss,  the  miner  Efficiency  of 
would  often  cut  a  tunnel  into  the  heart  of  his  claim,  and  blast  the  sluice, 
chy  loose  with  powder,  so  that  it  would  yield  more  readily  to  the  action  of 
water.  Two  tons  of  powder  have  been  us'jil  at  a  single  blast  in  some  of  these 
operations. 

With  the  introduction  of  the  sluice,  the  ditch,  and  the  hydraulic  process, 
the  hiring  of  laborers  began.     The  pan  and  the  rocker  .equired   Hiring  of 
every  man  to  be  his  own  master ;  but  these  new  processes  led  to  laborers. 
other  modes  of  employment. 

There  was  an  abundance  of  rocker- claims  in  1849;  but  three  years  later 
there  were  not  enough  good  sluice-claims  to  supply  one-third  of  the  miners. 
The  erection  of  a  long  sluice,  the  cutting  of  drains  (often  necessary  to  carry 
off  the  tailings),  and  the  purchase  of  water  from  the  ditch-company,  required 


p  :  m 


■' 'hi!l 


lit 


>k ! 


<M 


68a 


/JVD  US  TKIA  L    I/IS  TO  A'  Y 


capital ;  and  llie  manner  of  rU-arin;^  tip  rondorod  it  possible  for  llu-  owmr 
Cautei  lead-  "'^  ^  sliiicc  to  prevent  liis  servants  from  stealing  any  <'oiisi(K  ralile 
ingtoem-       portion  of  Ilis  gold  before  it  came  to  iiis  possession.     'I'liiis  ji  wn^ 

ubor"'"'°'    ''''^'  '''"""  '  "^''""  ••'  'liriiiR  miners  for  wages  became  coniiuon  in 
the  i)!ater-(iiggings. 
Placer-gold,  it  is  supposed,  is  nothing  but  loose  portions  which  have  Ijicn 
disintegrateil  from  rocks  by  the  operations  of  nature,  and  is  only  a  very  smill 

portion  of  the  gold  not 
yet  gathered.  Wlun 
Mur(  hison  wrote  iii. 
Placer-gold,  Work  upon 
what  it  I..         ,1,^.    ru.ks 

of  the  Silurian  age,  he 
dec  lared  that  gold  veins 
were  confined  diii.  Ily  to 
the  Silurian  hk  ks,  ami 
that  the  (pi.Tiitity  <  ipa- 
ble  of  extrai  tioii  from 
them  at  no  ilistant  day 
would  be  exhausted. 
'i"he  gold-bearing  km  ks 
in  the  Ural  .Mnunlains 
in  Australia,  and  to  a 
considerable  exttiu  in 
California,  belong  to  the 
Silurian  period.  If  ••we 
cast  our  eyes  to  the 
countries  wa  tried  iiy 
the  I'actolus  of  Ovid, 
to  the  Phrygia  and 
Thrace  of  the  Citceks, 
to  the  .Alps  .111(1  ^'oidcn 
Tagus  of  the  Romans, 
to  the  Hoheniia  uf  the 
middle  ages,  to  tracts  in 
Britain  which  were  worked  in  old  times,  and  have  either  been  long  ab.nndoned 
or  arc  now  scarcely  at  all  productive,  or  to  those  chains  in  America  and  .Aus- 
tralia, which,  previously  unsearchcd,  have  in  our  times  proved  so  rich."  —  in 
all  these  lands  gold  has  been  imjiartcd  abundantly  to  only  the  silurian  or  the 
associated  eruptive  rocks.  Yet  it  has  been  conclusively  proved,  since  the  time 
when  the  first  edition  of  Murchison's  "Silnria"  was  published,  that  gold 
abounds  in  rocks  of  every  geological  age.  The  explorations  of  'I'rask  and 
Whitney  in  California  in  1853  and   1854,  and  subsequently  the  discovery  of 


FI.UMR   NEAR  SMARTVILLE,   CAI.. 


"    "Ml  Ik    f 


-"||l* 


OF    rHK    UNITED   STATES, 


683 


il)lc  for  the  owntr 
ig  any  considiiahlt- 
s«)ion.  '\'\\y\^  ii  w;is 
ccamc  common  in 

s  wliich  liavr  luin 
is  only  a  very  small 
lion  of  the  gold  not 
gnlhcrcil.  \Vlnn 
rcluson    wrote    liis 

;er-gold,     Work    n|ion 
'«'»'»•       the   roi  ks 
the  Silurian  aj;c,  he 
:lare(l  that  ^oltl  veins 
re  confined  ( hiiflv  to 
Silurian  ro<  k^,  anil 
t  the  i|uanlily  1  .ipa- 
of  extrai  tion  I'mni 
;ni  at  no  distant  day 
uUl     be     exhausted, 
ic  gold-bearing;  roi  ks 
the  Ural  Mountains 
Australia,  and  to  a 
nsiderable   extent  in 
ifurnia,  belong  to  the 
irian  period.    It  "we 
it   our    eyes   to   the 
ntries  watered  hy 
Tactolus  of  Ovid, 
the    rhryt;ia   and 
race  of  the  dreeks, 
the  Alps  nnd  golden 
gus  of  the  Romans, 
the  Hohemia  of  the 
(He  ages,  to  tia(  ts  in 
iccn  long  abandoned 
n  America  and  Aus- 
•oved  so  rich,"  — in 
ly  the  Silurian  or  the 
■oved,  since  the  time 
Lublishcd,  that  goM 
Uions  of  'I'rask  and 
Itly  the  discovery  of 


sciondary  fossils  in  the  main  belt  of  gold-bearing  States,  together  with  the 
di-.(overies  in  Hungary  in  1863,  prove  that  rocks  belonging  to  the  latest 
geological  periods,  even  as  late  as  the  tertiary,  contain  prothictive  gold-bearing 
veins. 

Again  :   later  geological  investigation  has  shown   that   the  (piantity  <()n- 
tained  in  the  rocks,  and  which  is  accessible,  is  more  abundant  than  geologists 
formerly  supposed.      Murchison    maintained   that  tiie  gold-veins   Quantity  or 
parted,  as  they  descended  into  the  rocks,  till  they  became  mere   koU  more 
threads,  tiiat  could  not  be  followed  or  workeil  to  advantage.     Mr.   than  wm 
Selwyn,  in  his  report  to  the  ICnglish  ( Jovernment  at  Australia,  in   once  nup- 
1X56  and  1857,  on  the  mining  resources  of  the  colony  of  Vi(  toria,    '"'"  " 
dedaied  that  there  was  no  evidence  from  the  mines  in  that  plat  e  to  sustain 
Mnr(  bison's  position,  that  any  vein  rich  at  the  surflice  dies  out,  or  suddenly 
becomes  unprofitable.     It  was  true  that  the  iipjjer  portion  of  many  veins  were 
OIK  e  far  richer  than  they  are  now.     Hut  the  reason  was  very  apparent ;  the 
gold  had  been  removed  by  denudation,     'i'he  very  fact  th.at  many  veins  even 
thus  abraded  were  still  often  very  rich  on  their  present  surfac  e,  went  far,  in 
his  opinion,  to  prove  that  the  diminution  of  yield  in  depth,  even  though 
admitted  to  be  true  on  a  large  scale,  was  still  so  slow  a.>  not  to  be  appre- 
eialile  within  any  depth  to  whii  h  ordinary  mining  operations  might  be  carried. 
Raymontl,  in  his  rejiort  to  the  United-States  (Jovernment  in  1870,  said  that 
most  of  the  gold-veins   might  be  considered  as  practically  inexhaustible  in 
depth :    indeed,  the    statement   of  Murchison,    according   to  this   autliority, 
"is  completely  overthrown   by  exi)erience."     Mr.  (1.  Arthur   Phillips  speaks 
the  opinion   now  universally  acknowletlged,  that   gold-ledges  arc  not  more 
liable  than  ordinary  metalliferous  veins  to  become  impoverished  in  depth. 

Since  the  discovery  of  the  original  home  of  gold,  the  extraction  of  it        ry 
therefrom  has  been  carried  on  in  a  more  scientific  manner  than  placer-mining,  ^p^ 
h  is  true  that  many  of  the  earlier  enterprises  in  the  way  of  rpiartz-   progress  o( 
mining  were  failures.     Large  and  costly  mills  were  erected  ;   a  scientific 
multitude  of  laborers   were  employed  ;    but  they  did  not   know   """'"'• 
how  to  select  the  rich  from  the  i)oor  cpiartz,  and  too  often  located  their  mills 
where  there  was  only  a  small  pocket,  which  was  soon   exhausted.     Besides, 
the  mills  were  too  large  to  be  fully  operated  without  receiving  all  the  poor 
as  well  as  the  rich  rock  accessible   in  the  vein  ;   the  amalgamator  did  not 
understand  his  business  ;  the  rich  rock  in  which  the  Mexicans  had  worked 
often  failed  ;  the  creditors  who  had  loaned  money  for  the  erection  of  these 
stnictures  brought  suit  to  foreclose  their  mortgages ;  the  work  stoi)ped ;  the 
titles  of  the  property  became  insecure ;  and  the  people  in  the  neighborhood 
declared  that  quartz-mining  would  not  pay.     What  a  wonderful  change  has 
occurred  since  those  early  and  disastrous  days  ! 

In   the   mode  of    pulverizing   and    reducing    quartz    comparatively   few 
changes  have  been   made.     In  some   mills  the   same  machinery  and   pro- 


684 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


cesses  have  been  used,  without  alteration  or  addition,  for  a  long  period. 
Failures  in  There  is,  however,  a  general  belief  that  the  business  has  not  been 
early  quartz-  properly  Studied  by  any  one;  and  it  is  certain  that  there  is  much 
mining.  difference  of  opinion  in  respect  to  various  important  questions 

concerning  the  reduction  of  ores.  The  practice  is  not  uniform  in  regatd  to 
the  fineness  of  pulverization,  or  the  size  and  speed  of  the  stamps,  or  tlie 
mode  of  amalgamation.  Wood,  as  a  material  for  the  shafts  of  stamps,  lias 
given  way  to  iron ;  the  square  form  has  been  replaced  by  the  cylindrical ; 
and  the  stamps,  instead  of  falling  with  a  simple  downward  motion,  now  come 


TAIL   SLUICES,   VUHA    KIVER. 


(]■  i\vn  with  a  twist.     The  mortar  into  which  the  stamps  fall  is  now  always  of 

iron ;  and  the  stamps  stand  in  a  straight  line,  instead  of  forming  a  circle  as 

they  did  in  some  mills  years  ago. 

There  arc  other  modes  of  obtaining  gold,  which,  however,  are  so  nearly 

obsolete  as  to  reciuire  only  brief  notice.     Tiic  arastra,  for  instance,  was  used  in 

the  early  days   to  pulverize  the   ore.     It   is  a   Mexican  contnv- 
The  arastra.  ,       ,  ,  .  ,       ,^       .  ,,,.  ,,  i 

ance,  rude,  but   (so  miners  say)  effective.     Winnowing,  or     <ii)- 

wasliing,"  was  ])ractised  also  by  the  Mexicans.  It  is  still  used  in  some 
parts  of  Southern  and  Lower  California,  where  the  ore  is  found  too  tar  away 
from  a  sufficient  supply  of  water  to  make  any  other  practice  possible.  Tiie 
wind  bears  away  tiie  dust  and  light  particles  of  earth,  and  leaves  the  gold- 
dust,  which  is  heavier. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


685 


During  the  progress  of  geological  surveys  gold  has  been  found  in  many 
places,  but  nowhere  in  such  quantities  as  in  California.     It  has  been  found 
in  the  White  Mountains  of  New  Hampshire,  in  Vermont,  in  New  ^vhere  gold 
York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  in  still  larger  quantities  in  the  has  been 
remaining  Southern  seaboard  States,  as  far  as  Alabama.     Doubt-    °""  ' 
less,  in  the  years  to  come,  unless  its  value  diminishes  very  much,  vast  quantities 
will  be   extracted  from   the  AUeghanies,  especially  with   the  more  scientific 
processes  now  in  use.     Gold-mining  contains  more  of  the  gambling  element 
than  any  other  regular  industry ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  it  has 
always  possessed  such  a  singular  fascination  for  many.     But  quartz-mining  is 
robbed  essentially  of  this  uncertain  element;    for  the  business,  if  properly 
conilucted,  yields  more  regular  profits  than  any  other  mode  of  gathering 
the  precious  metal. 


m.  I 


686 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Latest  metal 
to  attain 
prominence 
in  United 
States. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SILVER. 

SILVER  is  Hie  latest  of  all  the  mineral  products  to  attain  prominence  in 
the  mining  industries  of  the  United  States.  Prior  to  the  year  1859  the 
silver  produced  in  this  country  was-  utterly  insignificant.  Only 
faint  traces  of  it  had  been  found  here  and  there,  and  it  was  rarely 
made  the  object  of  special  exploration.  The  silver  coin  in  circu- 
lation was  almost  exclusively  of  foreign  metal,  as  was  also  the  plate 
in  common  use. 

The  early  Spanish  invaders  of  this  continent  found  the  Aztecs  of  Mexico, 
and  Toltecs  of  Peru,  jiossesscd  of  great  quantities  of  this  precious  metal,  which 
Spanish  was  obtained  from  the  great  mountain-range,  which,  under  dilTerent 

discoveries,  names,  extends  from  the  southern  to  the  northern  extn.'mity  of  tlic 
New  World.  Mining  was  carried  on  even  more  extensively  under  the  new 
governments,  aud  immense  quantities  of  treasure  were  carried  hon,:;  to  Europe 
in  Spanish  ships.  But  that  portion  of  this  great  treasure-vault  of  nature 
included  within  our  present  boundaries  remained  almost  entirely  free  from 
investigation  until  1849,  and  for  ten  years  the  search  was  directed  almost  exclu- 
sively to  finding  gold. 

Silver  was  found,  however,  mixed  with  galena,  or  lead  ore,  in  small  quantities 
by  the  eastern  colonists  a  full  century  before.  Such  a  vein,  for  instance,  was 
discovered  in  Worcester  County,  Mass.,  in  1754,  and  worked  with 
profit.  Another  was  discovered  in  Columbia  County,  N.Y.,  as 
early  as  1 740 :  this  was  on  the  estate  of  Robert  Livingston. 
Near  it  was  an  iron  forge  for  the  reduction  of  metal  obtained  rroni 
Connecticut.  The  same  year  argentiferous  gaiena  was  found  in 
Dutchess  County  of  the  same  State,  and  later  in  Westchi.-ster  County;  the 
former  being  worked  by  the  Germans  of  that  vicinity.  In  a  vein  of  copper 
discovered  in  New  Jersey  in  1719  there  was  found  silver  in  the  proportion  of 
four  ounces  to  every  hundred-weight  of  ore.  The  Swedes  reported  the  discov- 
ery of  silver  in  Pennsylvania  in  their  day  ;  and  it  was  found  in  small  (piantities 
near  Davidson,  N.C.,  and  in  South  Carolina  along  the  Savannah  River.    Later 


Early 

discoveries 
in  New  Eng 
land,  New 
York.&c. 


f 


ittain  prominence  in 
o  the  year  1859  the 
insignificant.  Only 
re,  and  it  was  rarely 
silver  coin  in  circu- 
as  was  also  the  plate 

::  Aztecs  of  Mexico, 
reciovis  metal,  which 
hich,  under  diiTerent 
em  extr'.-mity  of  the 

lively  un'ler  the  new 
ied  hon,;  to  Europe 
sure-vault  of  niUiire 
X  entirely  free  from 
irected  almost  extlu- 

Ire,  in  small  quantities 
lein,  for  instance,  was 
{54,  and  worked  with 
ia  County.  N.Y.,  as 
Robert   Livingston. 
metal  obt..:r.-.'''.  from 
galena  was  found  in 
;hi.'ster  County ;  the 
lln  a  vein  of  copper 
in  the  proportion  of 
reported  the  discov- 
,d  in  small  (piantities 
lannah  River.    Later 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


687 


the  great  galena-mines  of  the  Upper  and  Lower  Mississippi  were  discovered  to 
contain  a  slight  proportion  of  this  precious  metal.  Li  some  of  these  several 
lo(  alities  the  silver  was  abundant  enough  to  pay  for  extraction,  but  rarely.  In 
the  early  colonial  days  it  was  not  possible  to  eliminate  it  as  easily  and  success- 
fully as  now,  and  in  most  cases  such  experiments  were  soon  abandoned.  In 
later  days  it  became  more  profitable,  and  yet  in  few  cases  were  the  results 
more  than  tantalizing.  At  the  present  time  the  North-Carolina  mines  are  the 
onlv  ones  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  United  States  that  are  worked  for  this 
metal.  No  statistics  are  obtainable  showing  the  exact  amount  of  native  silver 
protluced  in  this  country  in  1850  ;  but  it  is  asserted,  that,  at  that  period  of  our 
history,  ninety-nine  of  every  hundred  silver  dollars  then  in  use  in  the  United 
States  were  of  Mexican  or  Peruvian  metal. 

Just  previous  to  the  discovery  of  the  famous  Comstock  lode,  stock  com- 
panies were  organized  in  New  York,  Cincinnati,  and  many  other  cities,  to 
explore  and  work  abandoned  silver-mines  in  Arizona  which  had 
heen  ceded  to  the  United  States  by  the  Gadsden  treaty.  The 
Sonora  Company  of  Cincinnati  was  the  most  prominent  of  these  ;  but,  when  it 
began  operations  in  1858,  it  was  upon  a  new  mine,  seventy-five  miles  south  of 
Tucson,  very  near  the  Mexican  border.  Their  works  were  at  Arivaca,  seven 
miles  from  the  mines.  Operations  were  also  commenced  seventy  miles  north 
of  Tucson,  in  1870,  by  the  Maricopa  Mining  Company  of  New  York,  whose 
mines  yield  an  argentiferous  copper  ore.  The  outlet  for  the  product  of  both 
these  mines  was  by  wagon  to  (niaymas,  Mexico,  on  the  Gulf  of  California. 
These  mines  are  upon  the  Pacific  slope  of  the  silver-yielding  range  of  Sonora 
and  Durango  in  Mexico.  Other  mines  have  been  found  and  worked  with 
profit  in  Arizona,  farther  west,  near  the  Gila  River. 

The  greatest  event  in  the  history  of  silver-mining  in  America  was  the  dis- 
covery of  the  richest  deposit  in  the  world  —  on  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada  —  in  1859.  The  crest  of  the  range  runs  along  the  eastern  comstock 
part  of  Cali*brnia ;  and  in  the  Washoe  country,  twenty-five  miles  '°''*' 
over  the  border  into  Nevada,  this  magnificent  vein  was  found.  All  during 
the  inter%-al  between  1850  and  i860,  those  tireless,  even  heroic  investigators, 
the  jjrospectors,  had  ranged  the  whole  mountain-region  of  die  V\  est  on  foot, 
with  knapsack,  hammer,  and  blow-pipe.  As  they  wandered  from  ledge  to 
ledge  they  picked  out  specimens  here  and  there,  cracked  them,  and  studied 
the  appearance  of  the  fracture,  and  now  and  then  reduced  a  bit  of  the  ore  with 
the  blow-pipe  on  a  piece  of  charcoal.  In  1858-59  a  party  of  these  prospect- 
ors was  working  its  way  up  Six-mile  Canon,  in  the  Washoe  country.  There 
they  found  some  rich  sulpliurets  of  silver  interspersed  with  free  gold.  Imme- 
diately Henry  Phinney  (or  Fennimore)  and  Henry  Comstock  filed  a  claim  to 
a  mine.  The  former  sold  out  his  claim  to  the  latter  for  a  pinch  of  gold-dust, 
not  realizing  the  immense  value  of  the  discovery  ;  and  Comstock  himself  soon 
parted  with  the  property,  although  his  name  still  clung  to  the  whole  lode. 


n 


■ftm  "I 


it  ':!-i;. 


688 


IXD  US  TRIA  L    ins  TOR  Y 


Prospectors  keep  as  close  watch  of  one  another's  luck  as  so  many  coast 
fishermen.  IJefore  i)ractical  operations  began,  the  great  possibilities  of  this 
region  began  to  be  suspected,  and  a  vast  number  of  claims  were  filed  all  aloii.r 
these  eastern  foot-hills  of  the  Sierra ;  and,  as  soon  as  mining  was  actually 
undertaken,  it  was  realized  that  the  richest  accumulation  of  this  precious 
metal  ever  known  was  beneath  the  feet  of  the  Washoe  o[)erators.  TidiiiLj^  of 
the  marvellous  wealth  hid  away  there  spread  like  lightning,  not  over  Caliloinia 
alone  (Nevada  was  not  then  a  State,  and  had  scarcely  any  population),  and 


SECTION   OF   CO.MSTOCK   VEIN. 


not  over  the  United  Slates  alone,  but  over  the  whole  civilized  world.  One  of 
those  periods  of  frantic  excitement  and  wild  sensation  ensued  such  as  Mark 
Twain  has  made  us  all  fiimiliar  with  in  his  "  Roughing  It."  A  most  extraordi- 
nary emigration  ensued.  Several  large  new  towns  sprang  up,  notably  Viri,'inia 
City,  Carson  City,  and  Silver  City  ;  Nevada  took  a  place  among  tlie  .Stales  ot 
the  Union  ;  and  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  was  extended  through  the  region, 
its  nearest  station  to  the  jjoint  of  first  discovery  being  at  Reno,  on  ■•  Tniclice 
River,  twenty  miles  away. 

In  "The  Great  Industries  of  the  United  Slates"  it  is  remarked,  ■•'Hicre 
is,  perhaps,  no  instance  so  striking  of  the  promptness  and  daring  with  uiiicli 


as  so  many  coast 
possibilities  of  ibis 

were  filed  all  along 
lining  was  aclually 
n  of  this  prec.ioiis 
rators.     Tidini^s  of 

not  over  California 
ny  population),  and 


i/.cd  world.  ()nc  of 
ensued  such  as  Mark 
'  A  most  cxlraordi- 
up,  notably  Virginia 
among  the  States  ot 
;d  through  the  region, 
Kcno,  on     ■•  I'lackce 

is  remarked.  ••  Tliere 
ind  darnig  wiili  wliich 


OF    TlfF.    US' I  TED    STATES. 


689 


American  capitalists  launch  their  money  into  an  enterprise  in  which  they  have 
confidence  as  the  development  of  this  Comstock  lode.  In  1861  this  lode  was 
a  w  ill  of  black  suli)huret,  bedded  primeval  granite  and  cjuartz,  on  the  steep 


slope  of  a  lonely  and  barren  mountain  two  hundred  miles  from  roads  and 
^hops  and  wheat-fields,  parted  from  tiiein  by  the  gorges  and  snowy  peaks  of 
(he  Sierras  :   four  years  afterwartl  a  city  of  twenty  thousand  inhabitants  was 


^ 


\\ 


m 


Mi 
I 


I'' 


690 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Ml-    " 


planted  on  that  wild  declivity,  and  nearly  two  millions  and  a  half  in  assess- 
ments had  been  paid  to  develop  the  mines." 

The  general  excitement  was  increased  b>  the  discovery  of  argentiferous 
deposits  elsewhere  in  Nevada.  Many  tliousand  claims  were  located,  not  a  few 
of  which  were  large  and  well-defined,  yet  of  little  or  no  value.  In  the  greater 
number  of  cases,  however,  they  were  contracted,  and  the  lodes  on  wliii  h  they 
were  staked  lacked  the  features  of  true  veins,  or  proved  poor  below  the  sur- 
face. Says  Mr.  Kimball,  "  Notwithstanding  wide  differences  in  merit,  most  of 
these  claims  —  the  best  as  well  as  the  worst  of  them  —  passed  at  greatly  in- 
flated valuations  into  the  possession  of  joint-stock  companies  organized  upon 
the  strengdi  of  extravagant  expectations.  During  three  years,  while  the 
excitement  lasted,  three  thousand  mining-companies  were  incorporated  in  San 
Francisco  alone  to  work  mines  in  the  Washoe  district,  their  nominal  capital 
amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  a  billion  dollars,  though  their  market-value  never 
exceeded  sixty  million  dollars,  ("ompanies  still  more  numerous,  with  locations 
in  other  parts  of  Nevada,  were  formed  in  Eastern  cities.  Without  wailiiij  for 
the  result  of  exploration  or  development,  most  of  the  companies  hurried  into 
enormous  expenditures  for  mill  and  machinery,  of  which  a  great  deal  was  unlit 
for  any  use  whatever,  even  had  machinery  ever  been  needed  ;  cities  were  built 
in  an  ambitious  and  luxurious  style  ;  and  speculation  in  city  and  town  lots  was 
scarcely  exceeded  bv  the  traffic  in  mining- claims.  The  furore,  if  any  thing, 
grew  for  three  years,  rather  than  abated.  In  the  summer  of  1864  ^  re-aetion 
set  in,  it  having  bv  this  time  become  clear,  that,  in  the  Washoe  region,  the  only 
mines  of  any  considerable  and  well-established  value  were  those  upon  the 
Comstock,  and  even  those  for  a  time  were  objects  of  distrust ;  while  the  other 
regions  of  Nevada,  of  which  such  high  hopes  had  been  entertained,  had 
together  failed  to  contribute  more  than  five  or  six  per  cent  of  the  total  pro- 
duction of  the  State,  the  rest  having  been  furnished  by  the  Comstock  lode 
alone." 

Among  the  more  prominent  companies  at  work  on  the  Comstock  lode  are 
Gould  &  Curry,  the  Ophir,  the  Savage,  the  Imperial,  the  Yellow  Jacket,  and 
Prominent  the  Belcher.  Up  to  1865,  Messrs.  Gould  &  Curry  had  realized 
companies,  ^g  much  as  all  the  other  companies  put  together.  To  get  an  idea 
of  the  enormous  profits  of  the  business,  it  may  be  stated  that  it  cost  about  ten 
dollars  a  ton  to  get  the  ore  mined,  and  each  ton  yielded  fifty  dollars'  worth  of 
silver.  An  idea  of  the  rapid  development  of  these  mines  may  be  derived 
froin  the  following  figures.     Wells,  Fargo,  &  Company  received 

Production.  u      *j  kj 

and  transported  for  these  companies  silver  bullion  amounting  to 
/!2,275,276  in  1861,  $6,247,074  in  1872,  $12,486,238  in  1863,  $i5,795-5''^S  '" 
1864,  and  $15,184,877  in  1865.  Altogether  some  $70,000,000  worth  of  silver 
was  taken  from  the  Comstock  lode  from  its  discovery  up  to  1866. 

Thereafter,  for  a  few  years,  there  was  a  slight  subsidence  in  the  production; 
the  lowest  point  touched  being  in  1869,  when  the  whole  lode  is  credited  with 


WWP-' 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


691 


id  a  half  in  assess- 

ery  of  argentiferous 
re  located,  not  a  few 
lue.  In  the  greater 
lodes  on  wliii  li  they 

poor  below  tiic  sur- 
:es  in  merit,  most  of 
passed  at  greatly  iii- 
mies  organized  ui'on 
-ee   years,   wh'.le  the 

incorporated  in  San 
their  nominal  capital 
.■ir  market-value  never 
merous,  with  locations 
Without  wailin,^  for 
ompanies  hurried  into 

a  great  deal  was  unlit 
ded  ;  cities  were  built 
city  and  town  lots  was 
e  furore,  if  any  tiling, 

r  of  1864  a  re-action 
i'ashoe  region,  the  only 

were  those  upon  the 
[trust ;  while  the  other 

,een    entertained,  had 

cent  of  the  total  pro- 

»y  the  Conistock  lode 

iie  Comstock  lode  are 
lie  Yellow  Jacket,  and 
1&  Curry  had  realized 
ther.     To  get  an  idea 
.  that  it  cost  about  ten 
fifty  dollars'  wortli  of 
Lines  may  be  derived 
|&  Company  received 
bullion  amounting  to 
1863,  $i5.795-5'*^S  '" 
[oo,ooo  worth  of  silver 
to  1866. 

ice  in  the  production ; 
lode  is  credited  with 


692 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


only  ;Jt 7,5 28,607  of  precious  metal.  A  new  development  ensued,  howtvir, 
which  was  very  rapid  between  1872  and  1875,  in  wliich  latler  year  the  yiuld 
was  $26,023,036.  It  is  estimated,  however,  that  forty  per  cent  of  tlie  value  of 
the  product  of  tlie  Comstock  lode  is  in  gold,  which  would  make  the  projxjr- 
tion  of  silver  for  that  year  about  ;f!  16,000,000.  The  ;f>200,ooo,ooo  yielded  from 
1859  to  1876  is  divided  roughly  into  $80,000,000  gold  and  $120,000,000  silver. 
Within  two  years  there  have  been  rumors  of  still  richer  deposits  having  lutn 
discovered  on  this  lode ;  but  the  facts  are  concealed  from  the  public,  prul>;il)ly 
for  stock-jobbing  purposes. 

Nearly  ten  years  after  the  Comstock  claim  was  first  entered,  silver  wis 
found  abundandy  in  the  white-pine  district  of  Nevada.  In  some  places  the 
White-pine  deposit  was  so  rich,  that,  when  the  cjuartz  had  been  mined  away, 
district.  sheets  of  almost  pure  metal,  worth  $17,000  a  ton,  could  be  'orii 

out  of  the  vein.  This  supply  was  limited,  however,  and  the  yield  has  not  hei.ii 
steadily  maintained.  Silver  has  also  been  found  in  other  parts  of  Nevada  in 
smaller  quantities. 

Colorado  in  the  Central-City  legion,  and  Idaho  and  Montana  in  the 
Colorado  VVasatch  region,  have  developed  silver-mines  of  considerable 
Idaho,  and      importance  since  1865  ;  but,  as  yet,  they  do  not  approach  Nevada 

Montana.         j^^  ^j^^  ^^^^j  yj^,j 

At  the  present  time  the  United  States  produce  between  $20,000,000  and 
$25,000,000  of  silver  annually  (which  is  about  half  of  the  world's  product), 
Present  and  three-quarters  of  the  amount  comes  from  the  Comstock  lode. 

yield.  ^  contributor  to  "The  Atlantic  Monthly"  remarks  that  this  coun- 

try contains  the  largest  proportion  of  silver,  compared  with  other  metals,  of 
any  in  the  world  ;  that  the  production  of  silver  is  more  steady  than  that  of 
gold,  taking  the  world  over ;  and  that  the  signs  of  our  silver-supi)ly  holding 
out  well  for  years  to  come  are  much  more  promising  than  those  concerning 
gold. 

Political  influences,  however,  as  well  as  the  discovery  of  an  increased  sup- 
ply, have  tended  of  late  years  to  depress  the  price  of  silver  considerably ;  so 
Demoneti.      ^^^  there  has  been  far  greater  variability  in  its  value  than  in  that 
aationof        of  gold.     Even  before  demoneti.  itic.i  in  1873  it  had  fallen  o(T,  so 
''*'^'  that  it  was  necessary  to  raise  tl  t  ratio  between  silver  and  gold 

coinage,  in  weight,  from  15^  :itoi6  :i.  But  the  removal  of  it  from  a 
place  in  our  dollar  coinage,  and  the  similar  action  of  Germany  in  1874,  had 
the  effect  of  reducing  it  by  degrees  nearly  one-eighth  of  its  former  price. 
Since  the  demonetization  act  of  1878  was  enacted,  however,  there  has  been  a 
tendency  toward  recovery ;  and  a  lar^  class  of  economists  think  it  will  regain 
its  old  value  and  place  in  the  coinage  of  the  world. 


»-.,T»-vTtrri 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


693 


ensued,  however, 
Uer  year  the  yield 
;nt  of  the  vahie  of 

make  the  i)r()i)<)r- 
)0,ooo  yielded  Irum 
Ji  20,000,000  silver, 
posits  having  heeii 
Lhc  public,  probably 

entered,  silver  \v,is 
In  some  plaees  ihe 

been  mined  away, 
,  ton,  could  be  'orn 
le  yield  has  not  been 
r  parts  of  Nevada  in 

ind  Montana  in  the 
ines  of  considerable 
not  approach  Nevada 

/een  $20,000,000  and 
the  world's  product), 
n  the  Comslock  lode. 
marks  that  this  coun- 
jwith  other  metals,  ot 
steady  than  that  of 
Ir  silver-supply  holding 
than  those  concerning 

,•  of  an  increased  sup- 
Lilver  considerably ;  so 
fits  value  than  in  that 
I73  it  had  fallen  off,  so 
[tween  silver  and  gold 
I  removal  of  it  from  1 
loermany  in  18 74,  l^^^ 
■h  of  its  former  price. 
lever,  there  has  been  a 
lists  think  it  will  regain 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LE^D. 

LEAD  is  found  in  this  country  all  alo.jg  the  Appalachian  range  from  New 
iMigland  to  Georgia,  in  the  Sierra  Nevada,  and  at  two  points  where 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley ;  but  the  principal  development  ot  lead-   f°""'*- 
mining  is  confined  to  the  last-named  region  and  to  the  last  fifty  years  of  our 
history. 

This  metal  was  discovered  by  the  colonists  along  the  Atlantic  coast  long 
prior  to  the  Revolution  ;  and  numerous  attempts  to  work  the  veins  were  made, 
though  often  witli  such  poor  success  tliat  they  were  abandoned  after  a  few 
years.  The  re-discoveries  on  the  Upper  and  Lower  Mississippi  about  1826 
still  further  discouraged  F^astern  production  ;  and  the  late  civil  war  and  other 
causes  depressed  the  lead-mining  industry  in  the  seaboard  States,  especially 
the  Southern  ones,  even  more  :  so  that  now  Carroll  County,  N.H.,  Wash- 
ington County,  N.Y.,  Pulaski  and  Wythe  Counties,  Va.,  are  the  only  Eastern 
producers ;  and  the  last-named  county  in  Virginia  is  the  only  one  of  the  num- 
hor  wliose  yield  is  of  consefiuence.  Kentucky  also  does  a  trifle  in  this  direc- 
tion still ;  and  Nevada  is  the  only  State  on  the  Pacific  side  of  the  continent 
which  has  a  lead-product  large  enough  to  be  recorded,  and  even  this  is  slight, 
and  of  recent  development. 

The  eaHiest  accounts  we  have  of  a  lead-mine  being  actually  worked  in 
Massachusetts  was  in  Worcester  County  in  1 754 ;  although  the  existence  of 
deposits  iiad  been  known  long  previously.  This  vein,  like  that  at  Early  work- 
Southampton,  worked  in  1765,  was  of  argentiferous  galena.  Lead  ingof^in". 
«'as  found  elsewhere  in  the  State,  and  also  up  in  New  Hampshire.  In  the 
latter  State,  beside  the  Carroll  county  mines  now  in  operation,  those  of  the 
town  of  Shclburne,  which  have  been  abandoned,  also  paid.  Little  was  made 
of  the  discovery  near  Middletown,  Conn.,  until  1775,  when  the  Assembly 
directed  the  mine  there  to  be  worked,  and  smelters  and  refiners  imported  from 
New  York  and  New  Jersey  as*a  war  measure.  The  enterprise  never  amounted 
'0  miicli,  though.  In  New  York,  specimens  were  picked  up  to  send  to  the 
motlicr-country,  Holland,  as  early  as  1629  ;  but  though  it  was  found  in  Ulster, 


>  1 


"^nr,. 


II 


694 


/A'/J  C/S  TR[A  I.    Ills  TDK  Y 


Columbia,  Dutchess,  and  Washington  Counties,  no  attempt  was  made  to  uurk 
the  veins  until  a  party  of  (lermans  developed  a  mine  near  North-east,  Duldioss 
County.  Similar  enterprises  were  undertaken  by  Livingston  farther  iiji  thu 
Hudson  about  the  same  time,  I'rofitable  mines  have  since  been  operalrd  in 
St.  Lawrence  County,  but  are  now  abandoned,  I'enn  knew  of  the  cm^Icik  e 
of  lead  on  his  grants  as  early  as  i6<S3  certainly;  but  no  mine  was  wdikid 
profitably  until  1778,  near  Frankstown,  on  land  once  surveyed  for  I'enn.  I  lijs 
was  a  war  measure,  and  the  product  was  all  bought  up  by  the  Slate.  In  liDih 
Chester  and  Montgomery  Counties,  mining  has  been  kept  up  since  in  ,1  miv 
desultory  way.  The  Chester-county  Mining  Comjjany  began  o])erati()n^  in 
1850,  and  kept  at  them  only  four  or  five  years.  Like  enterjjrises  of  a  iihahjus 
date  had  been  equally  short-lived,  A  lead-mine,  wiiich  was  worked  to  a  sji-lu 
extent  for  a  time,  was  found  in  Virginia  as  early  as  1621  ;  bu*t  at  the  tnm  an 
Indian  massacre  terminated  operations  at  the  first  iron-mine  near  Janu-town 
this  lead-mine  was  lost,  and  not  re-discovered  until  long  after,  Oprraiions 
were  begun  at  Wythevilit  as  early  as  1754,  and  in  Montgomery  County  also 
about  the  same  time.  Lead-mines  are  known  to  have  been  workrd  laar 
Fincastle,  Botetourt  County,  during  the  Revcjlution,  Those  of  Lastern  Ken- 
tucky and  Tennessee  were  probably  utilized  not  long  after.  Veins  were  limnd 
in  South-western  North  Carolina,  which  yielded  ore  containing  seventy  fni'  per 
cent  of  lead,  before  the  Revolution,  This  was  along  the  French  Ilroad  Kivcr, 
The  famous  Davidson  mines  are  located  near  the  centre  of  the  State,  'riiese 
latter  are  noted  for  their  argentiferous  galena,  and  have  been  worked  as  n)ii(  h 
for  the  silver  and  minute  (juantity  of  gold  to  be  obtained  as  for  the  kad. 
Work  has  been  revived  there  since  the  war,  and  the  mines  have  been  in  ( on- 
tinuous  operation  nearly  a  century ;  but  the  procurement  of  lead  is  now  no 
object  whatever, 

Nineteen-twentieths  of  the  lead  produced  in  this  country  to-day,  howtvcr, 
comes  from  two  regions  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  One  includes  one  lounty 
Where  lead  ^^  Illinois,  two  of  Iowa,  and  three  of  Wisconsin,  contiguous  to  one 
principally  another,  and  yields,  perhaps,  twice  as  much  as  the  other,  whidi  is 
comes  rom,    gp^g^^j  ^^j  ^\  q^^,^  ^|^^j.  p.^^^  q|-  j|^g  State  of  Missouri  south  of  tiic 

river  of  that  name,  although  mining  is  carried  on  in  only  eight  or  ten  (ountics. 

The  Indians  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  knew  of  the  existence  of  (kjiosits 

of  galena,  for  the  ore  is  found  in  their  mounds ;  but  no  evidence  exists  that 

,  ..  they  knew  how  to  reduce  it  to  lead,  simple  as  is  the  |)rocess. 

Indians  •'  '  . 

knew  of  the  (Jalcna  is  a  sulphuret,  antl  can  be  reduced  by  merely  smelting 
with  charcoal.  It  is  in  this  form  that  we  find  most  of  the  lead 
in  this  country. 

In  1700  the  French  priest  Le  Sueur  made  his  voyage  of  exjiloration 
up  the  Mississippi,  discovering  many  lead-mines.  It  was  not  until  ly.SH, 
however,  while  yet  all  the  region  west  of  the  river  belonged  to  France,  that 
Dubuque  began  operations,  having  obtained  a  grant  from  the  Indians.    He 


existence  of 
lead 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


69s 


)t  was  made  to  work 
N()rll\-casl,  Duti  lu'ss 
;ston  farther  11)1  tlif 
:o  been  oiKTaliil  in 
new  of  the  cxi^Uiu e 
10  mine  was  worked 
eyed  for  IVnn.  I  liis 
y  the  Slate.  In  hoih 
t  \\\)  since  in  a  vrry 

began  oi)eratiiiiu  in 
lerprises  of  a  iiriAinus 
vas  worked  to  a  slij;ht 
;   biit  at  the  tin\c  an 
mine  near  Janu-lown 
ng  after.     Oiuraiidns 
intgomery  Co\inty  also 
•c    been  workid   mar 
liose  of  l'",astern  Km- 
ir.     Veins  were  lnuml 
aiiiing  seventy  live  i)er 
J  l-'rench  Uroad  River. 
of  the  Stale,     'fliese 

been  worked  as  niucli 
lined  as  for  the  lead. 

es  have  been  in  eon- 

:nt  of  lead  is  now  no 

.untry  to-day,  liowever, 

Ic  ineUides  one  eonniy 

nsin,  contiguous  to  one 

as  the  other,  \vhi<  li  is 

Missouri  soutli  of  tlie 

eight  or  ten  <  ountics. 

existence  of  deposits 

10  evidence  exists  lliat 

|ple  as  is  the  i)rotcss. 

jd  by  merely  smelting 

find  most  of  llie  lead 

/oyage   of  exploration 

was  not   until   17HS, 

jonged  to  France,  that 

rem  the  Indians.    He 


Dubuque. 


worked  these  mines  until  1809,  when  he  died.  This  tract  of  land  —  on 
\vlu(  h  is  situated  the  city  that  now  bears  his  name  —  was  ceded 
by  the  Indians  to  the  United-States  (lovermnent  in  1807,  and 
shortly  afterward  the  representatives  of  Dubucpie  were  forcibly  ejected.  No 
le.i^es  were  granted  until  1822,  anil  mining  was  not  resumed  until  1826.  A 
government  survey  was  had  in  1839,  and  a  general  sale  allowed  in  1844.  Hut 
from  1826  the  progress  was  marked  and  rapid,  the  business  extending  over 
into  Illinois  and  Wisconsin  ;  and  the  first  great  climax,  of  the  (leveloi)ment 
ol  this  region  was  reached  in  1846,  when  the  tariff  was  taken  off  fiom  lead 
almost  entirely,  and  agriculture  began  to  draw  off  the  ittention  and  labor 
of  that  region,  'i'hc  city  of  (lalena,  111.,  as  also  other  cities  and  villages 
in  that  section,  was  the  product  of  that  i)eriod  of  industrial  growth,  which 
was  marked  by  much  of  the  excitement  anil  speculation  which  have  i  liarac- 
terized  mini  ig  in  this  and  other  countries  of  the  workl  at  almost  all  known 
stages  of  his  ory. 

Lead-mining  began  in  Missouri  in  1720,  while  that  country  belonged  to 
France,  and  under  the  patent  given  to  Law's  famous  Mississippi  Company. 
Mine  La  Mottc,  in  Madison  County,  named  after  a  mineralo-  Lead-mining 
gist  who  came  over  with  Renault,  was'  among  the  first  discov-  '"  Missouri. 
cries.  Little  was  done  there  up  to  the  time  of  Renault's  return  to  France 
in  1742.  Schoolcraft  estimates  that  in  1S19  there  were  forty-five  mines  in 
Missouri,  including  the  region  in  and  about  Washington  Cotmty,  and  also  the 
locality  in  the  south-western  corner  of  the  State.  At  that  time,  he  estimates, 
there  were  eleven  hundred  i)ersons  at  work  there  at  lead-mining  ;  whereas 
in  1S54  Dr.  Litton  thought  there  were  not  more  than  two  or  three  hundred: 
yet  at  both  periods  the  average  product  was  fifteen  hundred  tons  annually. 
This  was  far  less  than  that  of  the  Upper-Mississippi  region.  During  the  late 
civil  war  the  mining-business  was  greatly  prostrated  in  Missouri,  and  recuper- 
ated but  little  till  nearly  1870. 

It  might  be  remarked  of  these  Missouri  mines,  that  for  a  long  time  the 
rich,  white,  almost  transjjarent  carbonate  found  in  soaie  of  them  was  rejected 
as  worthless ;  its  character  not  being  known  to  the  miners,  who  were  used 
only  to  lead  in  the  form  of  galena.  Another  great  source  of  waste  in  this 
country  has  been  the  dissipation  of  lead  by  the  process  of  cupellation,  when 
there  was  silver  enough  in  the  ore  to  make  that  the  principal  object. 
Processes  have,  however,  been  invented,  by  which  the  vapor  can  be  caught 
ami  congealed,  and  the  baser  as  well  as  the  choicer  metal  be  procured. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  get  accurate  statistics  concerning  the   quantity  of 
metals  produced  in  this  country,  and  those  concerning  lead  are  regarded  as 
particularly  unreliable  ;   but  the  following,  taken  from  the  census   statistics  of 
of  1870,  will  give  an  idea  of  the  present  distribution  of  the  Indus-   production. 
try,  although  the  production  has  nearly  quadrupled  since.     The  following  table 
shows  the  value  of  the  product :  — 


6^6  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

Wisconsin $3691067 

MiF.souri 2oi,8,S5 

Illinois 73i302 

Iowa 50,250 

Other  States 36,500 

Total l736,oo.J 

This,  at  four  and  a  half  cents  a  pound,  would  make  b'  .  16,265,422 
pounds,  or  scarcely  more  than  7,000  tons.  The  table  of  metallic  production, 
prepared  by  R.  W.  Raymond,  however,  sets  down  the  production  for  1S69 
(which  is  what  is  really  credited  to  the  census  year)  as  15,653  tons. 

Previous  to  the  development  of  the  Mississippi-valley  mines,  Kngland  and 
Spain  were  the  two  great  lead-producing  nations  of  the  wodd,  althougli  ncitiier 
England  and  of  them  obtained  as  soft  and  fine  an  article  as  we.  From  1S45 
Spain.  jQ  ,3j2  Kngland's  average  annual  production  was  55,000  tons: 

Spain's,  for  1847  and  1849,  was  30,000.  In  1845  the  United  States  produced 
26,500  tons,  or  fully  one-fifth  of  the  whole  quantity  produced  in  llic  world. 
Twenty  years  before,  we  had  produced  only  1,281  tons  of  2,240  ])oun(Is;  in 
1832  we  produced  8,540,000  pounds  ourselves,  and  imported  5,333,5X8;  in 
1844  we  (lid  not  import  a  ton.  From  the  removal  of  the  tariff  in  1*^16  to 
1854  there  was  a  steady  decline  in  our  production.     In  iSj;  it 

Tariff.  ,  ,  .  , 

was,  as  above  stated,  26,500  tons ;  in  1854  but  14,000,  at  wliich 
figure  it  kept  until  about  1869.  Our  importation  in  1844  was  notliing;  in 
1859  about  64,000,000,  or  29,000  tons,  —  twice  our  own  production.  In 
1875  our  production  was  53,000  tons,  and  in  1877  our  importation  had 
dwindled  to  le.>s  than  7,000  tons. 

Says  Kimball  regarding  American  lead-production,  "  No  country  is  so 
richly  endowed  with  lead  as  this,  nor  any  so  little  justified  in  importiiig  a 
Remarks  of  pound  of  it.  In  the  Far  West,  where  its  development  is  enor- 
Kimbaii.  mous,  there  is  no  help  at  present  against  wasting  what  is  not 
utilized  for  the  extraction  of  silver ;  but  it  is  a  '  penny-wise-and-pound- 
foolish '  policy  indeed  which  in  the  Northern  and  Atlantic  Stat'.'s,  or  wher- 
ever transportation  is  at  hand,  estimates  the  value  of  galenas  only  by  tiieir 
tenor  of  silver." 


'^-lUf  •' 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


697 


CHAPTER  V. 

COPPER. 

COPPER  is  the  one  metal  discovered  and  put  to  a  practical  use  by  the 
aborigines  before  the  discoverers  friun  Europe  came  to  this  country  ;  and, 
what  is  a  still  more  interesting  fact,  the  native  Indians  of  long  ago  Copper  used 
understood  the  art  of  hardening  and  tempering  co|)per  so  as  to  ^^  indiam. 
make  adzes,  chisels,  and  other  implements  therefrom,  —  a  step  in  civilization 
which  the  white  man  of  to-day  would  be  glad  to  retrace,  were  it  not  that  iron 
and  steel  subserve  all  these  purposes  so  admirably.  The  great  mounds  of 
Imlian  relics  in  die  West  contain  articles  showing  conclusively  that  the  abori- 
gines knew  of  the  existence  and  uses  of  copper,  which  they  doubtless  obtained 
from  tiie  Lake-Superior  region. 

The  search  for  metals  was  diligently  conducted  by  colonists  on  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  at  an  early  day ;  and  copper  was  among  the  first  of  their  findings, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  dis;ribiited  more  or  less  all  along  the  ocean-  gg,,  j,,,, 
side  of  the  Appalachian  range.  Endicott  found  it  in  Massachu-  covetiea  o( 
sttts  in  164S,  and  imported  Swedish  workmen  to  smelt  and  refine  ""Pf"- 
it.  His  mine  i)roved  less  productive,  however,  than  he  anticipated.  Previous 
to  that  time,  copper  pyrites  were  found  in  New  York  ;  but  the  mineral  having 
ken  mistaken  for  gold,  and  the  blunder  having  been  discovered,  it  was  little 
prized.  Tlie  Shawangunk  Mountain  abounds  in  this  form  of  copper  ;  and  it 
has  been  mined  to  some  extent  near  ICllenville,  Ulster  ('ounty.  The  Dutch  had 
found  pure  copper  near  Minisink,  Orange  County,  N.V.,  before  they  surren- 
dered their  possessions  to  the  English.  This  metal  was  found  nearly  a  century 
later  in  Dutchess  County,  in  veins  crossing  those  of  galena.  Cojjper  was  found 
in  Pennsylvania  in  time  and  in  sufficient  cpiantity  for  William  Penn  to  mention 
it  in  a  letter  of  1683.  Tlie  remains  of  a  shaft  in  Lancaster  County  show 
that  copper  was  mined  by  the  French  or  settlers  from  Maryland  as  early  as 
I'enn's  time.  An  extensive  vein  of  copper  war,  found  in  Catocton  Mountain, 
Maryland,  soon  after  that  colony  was  first  settled.  Copper  was  found  in 
Virginia,  along  the  Roanoke,  in  Mecklenburgh  County  and  that  neighborhood, 
eariy  enough  for  three  thousand  pounds  of  ore  to  be  exported  in  1 730.     The 


;.ri-if 


![sh# 


V  {'M,^^. 


*i}*: 


;■      .J"! 


698 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


same  metal  was  also  discovered  along  the  banks  of  the  James.  The  lllue 
Ridge  has  long  been  noted  for  its  cupreous  deposits  ;  and  they  were  discovered 
in  Polk  County,  Tenn.,  and  the  adjacent  districts  of  Georgia  and  Nortii  Caro- 
lina, at  quite  an  early  date.  Copper  was  also  found  in  small  quantities  in 
South  Carolina. 

Among  the  first  mines  to  be  systematically  worked  for  copper,  excepting 
Endicott's  in  Massachusetts,  were  those  at  Granby,  Conn. ;  to  operate  whii  ii 
Early  work-  a  con.f  any  was  incorporated  in  1 709.  About  the  middle  of  liic 
ing  of  mines,  eightconth  ccntury,  tiiese  mines,  having  been  abandoned,  were 
bought  by  the  cciiony  for  a  state-prison,  and  used   as  such   for  sixty  years. 


COITEK-MINING. 


Mining  was  resumed  there  in  1830,  but  soon  discontinued.  Most  of  these 
ores  were  shipped  to  England.  About  1719,  the  Schuyler  mine,  in  New 
Jersey,  near  the  Passaic,  was  discovered,  and,  prior  to  the  Revolution,  was 
among  our  most  famous  copper-producers.  It  was  in  a  inachine-shop  at  ihe 
'melting-works  connected  therewith,  at  Belleville,  that  the  first  steam-engine 
was  built  in  this  country,  in  1793-94.  In  1751  a  copper-mine  was  oi)ened 
near  New  Brunswick  ;  and  anotiier,  near  Somerville,  was  operated  liefore  the 
Revolution.  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  also  produce  in  small  ciuantities 
the  green  carbonate  ^oC  copper  called  "  malachite,"  which  is  almost  as 
precious  as  a  jewel.     Siberia,  however,  is  the  great  producer  of  this  mineral. 


-fr-^V^] 


fames.  The  r.lue 
;y  were  discovcicd 
I  and  North  Caro- 
,mall  quantities  in 

:  copper,  excepting 
;  to  operate  whicli 
the  middle  of  llic 
1  abandoned,  wire 
ich   for  sixty  years. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


699 


When  it  is  known  that  in  1830  our  total  production  oi"  copper  was  not  ov>.r 
fifty  tons,  and  that,  even  in  1840,  it  was  but  a  hundred  tons,  it  will  be  realized 
how  recent  is  the  principal  development  of  the  copper-mining  industry  in  this 
country.  Besides  the  discoveries  we  have  already  mentioned,  there  were  many 
others  in  early  colonial  days ;  but  active  operations  were  not  undertaken  in 
many  of  them,  and  in  most  cases  they  were  abandoned  after  a  few  years  of 
unremunerative  labor. 

The  great  source  of  American  copper  is  Lpper  Micliigan.  Along  the 
northern  shore  of  that  great  peninsula  which  separates  Lake  Superior  from 
Lake  Michigan  stretches  a  rich  metalliferous  region.  \\\  Mar-  upper 
quette  County  iron  abounds.  Farther  west,  in  tlie  trap-rock  wliich  Michigan. 
l)ei,Mns  at  Keweenaw  Point,  and  runs  through  Houghton  and  Ontonagon 
Counties,  metallic  copper  is  found  in  rare  abundance.  The  belt  containing 
it  is  from  one  to  twelve  miles  wide,  and  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  long. 
.'\lexander  I  lenry  was  the  first  wliite  man  to  operate  a  mine  there.  This  was 
in  1 771,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Ontonagon  River;  ami  his  success  led  Dr. 
Franklin,  our  minister  to  France  (hiring  the  Revolution,  to  say,  in  connection 
with  the  probable  Canadian  boundary,  that  it  should  be  made  to  run  tlirough 
Lake  Superior,  so  as  to  include  "the  most  and  best  of  the  copper  to  the  United 
States." 

Hut  Hougliton's  report  on  the  geological  features  of  this  region  first  drew 
general  attention  to  it,  and  it  began  to  be  noised  abroad  that  this  was  a  rare 
treasure-vault  of  copper  and  silver.  This  was  indeed  the  case,  although  the 
silver  —  found  in  distinct  nuggets  nearly  pure,  and  not  mingled  with  tlie  cojjpcr 
—  proved  to  be  much  less  in  proportionate  quantity  than  was  supposed.  Ne- 
gotiations were  set  afoot  by  the  government  to  extinguish  the  Chippewa  title  to 
those  lands  ;  and  then  ensued  a  tremendous  rush  thither  of  miners  and  specu- 
lators, and  one  of  tiie  greatest  excitements  that  have  ever  agitated  American 
industry.     Says  Kimball, — 

"  The  copper-region  of  L:ike  Superior  owes,  in  a  great  measure,  its  rapid 
and  energetic  development  to  one  of  those  popular  furores  so  frecpient  in 
Anieriea,  —  the  'copper-fever,'  as  it  was  termed,  which  became  epidemic  over 
tlie  whole  land  in  ICS45.  Preposterous  fables  as  to  the  occurrence  of  native 
silver  and  copper,  in  masses,  upon  and  just  beneath  the  surface  of  the  whole 
hai<e-Siiperior  country,  to  be  had  only  for  the  picking  \\\>,  were  bruited  about 
in  all  the  cities,  unsettling  the  minds  and  habits  of  the  well-to-do  industrious 
folk  of  the  country,  and  opening,  for  the  first  time  in  the  United  States,  a 
Iironiising  field,  on  their  own  grounds,  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  adven- 
turers for  the  exercise  of  the  cunning  maiuBU'res  of  their  several  roles.  'The 
shores  of  Keweenaw  Point,'  says  Mr.  Whitney,  '  were  whitened  with  the  tents 
of  speculators  and  so-called  geologists.'  Leases  of  lots  one  mile  square,  for 
mining-purposes,  were  taken  from  the  Federal  Government  with  great  avidity 
wherever  they  could  be  obtained,  regardless  of  all  intelligent  discrimination  as 


III 


700 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


to  their  metalliferous  character,  and,  indeed,  of  the  entire  absence  of  mineral 
lodes  or  deposits,  or  of  the  logical  impossibility  of  their  existence  in  certain 
rocks.  These  leases  were  held  mainly  by  private  speculators  and  joint-stock 
companies,  whose  object  was  less  to  unearth  the  untold  metallic  wealth  wh'ch 
they  were  supposed  to  have  secured  than  to  profit  either  by  the  incren:,Mig 
market-value  of  their  mining-privileges,  or  by  the  proceeds  from  the  sale  of 
corporation  shares.  Speculation  after  this  fashion  flourished  for  upwards  of  a 
year.  In  1847  the  bubble  burst  of  its  own  overstrained  distention;  and  the 
collapse  overwhelmed  in  general  disaster,  and  swept  out  of  their  mock  exist- 
ence, several  hundred  distinct  corporations,  wiiile  only  some  half  a  dozen 
survived  the  shock." 

Mr.  Hewitt  says  that  these  leases  were  granted  under  a  forced  construction 
of  existing  law,  but  were  soon  suspended  as  illegal,  doubtless  owing  to  abuses. 
He  adds,  "The  Act  of  1847,  authorizing  the  sale  of  the  mineral  land;  and  a 
geological  survey  of  the  district,  laid  the  foundation  of  a  more  substantial 
prosperity."  It  should  be  remarked,  though,  that  some  of  this  enthusiasm  led 
to  practical  results,  and  that  a  few  of  the  companies  operated  in  good  foith. 
This  is  evident  from  the  fact,  that  whereas,  in  1840,  the  whole  country  pro- 
duced but  a  hundred  tons  of  copper,  the  product  in  1850  was  six  iunnlred 
and  fifty  tons,  the  gain  being  chiefly  in  the  Lake-Superior  region.  The  great 
development,  however,  has  been  since  then. 

The  progress  made  in  mining  necessarily  gave  giowth  to  the  population, 
built  up  towns  and  transportation-lines,  and  in  other  ways  gave  importance  to 
_  ^  that  section.     The  Hon.  Alexander  Campbell  of  Marquette,  Mich., 

mentof  in  an  oration  delivered  early  in  1861,  thus  touches  on  this  point: 

M-*"*''*""  "^"  '^55  Portage  Lake  was  comparatively  unknown  (its  population 
less  than  a  thousand),  while  no  great  interest  was  yet  attracting 
special  attention  :  to-day  tliey  have  a  population  of  over  six  thousand  souls, 
and  copper-mines  that  are  producing  a  monthly  product  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
to  three  hundred  and  thirty  tons.  No  man  can  now  go  to  this  interesting  point, 
and  behold  the  thrift  that  is  everywhere  apparent,  —  the  great  number  of  new 
buildings  being  erected,  the  stir  of  the  populace,  the  immense  investments  of 
capital,  the  copper-cars  as  they  thunder  down  the  train-roads  to  the  lake,  the 
prodigious  quartz-mills,  and  the  power  and  success  with  which  tliey  stamj)  the 
co])pcr  rocks  and  separate  the  copper  from  the  rock,  the  large  merchandise 
that  is  carrieil  on  to  supply  so  large  a  population,  the  new  enterprises  in  the 
form  of  spacious  docks,  new  hotels,  founderies,  stamp-mills,  smclting-works, — 
without  receiving  a  deep  impression,  especially  if  he  possess  an  observing 
mind.  Nor  is  this  all.  As  these  developments  began  to  assume  such  pro 
portions,  some  of  the  corporations,  and  a  few  of  the  enterprising  citi/cns 
of  the  place,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  commerce,  appropriated  thirty-live 
thousand  dollars  from  their  treasuries  and  pockets  to  open  the  i:?.rb^r  known 
as  Portage  Entry,  fourteen  miles  below  the  villages  of  Houghton  and  I^in- 


OF    THE   UNITED    STATES. 


701 


isence  of  minera\ 
st.ence  in  certain 
s  and  joint-stock 
allic  wealth  wlvch 
by  the  incrcnvng 
from  the  sale  of 
for  upwards  of  a 
stention;  and  the 
their  mock  exist- 
ime  half  a  dozen 

breed  construction 
,s  owing  to  abuses. 
ineral  lands  und  a 
a  more  substantial 
this  enthusiasm  led 
ated  in  good  faith. 
whole  country  pro- 
50  was  six  hundred 
region.    The  great 

I  to  the  population, 
gave  importance  to 
,f  Marquette,  Mi'h., 
iches  on  this  point: 
Inown  (its  population 
^t  was  yet  attracting 
six  thousand  souls, 
a  hundred  and  fifty 
|his  interesting  point, 
eat  number  of  new 
jnse  investments  of 
lads  to  the  lake,  the 
|hich  they  stamp  the 
large  merchandise 
■w  enterprises  in  the 
|s,  smclting-works.  — 
ossess  an  observing 
assume  such  pro 
enterprising  eili/cns 
.rovri^ued   thivty-hve 

,n  the  r.-l-^'-  >^';'"^" 
;oughton  and  1  Han- 


cock, which  are  located  near  the  mines,  and  on  what  is  known  in  common- 
place as  Portage  Lake  ;  so  that  steamers  of  the  largest  class,  with  a  full  freight, 
have  been  enabled  to  cross  the  bar,  run  up  to  the  mines,  discharge  their  cargo, 
and  receive  the  copper.  Previous  to  this  improvement,  tugs  and  scows  were 
used  to  transport  the  freight  to  and  from  the  steamers,  which  dropped  their 
anciiors  in  the  lake  outside  the  '  entry,'  to  the  docks  at  the  mines,  at  a  cost  of 
two  dollars  per  ton.  When  the  lake  was  rough,  as  was  often  the  case,  stcfhmers 
<()uid  not  discharge  or  receive  freight.  This  difficulty  is  now  obviated,  and  the 
expense  saved,  while  the  business  has  much  greater  despatch.  .  .  .  At  the 
other  points  on  the  copper  range  —  Eagle  Harbor,  Eagle  River,  and  Ontona- 
gon —  the  development  was  much  earlier  than  at  Portage  Eake,  and  first 
gave  prominence  and  importance  to  the  country.  The  celebrated  Cliff  mine, 
wliose  annual  product  for  over  ten  years  has  exceeded  fifteen  hundred 
tons,  was  opened  in  1845.  The  Copper- Falls,  Central,  and  other  mines  in 
the  same  district,  known  as  Keweenaw  Point,  were  opened  at  a  later  day. 
Tiie  equally  famous  Minnesota  mine,  in  what  is  known  as  die  Ontonagon 
district,  and  whose  product  the  last  year  was  twenty-one  hundred  and  eighty 
tons,  was  opened  in  1848.  The  National  and  Rockland,  whose  products  are 
now  large,  were  opened  some  years  after.  It  was  the  early  opening  of  these 
mines,  and  their  success  under  all  the  disadvantages  which  the  country  suffered 
at  an  early  day,  and  the  working  of  many  others  in  the  same  districts,  which 
have  not  yet  been  as  successful,  that  for  many  years  gave  business  and 
interest  to  the  covmtry ;  and  now  that  other  points,  with  the  light  and  facility 
which  existeil,  have  bounded  into  being  with  wonderful  development,  it  in 
no  way  detracts  from  those  whose  entire  success  gave  birth  to  all  that  has 
followed." 

Most  of  Michigan's  copper  is  metallic,  embedded  in  quartz;  but  in  1846 
a  vein  of  black  oxide  was  discovered,  which  was  exhausted  after  twenty  tons 
were  taken  out.  It  was  exceedingly  rich,  and  had  much  to  do  with  the  sensa- 
tion of  that  period. 

It  now  remains  to  consider  the  progress  made  by  the  copper-mining  indus- 
try of  the  country  as  a  whole  for  the  past  few  years,  and  note  in  what  other 
regions  besides  this  the  business  is  carried  on. 

As  we  have  already  remarked,  the  United  States  produced  but  fifty  tons  of 
copper  in  1830,  a  hundred  in  1840,  and  six  hundred  and  fifty  in  1850.  During 
the  two  decades  thus  included,  the  product  of  the  whole  world  had  statistics  re- 
imreased  from  25,500  to  54,700  tons.  In  1853  we  produced  2,000  latingto 
out  of  the  whole  55,700  tons.  Our  product  for  1866  was  10,790  •""  "'=*'°"- 
tons.  The  census-returns  for  1870  put  the  total  value  of  our  copper-product 
at  55,201,312,  which,  at  $400  a  ton,  makes  about  13,000  tons;  which  is,  per- 
liaps,  an  under-estimate  as  to  quantity.  Dr.  Raymond  estimates  that  the 
copper-product  of  the  country  in  1875  was  15.625  tons.  In  1870  the  census 
accredited  four-fifths  of  the  whole  country's  yield  to  Michigan  j  and,  of  the 


702 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


SKPARATINC   COPPER   ROCKS. 


three  counties  that  monopolized  that  State's  supply,  —  Houghton,  Keweenaw, 
and  Ontonagon,  —  the  first-named  produced  three-quarters  ol"  it. 

It  should  be  noted  in  this  connection,  that  competition  with  the  Lake- 
Superior  region  of  America  has  seriously  cut  down  the  British  production.  At 
the  close  of  the  last  century,  and  from  that  time  to  1865,  Great  Britain  was 
the  greatest  producer  of  copper  in  the  world.  In  1864  her  yield  was  14,247 
tons,  the  joint  contribution  of  196  mines.  The  ne.xt  year  203  mines  aggre- 
gated only  11,888  tons,  and  their  product  is  diminishing.     In  1865  the  United 

States  produced  8,472  tons,  in  spite 
of  peculiar  disadvantages  tiuu  are 
estimated  to  offset  3,000  more 
tons;  and  in  1866  we  had  raised 
our  figure  to  10,790.  Chili  has  of 
late  years  come  to  be  tlie  great 
rival  of  great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  having  produced  12,500  ions 
in  1850,  and  14,000  in  1855.  'l,.e 
blockade  of  the  Chilian  ports  in 
1866  by  Spain  cut  off  this  supply, 
and  gave  a  temporary  stinniliis  to 
American  and  British  production; 
but  the  ce:  tion  of  hostilities  a 
few  months  later  was  followed  by  a  corresponding  re-action. 

In  1861,  in  the  midst  of  the  Washoe  fever,  copper  was  found  in  Calaveras 
County,  Cal.,  in  sufficient  (juantities  to  create  a  great  sensation,  and  to  im  ite 
a  search  for  similar  deposits  all  along  the  Sierra  Nevada.  The 
result  was  to  develop  a  belt  of  copper  lodes  all  the  way  from 
Southern  California  up  into  Oregon.  Nevada  and  Arizona  were 
also  found  to  contain  the  metal.  Few  of  the  mines  begun  proved  remunera- 
tive, however.  Says  Kimball,  "'  Work  was  energetically  begun  in  many  dis- 
tricts, and  soon  sufficient  was  accomplished  to  demonstrate  the  extent  of  the 
copper-resources  of  California  and  neighboring  territories  to  be  nowhere 
equalled,  and  at  the  same  time  the  premature  character  of  an  extensive 
copper- industry  in  interior  sections  of  the  country  neither  supplied  with 
mineral  coal,  nor  ready  means  of  transportation.  The  Copperopolis  (Cala- 
veras County,  Cal.)  mines,  which  had  been  the  fir't  to  attract  attention, 
sustained  the  high  opinions  which  had  been  formed  of  their  capabilities; 
though,  up  to  this  time  (1867),  the  Union  appears  to  be  the  only  mine  that 
has  yielded  profit,  it  having  done  so  from  the  first  on  a  scale  hitherto  unknown 
in  copper-tnining,  notwithstanding  the  many  commercial  obstacles  it  has  at 
present  to  encounter." 

The  census  of  1870  gave  the  following  returns  of  the  copper-production 
of  the  country  for  the  year,  by  value  :  — 


Discovery  of 
copper  in 
California. 


,,r— T|^;s7r 


ghton,  Keweenaw, 
}i  it. 

311  with  the  Lake- 
ih  production.  .\t 
,  Great  Britain  was 
:r  yield  was  14.-47 

203  mines  aggrc- 
In  1865  the  L'nitLci 

8,472  tons,  in  spile 
idvantages  thai  are 
offset  3,000  more 
[866  we  had  raised 

>,790-     ^"^'^'  '^'''  °^ 
ne    to   be  the  great 

ritain  and  the  United 
)roduced  12,50010ns 
4,000  in  185:,.  'I'.e 
.he  Chdian  ports  in 
I  cut  off  this  supply, 
emporary  stimulus  to 
I  British  produciion; 
tion  of  hostilities  a 

>n. 

■as  found  in  Calaveras 
iisation,  and  to  inrite 
Sierra  Nevada.    The 
les  all  the  way  from 
ida  and  Arizona  were 
un  proved  remunera- 
,  begun  in  many  dis- 
late  the  extent  of  the 
jries  to  be  nowhere 
LCter  of  an   extensive 
leither  supplied  with 
Copperopolis  (Cala- 
to  attract  attention, 
of  their  capabilities; 
je  the  only  mine  that 
[cale  liitherto  unknown 
lal  obstacles  it  has  at 

Ihe  copper-production 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES.  703 

Michigan ^4,312,167 

Vermont 358,845 

Tennessee 310,000 

North  Carolina 96,000 

Maryland 71,000 

Nevada 30,000 

Virginia 8,000 

Pennsylvania 7,800 

Arizona 7,cco 

Total $5,201,312 

As  the  price  was  then  about  four  hundred  dollars  a  ton,  or  less,  it  is  a 
simple  matter  to  reduce  these  figures  to  tons.  I'he  census  commissioner 
remarks,  however,  that  his  estimates  are  not  altogether  trustworthy.  It  will  be 
observed,  for  instance,  that  he  omits  California  altogether ;  and  other  accounts 
indicate  that  Calaveras  County  in  that  State  alone  yields  as  much  as  either 
Vermont  or  Tennessee.  Vermont's  production,  nearly  a  thousand  tons  annu- 
ally, is  confined  to  Orange  County  in  that  State ;  Tennessee's,  to  Polk  County ; 
North  Carolina's,  to  Chatham ;  Maryland's,  to  Carroll  and  Frederick ;  Ne- 
vada's, to  Humboldt ;  Pennsylvania's,  to  Berks  and  Lebanon ;  Virginia's,  to 
Louisa ;  and  Arizona's,  to  Yuma  and  Mohave. 

Our  production  of  copper  exceeds  our  needs  at  the  present  time  by  nearly 
one-half,  as  will  appear  from  the  following  statement  of  our  exports  and  im- 
ports for  1877  :  — 


EXPORTS. 

IMPORTS. 

Ore 

Pigs,  bars,  &c 

Manufactured  articles 

^•59.530 
2,295,711 

226,059 

$70,912 
163,104 
363.250 

Total 

$2,681,320 

$596,266 

Balance  of  exports 

Value  of  our  production,  about , 


152,085,054 
6,000,000 


Tlie  little  ore  we  import  is  mostly  smelted  at  Boston,  Bergen  Point  (near 
New  York),  and  Baltimore. 


704 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


CHAPTER   VI. 


COAL. 


\  i 


p 


{ 


THE  discover)',  mining,  and  transportation  of  coal  is  one  ot  the  ni03t 
interesting  as  well  as  instructive  chapters  in  American  industrial  iiihtory. 
Importance  As  coal  is  the  product  of  some  of  the  grandest  growths  and  Imns- 
of  coal.  formations  in  the  natural  world,  so  does  it  play  an  equally  important 

part  in  modern  industries  and  civilization.  Its  history  is  crowded  with  interest 
from  that  for-off  time  when  gigantic  coal-ferns  grew  in  the  greatest  profusion, 
and  during  the  steaming  and  fiery  period  when  this  enormous  growth  was 
decaying,  and  transforming  into  fuel,  to  our  time,  when  the  product  is  col- 
lected, transported,  and  brought  to  our  doors,  to  serve  a  highly  useful  purpose. 

A  single  fact  will  reveal  its  importance  ;  namely,  that  the  value  of  tlic  ( oal 
mined  in  the  United  States  is  eepial  to  that  of  all  the  gold,  silver,  and  iron 
Coai-minine  produced  in  the  country.  The  colonists  were  amply  supplied  with 
inthecoio-  fuel  from  the  forests;  and  it  was  not  until  1750  that  coal  was 
""*■  discovered  near  Richmond,  Va.     Not  much  was  done  in  tlie  way 

of  coal-mining  until  after  the  Revolution,  when  it  was  exported  to  riiiladcl- 
phia,  New  York,  and  Boston  :  indeed,  the  demand  at  these  ports  for  Virijinia 
coal  continued  until  thirty  years  ago. 

Perhaps  some  of  our  readers  will  be  surprised  to  learn  how  short  is  the 
history  of  anthracite-coal  mining  in  Pennsylvania.  It  is  true,  the  existem  c 
Discovery  of  '^^  '^'^^^  there  was  known  long  before  the  close  of  the  last 
century.  To  fix  tiie  date  more  definitely,  it  was  in  thi;  year  1791 
when  Philip  Gunter  discovered  it.  He  was  a  hunter,  and  lived 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  mountain  drained  by  the  Lehigh  River.  On  llie 
day  of  this  great  discovery,  which  must  certainly  be  reckoned  among  the 
greatest  ever  made  on  this  continent,  he  had  spent  the  hours  in  the  woods 
without  finding  any  game.  His  heart  was  dc])ressed  (so  the  story  ^'oes)  ; 
for  he  had  left  his  wife  and  children  in  the  morning  with  a  scanty  breakfast, 
and  both  he  and  they  were  in  sore  need  of  food.  ;\s  night  drew  on  he  was 
still  several  miles  from  home,  on  the  summit  of  Sharp  Mountain.  .'\s  rain 
was  falling,  and  darkness  approaching,  he  quickened  his  steps ;  but,  as  he  was 


anthracite 
,.oal. 


H 


OF    THE    UNlTKn    STATES. 


70s 


ninning  along  through  the  woods,  he  stumbled  over  the  roots  of  a  tree,  and 
fell  near  enough  to  a  large  black  stone  for  him  to  recognize  its  color.  He  had 
heard  of  such  a  thing  as  stone-coal,  and  he  thought  tliat  this  must  be  a  speci- 
men. Giving  it  a  few  days  after  to  Col.  Jacol)  \Veir.>--,  .''lio  llien  lived  near 
the  present  site  of  Maiich  Chunk,  it  was  forwarded  lo  I'hiladelpliia :  and  in 
due  time  it  was  learned  that  (lunter's  sad  hunting-(k'y  was  not  fruitless,  after 
all ;  for  he  had  really  discovered  coal.  Soon  after,  several  thousand  acres  of 
laml  in  that  vicinity  were  jjurchased  at  a  very  low  ligure.  as  it  was  not  regarded 
valuable  ;  and  the  Lehigh  (.'ual-.\Iine  Company  was  funned,  containing  among 
other  members  Robert  Morris,  the  famous  fmancier  of  the  Revolution. 


is  one  01  the  most 
an  industrial  history. 
St  growths  and  li.uis- 
an  equally  impor^''*"^ 
:rowded  with  interest 
le  greatest  profusion, 
normous  growth  was 
1  the  product  is  col- 
highly  useful  purpose. 
,  the  value  of  the  <  oal 
gold,  silver,  and  iron 

c  amply  supplied  with    ^| 
1   1750  that  coal  was 
was  done  in  the  way 
exported  to  Philailel- 
^ese  ports  for  Virginia 


earn  bow  short  is  tlie 
[is  true,  the  exislemc 
L    close    of  the  last 
It  was  in  the  year  1791 
Is  a  hunter,  and  lived 
Ichigh  River,     on  the 
1  reckoned  among  tlie 
le  hours  in  the  woods 
I  (so  the  story  goes) ; 
lith  a  scanty  breakfast, 
1  night  drew  on  he  was 
I,  Mountain.    As  ram 
.steps;  but,  as  he  was 


H)SSII.    MSI!. 

Four  laborers  were  employed   in  the  beginning  in  mining  coal:    yet  these 
soon   proved   too   many;    for  where  was   the   market?     Of  coal 
there  was  an   abundant  e;    but  wiiere  the    customers?    and    how   tempt  to 
could  it  be  brought  to  them?      I'here  were  no  roads;    and   the   ■"'"•=""- 

°  thracite. 

river  ran  a  wild  career,  and  would  not  suffer  the  intrusion  of  any 

kind  of  boat  for  a  moment.     After  a  short  time  the  mine  was  suspended. 

In  I  798  a  company  was  organized  to  improve  the  navigation  of  the  Lehigh 
Ki\er.  and  the  prospect  of  opening  a  watery  highway  Un   tiie  transportation 
of  coal  revived  the  expiring  hopes  of  the  coal  company.     The 
improvements  were  completed  four  years  later ;  and  a  committee,  ^n"o '" 
lonsisting  of  five  persons,  was  appointed  to  examine  and  report   navigation 
tile  condition  of  the  river.     A  canoe  was  launchetl,  and  the  party   °  j^^"  ^^ 
liegan  to  descend  the  stream.     The  boat  glided  along  gracefully  at 
lirst ;  but  before  going  far  the  frail  craft  upset,  anil  the  committee,  notwith- 
standing the  important  ca])acity  in  which  they  were  serving,  took  a  very  sudden 
;iiid  unwelcome  bath.     It  is  said  that  two  of  them  narrowly  escaped  drowning ; 
l>ut  all  succeeded  "in  rescuing  themselves,  when  they  halted  in  their  labors, 
and  betook  themselves  to  the  nearest  inn,  where  they  warmed  the  inner  and 


■   ^! 

I 


jE!> 


706 


/JVD  CS  Th'lA  t.    Ftrs  TO.K  > ' 


^^n..,:;v 


^%^ 


dried  the  outer,  man.  and,  now  that  the  danger  was  passed,  laughed  heartily 
over  the  occurrence.  As  they  soon  after  sought  their  homes,  it  i^  hi^-hiv 
improbable  that  the  examination  was  continued,  especially  in  a  boat  n\  ihi' 
canoe  style. 

Whatever  rejjort  wa;,  made  by  the  committee,  it  is  certain  tiiat  i!ic  km) 
company  resumed  operations  ;  and  the  next  spring  it  was  iletermiiied  to  send 
Lively  ex-  ^'"^  ark-loads  of  coal  to  I'hiladel;  hia  during  the  time  of  freshet, 
perimentin  when  the  rivx'r  was  high,  and  many  o.  Hie  rocks  im])e(liiiij  its 
tra^nsporting  ^.^,^^^^^  ^^^^e  submerged.  Iiu'/ing  hauled  the  coal  to  the  l.o.ii-,  by 
means  of  horses,  one  hundred  tons  were  put  on  board  o(  e.u  h 
vessel,  and  then  the  voyage  began.  For  the  first  fifteen  miles  the  ruer 
descends  three  hundred  feet,  and  the  current  always  runs  rapidly:  yet, 
swollen  as  the  stream  was  by  heavy  rairs,  die  current  was  very  iuik  h  uiMer 

than   ujKin  ordi 
nary     occasions. 
Six  men  went  on 
board    of  each 
vessel  ;  and.  h.iv- 
ing     cut     them 
loose  from  their 
moorings,    tliev 
started  on  a  \erv 
exciting   voyage. 
We    can  easily 
imagine  how  ani- 
mated they  were 
as    their    vessels 
began  to  descend 
the  stream.     Being  sheltered   from  the  current   at   their   [ilace  of  moorin,::. 
they   moved    slowly   at    first,    like    a   steam  -  engi.ie    when    a   long    train    i-. 
behind  ;    but  after  a  little   they  fioated   into  deeper  water,  where  tliey  were 
suddenly  caught    by  the  current,  and  swept  along  with  great  speed.     The 
stream  was  not  very  wiile,  but  it  roared  furiously  ;  and  not  only  were  its  sides 
lined  with  rocks,  but  its  bottom  also  ;  while  many  an  ugly  monster  peered  ii|) 
through  the   foaming  waters  to   frighten   the   daring  navigators.      The  boats 
whirled  around  and  past  these  rocks. in  safety,  yet  receiving  many  a  thnmp 
and  bump,  which  caused  them  to  shake  worse  than   Harry  Gill  or  a  man 
stricken  with  the  i)alsy.     ICvery  moment  they  bent,  twisted,  and  cracked  ;  and 
those  who  embarked  thinking  they  were  going  to  lia.e  such  a  lively  trip  wen' 
realizing  their  anticipations  to  a  painful  excess.     Oars,  and  whatever  means 
they  had  to  guide  their  boats,  were  of  as  little  account  as  feathers.     They  were 
utterly  unmanagealjle,  and  were  swept  along  in  so  rude  anil  uncerenionions  a 
manner  as  to  make  the  heads  of  the  boatmen  fairly  dizzy.     .As  the  descent 


.,!■    .?...:^^/> 


I'LvVM-l.Ml'kliSSlONS  IN  COAL. 


■rT-r""'"!! 


Oh     it/ 1:     UNITKD    STATES. 


707 


crtain  that  the  ^^^,<\ 
ilelcrmincd  to  slihI 
the  time  of  t'rtshot, 
rocks  impeding  its 
t;oal  to  the  l)().ils  by 
It  on  board  of  cui  h 
itcen   miles  the  riser 
i    runs  rapidly ;    yet, 
was  very  much  wilder 
than   upon  ordl 
nary     oKasion-^. 
Six  men  we'll  on 
\)oard   of   each 
vessel;  and.  hav- 
ing    cut     them 
loose  from  their 
moorings,    they 
started  on  a  very 
exciting   voyage. 
We    can  easily 
imagine  how  ani- 
mated they  were 
as    their    vessels 
began  to  desceml 
leir   place  of  moorin-, 
[vhen    a   long    train    l^ 
Ivater.  where  ihev  weiv 
ith  great  speed.      Tli^' 
not  only  were  its  suics 
Lly  monster  i)eered  ui- 
Lvigators.      Hie  bo;u^ 
•ceiving  many  a  thump 
;  Harrv  ('-'"  or  a  man 
Ltod,  and  cracked  ;  ami 
such  a  lively  tri))  were 
i    and  whatever  means 
is  feathers,    'rhoy  were 
and  unceremonious  a 
Idizzy.     As  the  descent 


grew  more  rapid,  and  tiie  rocks  —  some  half  submerged,  while  others  were  in  ' 
full  sight  —  became  more  plentiful,  tin-  danger  seemed  more  apparent.  First 
one  boat,  and  then  another,  swimg  round  against  the  rocks,  and  the  current 
mailed  over  her;  while  the  boatmen  managed  to  get  to  the  shore  as  best  they 
could,  leaving  their  treasures  to  their  unkindly  fate.  Of  the  six  boats,  only 
two  reached  Philadelphia  ;  and  tiiese  were  nearly  shaken  to  i)ie(  es. 

but,  when  the  market  was  rea(  hed  througli  mu  h  great  perils,  ihe  <  argo  met 
wii'i  a  very  slow  sale,  and  most  of  ti\e  purchases  were  simply  for  trial.  Kinally, 
the  inunicii)al  authorities  bought  a  cpiantity  to  feed  an  engine,  Failure  to 
whii  li  was  then  in  use  pumping  water  to  supply  the  city  ;  but  it  is  "ii  coai. 
said  that  all  their  attempts  to  burn  it  jiroved  unavailing.  '•  Disgusted  with 
what  they  esteemed  a  nuisance,  they  caused  what  remained  of  it  to  be  broken 
\\\\,  and  scattered  over  the  foot  walks  of  the  grounds.  .And  here  and  thus 
ingloriously  terminated,  for  a  period  of  seventeen  years  thence  ensuing,  the 
operations  of  the  Lehigh  (,'oal-Mine  Company."  Such  is  the  history  of  the 
eadv  movement  to  open  the  great  anthracite  coal  region  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
find  a  market  for  this  now  highly-prized  fuel. 

In  iSio  coal  was  found  in  the  vicinity  of  Pottsville,  which  was  tested  by  ^C /^ 
the  hl.icksmiths  there,  who  proved  able  to  ignite  it.      It  seems  almost  unbe- 
lievable to  us  in  these  ilays  that  there  should  ever  have  been  any   Discovery  o( 
ubt  about  the  burning-(|ualities  of  coal  ;  yet  in  truth,  during  the   coal  at 
irly  part   of  this  century,  this  was  the  greatest  difficulty  in  the   P""*^'""' 
way  of  intro<lucing  it  into  market. 
sivenil  wagons  with  coal  from 

they  had  not  forgotten  their  experience  with  the  coal  from  Lehigli   Early  effort 
Valley.     Still  he  was  able  to  sell  considerable  ([uantities  by  guar-   to  sell  it. 
anteeing  to  all  who  insisted  upon  it  that  the  "  stones  "  would  burn.     Some. 
however,  who  bought,  faileti  to  ignite  them,  ami  their  indignation  was  kindled. 
I'hfir  friends  tormented  them  for  their  exhibition  of  folly,  and  the  clouds  began 
tdgrow  black  around  the  colonel's  head.     Writs  were  issued  for  his  arrest,  and 
Ik'  heat  a  retreat.     By  pursuing  a  circuitous  path,  he  was  able  to  reach  his 
iiome  without  falling  into  the  clutches  of  the  law-officers  of  the  town.     Among 
other  purchasers  was  the  Fairmount  Nail-Works.     .A  whole  morning  was  spent 
liy  the  proprietor  and  his  men  in  trying  to  light  the  stone,  but  without  success. 
All  sorts  of  experiments  were  tried  :  it  was  raked,  poked,  and  blown  ujion  with 
lvii;c  blowers,  but  all  in  vain.     Finally,  the  men,  disheartened  and  desi)erate, 
-Iv.it  the  furnace-door,  and  went  off  to  dinner.     .All  the  while  they  are  gone, 
v.e  imagine  we  can  hear  them  talking  about  those  black  stones  which  would 
iH)t  burn,  and  how  the  proprietor  had  been  imi)osed  upon,  and   discover   of 
luul  thrown  away  his  money  ;  iiow  their  forenoon  had  been  wasted  ;   true  method 
and  what  would  have  been  accomplished  had  they  gone  on  their  °'  'gn't'ng 
ri;.;nlar  track,  and  not  attempted  to  try  uncertainties.     But,  when 
ihey  come  back,  imagine  their  consternation  in  beholding  the  furnace-door 


llO 

I' 


tva.^     iiiv,     ^i\_tii^m     iiiiiiv^iui  y     111     iii^ 

Let.     In   i.Si  7  Col.  (Jeorge  Shoemaker  loaded  ^^"V 
Pottsville,  and  sent   it  to  Philadelphia.     But 


Ui- 


il 


U 


.»■         '. 


*                     • 

:oS 


INnUSTh'TAl.    HISTORY 


GUAUMININO  AND  COKU-BUKNINU. 


01-     lllE    IWirF.D    STATES. 


709 


■r-'vv  y  >.7 


;,^- 


'  ■) 


J^Uf 


ri'il  liot,  and  the  fire  within  },'l()wing  with  intensest  heat !     Tlicre  they  stand, 
wuiuier-stiickcn,  ail   tiunr   many   prophecies  overthrown,  witii   llie  secret  of 
liiiining  coal  at  la.'jt  found  out,  and  which  was  now  to  work  such  a  niij^hty 
revolution  in  the  industries  of  the  country.      I'he  secret  was  soon  blazoned 
aliioad  through  the   press;   and  the  next  tune  Col.  Shoemaker  appeared  in 
the  streets  of  Philadelphia  he  was  not  chased  by  indignant  ( oal-purchasers, 
nor  compelled  to  take  lodgings  in  jail.     His  guaranty  had  proved  good,  and 
from  that  hour  a  new  impetus  was  given  to  the  production  of  anthracite  coal. 
.'\s  wood  near  Philadelphia  was  growing  scarce,  the  price  was  Resumption 
raised  so  high,  that  the  Lehigh  C'oal-Mine  Company  once  more   o'  coai-min- 
renewed  operations.     In  1820  they  shippeil  365  tons  to  Philadel-   h"ighCoai- 
phia,  and   1,000  tons  the  following  year.     In  1822  the  amount   MineCom- 
rcac  lied  2,240  tons,  and  as  much  more  the  year  following.     Pre-    P""^' 
vious  to  this  tinie  a  company  had  been  formed  to  improve  the  navigation  of 


lli>l.>M.    I  HAL. 


the  S(  hnylkill  River;  and  in  1823  the  two  concerns  were  merged  under  the 
title  of  the  "  Lehigh  Coal  and  Navigation  Company ;  "  and,  having  a  large 
tai)'  '  they  began  such  improvements  as  the  rapidly- increasing  business 
(leni    lied. 

e  river  was  made  navigable  for  boats,  which  were  but  little  more  than 
"■L-  boxes  twenty-five  feet  long  and  eightee.i  feet  in  width.     A  writer  says, 
'At     St  two  of  them  were  joineu  together  by  hinges,  so  as  to 
allow  tliem  to  bend  up  and  down  in  passing  over  the  sluices  ;  but   n^nt°n' 
as  the  boatmen  became  more  accustomed  to  the  work,  and  the   modes  of 
channels  continued  to  l)e  improved  from  time  to  time,  the  number  |[*^*''°'*"" 
of  sections  thiis  lashed  together  was  increased,  iMitil  their  whole 
length  reached  a  hundred  and  eighty  feet.     They  were  piloted  and  steered 
with  long  oars  like  a  raft.     Machinery  was  devised  for  jointing  and  putting 
together  the  planks  of  which  the  boats  were  made  ;    and  the  men  were  so 
expert  at  it,  that  five  of  them  could  put  together  one  of  the  sections  and 


n:l<'. 


iH 


fNPUS  TKIA  I.    HIS  TOK  Y 


launch  it  in  forty-five  minutes.  Boats  of  (iiis  i Inscription  were  used  until  iS^i, 
when  the  coal-production  had  increased  to  such  an  extent,  that  thi'  ixiais 
employed  to  transport  it,  had  they  all  been  stretched  out  into  lini',  woiilil 
have  reached  over  fourteen  miles  in  lengtli.  Upon  the  conip'etioii  of  ilic 
Pennsylvania  C!anal  in  this  year  the  Lehigh  was  <:onverted  into  a  slack water 
navigation,  witii  locks  and  towing-])atli  for  horses.  It  has  been  oi)eraU'(l  in 
this  way  ever  since,  with  no  less  advantage  to  tlie  public  than  to  the  (ompany 
themselves." 

The  next  improvement  worthy  of  note  in  the  way  of  transporting  i oal  wa.i 
nothing  less  than  the  construction  of  a  railway,  nine^  miles  in  leiiutli.  trmn 
Conitruction   ^^  summit  of  i^iiaq)  Mountain  to  the  mer.     This  waiTTjeniiii  in 
of  raUroad      January,  and  finished  nine  months  afterward.     With  a  sin};k'  ux- 
/   « Sharp         ception,  it  was  the  fi'-st  railroad  built  in  the  United  States.     Kor 

f  I    \  Mountain.  '  '  ^  ... 

i '-'  many  years  it  drcjw  visitors  from  every  part  of  the  country  ;  and  it 

is  said,  that,  whenever  a  railroad  wiis  proposed,  a  preliminary  ( onunitlcc  was 
appointed  to  examine  and  report  its  characteristic  features.  The  f^'radc  was 
very  great  (about  a  hundreil  feet  to  the  mile),  so  that  loaded  cars  moved  hy 
their  own  gravity;  while  they  were  drawn  back  by  mules,  whic:h  weif  favorcil 
with  a  free  ride  in  the  other  direction.  It  is  recorded  that  they  enjoyed  ilnir 
ride  exceedingly,  expressing  their  approbation  of  the  arrangement  by  all  iIr' 
tokens  which  long-eared  animals  are  capable  of  using.  They  learned  to  regard 
the  privilege  of  riding  down  as  an  inalienable  right,  and  no  earthly  prctcx' 
could  induce  them  to  go  on  foot. 

While  the  affairs  of  the  company  operating  in  the  Lehigh  region  wun: 
going  on  swimmingly,  the  coal-dejjosits  in  Schuylkill  County  were  not  nog- 
Coal-mining    '^cted.     In  i822  1,500  tons  were  shipjjcd  over  the  S(  hiiylkill  (a 
inSchuyikiu    nal ;    and  four  years  later,  when  the  canal  had  been  tiioionghly 
"•  ""■  repaired,  1 7,000  tons  were  sent  to  market ;  and  the  amount  swellcci 

to  60,000  tons  the  year  following.  As  the  coal-trade  was  now  thoroughly 
established,  stoves  anti  hearth-grates  adaptetl  for  such  fiiel  were  made ;  and 
the  public,  very  slow  at  first  in  using  it,  had  become  excited.  The  ( oal-region 
was  explored,  and  lands  which  had  long  been  regarded  as  worthless  found 
eager  purchasers  at  fancy  prices.  Towns  were  laid  out,  roads  were  built  ovir 
mountains  and  along  their  steep  sides,  railroads  and  canals  were  jiroJLi  toil, 
new  mines  were  opened ;  in  short,  the  fever  of  speculation  set  in  almost  as 
strongly  as  it  did  in  California  when  the  gold-discoveries  were  blazoned  abroad. 
It  is  said  that  within  a  period  of  six  months  from  the  outbreak  of  the  spc(  11 
lative  movement,  which  continued  active  for  nearly  three  years,  Ww  niiilion 
dollars  had  been  invested  in  the  coal-lands  in  Schuylkill  County.  Tracts 
which  were  purchased  in  1827  for  five  hundred  dollars  were  sold  two  years 
afterward  for  sixteen  thousand.  This  fact  will  show  to  what  height  .si)eculatioii 
had  been  carried. 

The  mode  of  conducting  mining-operations   in  this  coal-field  was  (|iiite 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


711 


!ro  used  until  iH^i, 
ent,  that  tlu'  lui.iis 
lit  into  linr.  wouM 
conip'olioii  (if  ilu' 
into  a  slack  walcr 
}  been  opcratt^d  in 
Inan  to  tlu'  compMny 

ransjiortinn  loal  wa^ 
ilcsjnjt-'nutli.  In  mi 

'I'his  was~T)i.'nuii  in 

With  a  sin^ii'  cx- 

Unitcd  States.     I'or 

the  country  ;  and  it 
inary  conuniltL-i'  was 
res.  The  grade  was 
)aded  cars  moved  by 
;,  which  were  favored 
at  they  enjoyed  iheir 
rangcment  by  all  ilie 
hey  learned  to  regard 
(d  no  earthly  prelex' 

Lehigh  region  wen; 
oiuity  were  nut  neg- 
er  the  Schuylkill  (a 
had  been  tlionxigbly 
id  the  amount  swelled 
was   now  thoroughly 
nel  were  made  ;  ami 
;ed.     The  coal-region 
as  worthless  fonnil 
roads  were  buili  over 
inals  were  projedcd. 
.ion  set  in  almost  as 
vere  blazoned  abroad. 
utbreak  of  the  spec"- 
•ee  years,  live  million 
kill  County.      Tra*"'^ 
were  sold  two  years 
lat  height  speculation 


s   Ci 


oal-field  was  (|uil« 


different  from  those  in  the  Lehigh  repion.  There  a  single  company  mined  all 
the  coal ;  while  in  the  Schuylkill  region  a  large  number  of  operators 
were  engaged  in  the  business.  It  is  true  that  a  coiijile  of  concerns  due,iJl 
were  organized,  possessed  of  a  considerable  amount  of  capital ;  rointm  in 
Imt  there  were  many  beside  who  leasetl  their  lanils,  and  who  pro-  *'!',"„"'"' 
(luced  only  small  (]uantities  compared  with  the  output  of  the 
present  tlay.  The  e.vpensive,  wasteful,  and  slow  mode  of  mining  can  be 
comprehended  from  the  single  fact,  that  the  same  number  of  master  colliers 
were  required  to  produce  a  hundred  thousand  tons  as  are  now  engaged  in  pro- 
ducing forty  times  that  (piantity.  Still  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  this  new 
industry  would  be  economically  conducted  in  the  beginning.  Perfection  in 
mining,  like  perfection  in  every  other  pursuit,  was  to  come  only  by  manifold 
experiment.  The  leases  of  the  operators  usually  covered  a  "run  "  upon  the 
out-crop,  or  strike  of  the  vein,  of  from  fifty  to  seventy  yards,  with  an  allowance 
of  sufficient  space  to  perform  the  necessary  outside  functions  of  a  mine  con- 
ducted on  strictly  ancient  princii)les.  The  pits  varied  from  thirty  to  forty  feet 
in  depth,  and  the  coal  was  hoisted  in  wooden  buckets  by  means  of  a  rope 
and  windlass.  The  same  "  machinery  "  drained  the  mine  of  water,  unless  the 
influx  was  extraordinary ;  in  which  emergency  its  abandonment  became  a 
matter  of  necessity.  A  few  of  the  more  enterprising  operators  —  such  as  had 
a  "  run  "  of  one  or  two  hundred  yards  on  the  vein  —  erected  gins,  and 
raised  their  coal  and  water  by  horse-power.  These,  however,  were  the  Napo- 
leons and  Caesars  of  the  trade,  who  thought  nothing  of  shipping  two  or  three 
thousand  tons  per  annum.  Kvery  thing  proceeded  cheerfully  and  satisfactorily 
until  1830,  when  the  market  became  su<ldenly  and  unexpectedly  overstocked. 
The  increased  production  was  frightful,  —  63,000  tons  over  the  previous 
year.  Prices  fell  to  a  ruinous  figure.  The  paper  of  the  shippers  was  protested, 
and  many  of  the  mines  were  discontinued.  The  implements  employed  in 
mining  were  converted  into  cash,  and  more  than  one  operator  fled  from  the 
region  to  some  other  which  afforded  a  safe  immunity  from  imprisonment  for 
debts.  Among  other  consequences,  there  was  a  large  diminution  in  production 
during  the  following  year. 

Two  years  later  the  business  revived,  and  the  shipments  exceeded  209,000 
tons;  which  was  more  than  double  the  quantity  mined  during  Revival  of 
the  previous  year.      In   the   same  year,  many  marked  improve-  buiine**. 
ments  were  eflfected  in  the  mining  and  transportation  of  this  "  stone  "  fuel. 


COAL-MINKKS. 

Miners  are  exclusively  foreigners,  who  come  chiefly  from  ICngland,  Ireland, 
Scotland,  Wales,  and  Germany.  There  is  nothing  peculiar  about  their  appear- 
ance, except  that,  when  at  work,  a  lamp  is  attached  to  the  side  of  their  cap, 
and  they  are  usually  besmeared  with  coal  and  mud.    They  are  a  healthy  class 


712 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Nationality 
and  habits 
of  miners. 


of  people  ;  and,  though  their  life  is  one  of  unusual  peril  and  gloom,  they  rarely 
abandon  it  for  any  other  pursuit.  In  the  West,  during  dull  sea- 
sons, efforts  ha*  e  been  made  to  employ  them  in  farming,  but  \"ith- 
out  succe^ss.  They  prefer  to  live  below  ground,  amid  the  darkness 
dirt,  and  danger  of  the  coal-regions,  to  a  life  above  in  the  sweetness  of  sun- 
light, and  sunounded  with  greater  excitement.  So  much  for  the  force  of  habit. 
Indeed,  they  have  become  so  accustomed  to  their  toil,  and  to  the  positions 
often  necessary  for  chem  to  assume  in  the  course  of  their  daily  tasks,  that  pain- 
ful as  these  would  be,  especially  after  a  few  moments,  to  other  people,  miners 
are  often  seen  even  in  their  hours  of  leisure  occupying  them.  One  may  go 
into  a  saloon  where  min'  .s  are  in  the  habit  of  congregating  during  the  even- 
ing, and  he  will  see  perhaps  half  a  dozen,  or  twice  or  thrice  that  number,  sitting 
around  in  the  form  of  a  circle  on  the  floor,  their  legs  bent  under  them  :  and 
there  they  will  sit  for  hours  engaged  in  social  conversation. 

The  miner  has  acquired  the  reputation  of  being  a  lawless  ican,  whose  lianil 
is  against  every  one  outside  of  his  own  class ;  but  this  is  an  altogether  one- 
Bravery  of  sided  view.  They  are  quite  as  industrious  and  law-abiding  as  other 
miners.  workmen ;   and  though   many  of  them   are   cjuite   ignorant,  and 

steeped  in  prejudice,  yet  they  possess  many  noble  cju^iities,  and  constantly  are 
performing  deeds  in  the  way  of  rescuing  their  imperilled  brethren  which  testify 
in  the  strongest  manner  to  their  sympathy  and  heroism.     As  their  work  is  amid 
constant  danger,  they  are  schooled  in  bravery ;  and  every  now  and  tlien  an 
instance  occurs  of  devotion  to  the  suffering,  and  heroism  displayed  in  their 
rescue,  which  is  thrilling.     Who  does  not  remember  the  account  reported  in 
Rescue  of       "The  New- York  Tribune  "  last  year?     One  evening,  as  the  men 
miners  in        were  on  the  point  of  leaving  work  in  a  mine  in  Wales,  the  roar  of 
ru.shing  water  was  heard,  and  the  galleries  and  tunnels  suddenly 
began  to  fill.     The  water  had  broken  through  from  an  abandoned  and  flooded 
.nine,  and  of  course  rose  in  the  main  shaft  and  the  lateral  worl.ings  until  it 
found  its  level.     Most  of  the  men  made  their  escape  ;  but  when  tlie  roil  was 
called  fourteen  were  missing.     An  exploring-party  went  down  to  look  for  them. 
They  foimd  all  the  galleries  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the  bottom  filled  to 
the  roof ;  but  a  knocking  heard  behind  a  wall  of  coal  indicated  that  some  of 
the  missing  men  were  imprisoned  alive  in  a  gallery  which  sloped  upward,  its 
mouth  being  under  water.     The  wall  was  several  yards  thick.     Volunteers  went 
at  it  with  their  picks.    The  prisoners  worked  from  within.     In  a  few  hours  they 
could  hear  one  another's  voices.     But,  the  moment  a  hole  was  broken  through, 
the  confined  air,  kept  under  great  i)ressure  by  the  rising  water,  burst  out  with  a 
terrific  explosion,  and  one  of  the  imprisoned  miners  was  shot  into  the  opening 
as  if  he  had  been  blown  from  a  gim.     He  was  taken  out  dead.     I'our  otiiers 
in  the  chamber  with  him  were  rescued  uninjured.     Knockings,  however,  were 
heard  farther  on  ;•  and  it  appeared  that  other  missing  men  were  in  a  similar  but 
still  worse  predic.-ment.  —  shut  into  a  chamber  of  compressed  air.    It  is  witii 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


7»3 


714 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  efiforts  to  release  this  second  party  that  the  chief  interest  of  tlie  story 
begins. 

The  wall  behind  which  they  were  confined  was  in  a  heading  that  was 
flooded,  and  nothing  could  be  done  with  the  pick  until  the  water  had  hei;n 
Extraordi-  pumped  out.  Divcrs  first  attempted  the  perilous  feat  of  reaching 
nary  energy  the  Opening  from  thc  main  shaft  *hrough  half  a  mile  of  water,  and 
'»p  aye  •  jj  ^jjg  afterward  ascertained  that  one  of  the  men  within  had  tried 
to  escape  in  the  same  way.  This,  however,  was  impossible.  It  was  not  until 
the  fifth  day  that  the  volunteers  were  able  to  begin  digging.  The  distani  e 
to  be  cut  was  a  hundred  and  twenty  feet.  The  work  went  on  day  and  niglu 
with  an  eagerness  that  seemed  like  desperation  ;  and  yet  it  was  so  slow  !  Cut- 
ting through  the  solid  coal  in  a  gallery  not  more  than  three  feet  high,  where 
the  water,  only  kept  down  by  constant  pumping,  threatened  every  moment  to 
rise  and  ingulf  them,  with  trouble  from  gas,  and  the  danger  of  another  e;  plo- 
sion of  air  always  before  them,  the  rescue-parties  took  their  lives  in  their  hand 
whenever  they  went  into  the  mine  ;  and  their  wives  followed  them  with  sad 
eyes  as  they  entered  the  shaft,  doubting  if  they  would  come  up  alive.  The 
hope  of  saving  their  comrades,  shut  up  so  long  without  food,  was  at  best  but  a 
forlorn  one.  To  reduce  the  danger  from  the  sudden  liberation  of  tlie  air,  — 
danger  not  only  of  a  violent  explosion,  but  of  a  sudden  rise  of  thc  water  in  the 
chamber  as  soon  as  the  pressure  should  be  relieved,  —  air-tight  doors  were 
constructed  in  the  cutting,  and  an  air-pump  was  set  in  operation  to  establish 
-an  etjuilibrium  on  both  sides  of  the  wall.  A  week  after  the  accident,  voices 
were  heard  ;  and  the  working-party  were  cheered  by  a  faint  cry,  "  Keep  to  tlie 
right  side  ;  you  are  nearly  through."  The  next  day  the  work  had  made  such 
progress,  that  an  iron  tube  was  forced  eight  feet  through  the  barrier  of  coal, 
and  an  attempt  was  made,  but  without  success,  to  introduce  milk  through  it  to 
the  famishing  prisoners.  The  miners  learned  then  that  there  were  five  of  their 
comrades  in  the  chamber,  all  alive,  but  two  of  them  nearly  exhausted.  .\t 
night  there  remained  only  eighteen  inches  to  be  cut  away,  and  the  excitement 
rose  to  fever-heat.  An  enormous  assemblage  of  people  surroundtl  the  mouth 
of  the  mine  ;  ])hysicians  were  in  readiness  ;  a  temporary  hospital  was  prepared ; 
and  a  house  near  by  was  put  in  order  for  the  sufferers,  if  haply  they  siioukl  he 
got  out  alive.  The  state  of  the  work  was  discussed  in  Parliament,  and  bulle- 
tins were  flashed  at  short  intervals  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  kingdom.  Hut, 
just  when  it  secme.i  that  a  few  strokes  of  the  pick  might  complete  the  labor, 
an  eruption  of  gas  took  place,  and  the  working-party  had  to  run  for  their  lives. 
In  time,  however,  the  air  was  renewed,  and  the  work  went  on.  The  afternoon 
of  the  tenth  day  a  hole  was  knocked  in,  and  one  of  the  cutting-party  entered 
the  cavern.  All  was  still.  In  their  weak  condition,  the  agitation  of  the  moment 
made  the  imprisoned  men  speechless.  The  rescuer  felt  about,  and,  not  finding 
any  one,  shouted,  "  Don't  be  afraid  !  "  The  answer  came,  "  All  right,  we  are 
not  afraid ;  "  and  then  a  pair  of  rough  arms  were  thrown  about  his  neck.    Th" 


OF    THE    UNITED    STA7ES. 


715 


Ms.  J-  tti'ii-fc^ 


roLusioN  OF  lur.s  in  a  siiAi-r. 


I 


716 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


first  to  be  taken  out  was  a  boy  named  Hughes  :  anil  it  is  related  that  when  the 
car  came  to  the  surface,  and  the  long  suspense  was  over,  the  vast  crowd  of 
spectators  "did  not  cheer,  nor  use  any  of  the  ordinary  means  of  sliowing 
enthusiasm  ;  all  seemed  too  serious  for  that." 

Miners  usually  receive  a  certain  sum  per  ton  for  mining  coal ;  but  for 
several  years  disagreements  between  them  and  their  employers  in  respect  to 
Difficulty  wages  have  been  numerous,  leading,  in  some  instances,  to  vcrv 
in  adjusting  serious  conscquenccs.  It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  ascertain  tht- 
*''*^'''  exact  truth  concerning  these  controversies  ;    but,  if  the  account 

which  we  shall  now  proceed  to  give  does  not  perfectly  square  with  the  facts, 
it  is  not  because  we  have  failed  to  make  many  inquiries,  nor  through  indiffer- 
ence to  present  correctly  so  important  a  page  of  our  history. 

When  prices  rose  during  the  war,  including  the  price  of  coal,  it  is  afifirmed 
upon  good  authority  that  miners,  notwithstanding  the  greatly  enhanced  ccst  of 
Advance  of  l'^''"g>  received  no  higher  wages  without  first  making  a  demand, 
wagi ..  dur-  and  then  following  it  up  with  a  strike,  or  a  threat  of  that  nature. 
ing  the  war.  ^^  operators  were  making  large  profits,  they  were  very  imwilling  to 
suspend  operations ;  and  so  the  demands  of  the  miners  were  complied  with, 
and  wages  were  several  times  advanced.  " 

Production  in  a  few  years  enormously  increased  ;  and  during  the  spring  of 
1868  the  coal-market  was  glutted,  and  prices  went  down  as  low  as  they  were 
Strikes  dur-  in  1 844,  with  the  single  exception  of  a  short  period  at  the  outbreak 
ing  isos.  ()f  the  war.     Had  the  coal-mining  business  been  in  the  hands  of  a 

few  operators,  as  it  was  ten  years  before,  the  market  would  iiave  been  obliged 
to  suspend  production ;  but  the  business  was  now  carried  on  chiclly  by  five 
companies,  which  had  a  large  amount  of  capital  invested,  and  which  could  not 
susjjend  operations.  It  was  deemed  necessary,  however,  to  reduce  tiie  wages 
of  the  miners.  The  latter  contended  that  a  reikiction  of  their  wages  would 
not  prevent  tlie  glut  of  coal ;  that  as  long  as  all  the  ('omi)anies  c:ontinue(l  to 
work  every  mine,  and  to  open  new  ones,  there  wou'id  l)e  an  incessant  glut,  and 
it  would  be  impossible  to  find  a  market  for  coal,  even  if  the  workmen  con- 
sented to  work  without  wages.  Twice  did  the  workmen  submit  to  reductions, 
but  urgeil  each  time  the  folly  of  overloading  the  market.  But  the  comp;:ni.>s 
were  determined ;  and  the  history  of  1868  was  a  ;u!ct  ession  of  strikes,  suspen- 
sions, agreements,  resumptions,  and  again  suspension,  accompanied  by  violent 
fluctuations  in  price,  and  at  one  time  an  advance  to  the  very  highest  figures  of 
war  times. 

The  following  year  (1869)  things  grew  worse.  The  winter  had  been  mil;!. 
and  there  was  an  accumulation  of  more  than  seven  hundred  thousand  tons  oi 
The  strike  coal  belonging  to  the  five  principal  compan  es.  After  vain  efforts 
of  «869.  among  themselves  to  agree  upon  a  reduction  of  the  supply,  the 

miners,  with  great  shrewdness,  offered  a  voluntary  susperiHinn  of  thirty  days  to 
enable  the  companies  to  wc  tk  off  their  accumulated  stocks.     The  offer  was 


OF    THE     UWITF.D    STATES. 


7' 7 


ig  the  spring  of 
ow  as  they  were 

I  at  the  outbreak 

the  hands  of  a 
\iG  been  obligeil 

II  chiclly  by  fnc 
which  could  not 

ihicc  tlie  wages 
leir  wages  would 
es  t:ontinued  to 
;essant  glut,  and 
workmen  I'on- 
,t  to  reductions, 
the  comp"!iies 
strikes,  suspen- 
anicd  by  violent 
ighest  figures  of 


accepted  ;  and,  under  pretence  of  this  so-called  strike,  the  companies  increased 
the  freight-charges  over  their  roads  nearly  one-half,  ran  up  the  price  of  coal  to 
very  high  figures,  and  reaped  a  small  fortune  from  the  suspension.  When  the 
thirty  days  had  expired,  the  companies  expected  the  men  to  go  to  work  at  the 
old  wages  :  but  the  men  declared,  not  without  an  appearance  of  justice,  that,  if 
the  market-price  of  coal  was  to  depend  upon  their  suspending  and  resuming 
work,  they  were  certainly  entitled  to  some  portion  of  the  advantages  of  their 
action;  and  they  demanded,  that,  if  coal  advanced  beyond  that  price,  their 
wages  were  to  advance  in  proportion,  —  on  i)recisely  the  same  principle  as  that 
which  the  companies  had  invariably  enforced  in  reducing  wages  the  moment 
xne  selling-price  of  coal  declined.  This  was  called  the  "basis  system,"  the 
supjiosed  lowest  price  of  coal  being  taken  as  the  basis  of  wages.  The  com- 
panies at  first  were  unwilling  to  accede  to  this  i)roposition  ;  but,  after  a  long 
struggle,  several  of  tliem  submitted.  Others  have  refused  to  this  day,  prefer- 
ring to  pay  the  men  higher  rages  rather  than  recognize  the  hated  basis. 

For  *he  next  three  yean,  no  very  serious  strikes  occurred,  although  grum- 
i)!ings  were  heard,  and  occasionally  there  was  an  outbreak.  No  very  general 
disturbances  arose,  however,  until  the  dose  of  1874.  As  the  year  strike  of 
was  drawing  to  a  close,  another  •strike  was  inaugurated,  against  "74- 
the  advice  of  the  Labor  Union  which  had  been  formed,  and  without  the 
faintest  realization  of  the  long  anil  bitter  contest  which  was  to  come  before 
oven  a  short-lived  peace  was  secured. 

It  will  be  rememberetl  that  this  was  not  long  after  the  panic,  when  nearly 
every  kind  of  business  was  depressed,  and  when  prices  were  tending  down- 
ward, with   no   probability  of  a  recovery.     Notwithstanding  this   commence- 
very  clear  outlook,  the  miners  demanded  an  increase  of  wages ;  ment  of 
and,  the  demand  being  refused,  a  strike  took  place.     The  strike,  '"'  *' 
however,  in  the  beginning,  was  not  regarded  as  serious,  although  at  an  early  day 
the  workmen  were  informed  that  not  only  would  their  demands  not  be  acceded 
to,  but  that  wages  would  be  reduced.    This  war,  not,  however,  believed,  and 
matters  remained  quiet ;  good  humor,  in  the  first  instance,  prevailing.     The    , 
strike  was  inaugurated  at  a  time  when  the  great  body  of  workmen  expected  to     1 
he  idle  ;  navigation  had  closed  ;  the  winter  stock  of  coal  of  the  F^ast  and  South     I 
had  been  laid  in :  it  was  the  period  of  limited  demand,  of  what  is  termed     ) 
"  dead  work,"  in  preparation  for  the  coming  season.     As,  however,  the  attitude    / 
of  the  Coal  Exchange  was  firm,  very  early  came  annoyances  in  the  refusal   / 
of  tlie  men  to  allow  even  sufficient  coal  to  be  mined  for  the  use  of  the  furnaces  U 
on  the  line  of  the  road  and  for  the  locomotives  of  the  railroad  companies.' 
In  tlie  mean  time  the  general  business  and  manufacturing  interests  of  the 
<;ountry  were  still  more  depressed.     By  the  latter  part  of  February,  1875,  all 
hopes  of  even  a  partial  revival  of  business  in  the  spring  had  died  out.     Many 
of  the  large  manufacturing  and  iron  establishments  of  the  country,  which  had 
struggled  through  the  past  year  on  the  accumulated  capital  resulting  from 


I^ 


718 


llVD  (IS  TKIA  /-    jVAV  tor  Y 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


719 


seasons  of  prosp'jrity,  >  ther  totally  stopped  work,  or  ran  on  lialf-timc  ;  whilst 
the  area  of  the  anthracite  coal-market  had  somewhat  extended,  the  uses  were 
being  curtailed,  and  a  large  falling-off  in  the  demand  during  the  coming  year 
was  felt  to  be  a  certain  prospect.  The  facilities  for  mining  coal  created  a 
supply  largely  in  excess  of  the  demand ;  and  the  fact  was  perfectly  understood, 
that  no  combination  of  the  coal-mining  comi)anies  would  enable  coal-operators 
to  run  on  full  time,  and  maintain  jirices  of  coal  or  wages. 

"As  a  conse(iuen(e,  in  the  beginning  of  March,  1S75,  when  the  policy  of 
the  coal-operators  was  fully  develojjed,   tiie   struggle    began   in  earnest,   the 
operators  maintaining  that  the  reduction  of   wages  was  to  them  covvine  in- 
a  matter  of  necessity ;  wh.ilst  the  Labor  Union  remained  firm  in  tensity  of 
the  demand  that  at  least  the  jirices  of  tiie  precctling  year  should   *'"''"• 
be  maintained.     The  stock  of  money  accumulated  by  very  many  of  the  work- 
men was  now  exhausted,  and  a  call  was  made  on  kindred  associations  for 
assistance.     These  associations  sympathized  with  the  struggles  of  the  miners 
and  laborers  ;  but  they  had  their  own  interests  to  guard,  and  in  most  instances 
had   themselves  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  the   times.     The   response  was, 
therefore,  made  with  a  necessarily  sparing  hand." 

Many  were  willing  to  go  to  work,  but  feared  the  Molly,  whose  history 
will  soon  be  sketched.  "  Intense  feeling  began  to  manifest  itself  on  both  sides. 
The  Labor  Union  yielded  the  position,  so  far  as  the  question  crisii 
of  reduction  was  concerned,  but,  as  a  question  upon  which  its  'e«=hed. 
existence  was  involved,  demanded  to  have  a  voice  in  the  setdement  of  the 
basis  of  wages.  A  mmiber  of  coal-operators  were  willing  to  commence  work 
on  these  terms ;  but  the  great  coal-mining  companies,  with  the  entire  approval 
of  many  individual  operators,  refused  to  treat  with  the  Labor  Union  at  all. 
By  the  action  of  the  great  carrying  companies  in  the  regulation  of  freights  this 
policy  was  enforced." 

At  length,  in  June,  1875,  the  miners  yielded.  This  was  the  most  severe 
defeat  the  miners  had  experienced.  "  Most  of  the  '  labor-strikes '  previously 
inaugurated  had  been  local  in  their  character;  in  some  instances,  Defeat  of  tho 
confined  to  particular  collieries  ;  in  others,  to  districts ;  and  again,  ">'""»• 
in  others,  to  the  coal-shipments  by  particular  lines  o*"  railwa>.  In  none  of 
these  contests  had  the  men  suffered  overwhelming  defeat :  they  had  not 
always,  it  is  true,  obtained  their  full  demands ;  but  the  result  had  generally 
been  a  compromise,  in  which  their  power  was  acknowledged,  and  the  out- 
rages committed  either  by  unruly  members  of  the  Union,  or  indirecdy  result- 
ing therefrom,  wore,  to  a  certain  extent,  condoned."  But  in  this,  the  longest 
and  most  expensive  strike  to  miners  as  well  as  to  operators,  the  former  were 
•"ompellcd  to  succumb.  Yet  it  had  been  begun  contrary  to  the  advice  of 
many  of  the  leaders ;  for  they  saw  with  the  eye  of  a  prophet  the  whiriwind 
that  was  to  come.  With  declining  markets  and  an  over-production  of  coal, 
what  could  the  miner  expect  beside  lower  wages,  unless  it  were  no  wages 
at  all? 


•J20 


IND  US  TKJA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


Record  of 
Mollies  in 
this  country 
of  brief 
duration. 


THE    MOLLY    MAGUIKKS. 

This  is  not  a  lovely  or  engaging  theme  ;   yet  no  pursuit  is  without  its 
"arker  si'  ■;  aid,  if  the  history  of  roal-mining  be  shaded  more 

Why  a  con-  .... 

■iderationof    ^--'Vil/  •   ^'.\  mo.it  of  our  numerous  iP-Uistries,  it  must  l)e  remcm- 
the  Mollies  .;   ;.,  .   -iiost  of  the  Workers  in  it     ■  e  a  dark,  sunless  li!'i',  and 

s  necessary.    .^  ..     ^     keeping  with  the  indus,   .  itself  for  terrible  incidents 

to  arise  therein. 

The  record  of  tiie   Molly  Maguire  in  this  country  is  very  brief,  but  verv 
sad  and  tcniMc      The  society  to  which  he  belongs  is  neither  new  nor  recently 

known  ;  for  it  iiad  its  birtii  long  aijo  in 
the  Emerald  Isle,  and  many  an  iiu  i 
dent   of   thrilling   interest 
has    been    wafted   to  our 
shore.      These    we    Ikuc 
not  space  to  relate :    be- 
sides, the  cup  of  their  mis- 
deeds, notwithstanding  their  short  ex- 
istence in  the  anthracite  regions  of 
Pennsylvania,  was  long  ago  filled  to 
overflowing. 

All  of  our  readers  have  heard  of 
the  famous  Ribbonmen  of  Ireland, 
Ribbonmen     wliose  deeds  fill  SO  large 

of  Ireland.        ^  gp^^-g   j„   ^\^^    ,^„„.,i^  „f 

crime  in  that  country.  The  society 
was  organized  to  maintain  the  rights  of 
tenants,  which  the  landlord,  according 
to  general  belief,  sought  to  crush  out. 
He  was  regarded,  not  as  the  rightful 
owner  of  the  land,  but  as  a  usurper, 
who,  if  possible,  was  to  be  extirpated 
from  the  soil.  Time,  instead  of  burying  this  belief,  only  strengthened  it ;  while 
the  breach  between  the  two  classes  was  still  further  widened  by  differences  in 
religion  and  education,  and  the  rank  and  poisonous  growth  of  prejudice. 
"  Under  the  influence  of  such  prejudice  and  feelings,"  says  a  writer  who  has 
thoroughly  studied  the  subject,  "  a  certain  unwritten  code  of  laws,  or '  tenant 
rights,'  came  into  being,  by  which  the  tenant  claimed  to  possess  his  leasehold 
estate,  without,  under  any  circumstances,  the  right  of  dispossession  existing  in 
the  landlord.  The  landlord  might  be  desirous  of  improving  his  estate,  or  rent 
be  largely  in  arrears :  nevertheless,  .any  action  on  his  part  in  maintenance  of 
his  right  of  property,  was,  under  the  Ribbon  code,  to  be  resisted  to  the  death. 
l^ut  not  only  upon  the  landlord  did  the  Ribbonmen  exercise  their  deadly  ven- 


JAMtS   KERRIGAN. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


7^1 


•nt 


Pti  ■nil'  nil. 


,vai 


geance  :  other  tenants  entering  upon  the  possession  of  the  disputed  property 
were,  equally  with  the  landlords  and  land-agents,  the  victims  of  murderous  and 
generally  fatal  attacks.  This  society  sprang  into  existence  in  the  early  part  of 
the  present  century,  maintained  its  unhallowed  existence  for  many  years,  and 
only  received  permanent  check  upon  the  execution  of  Hodgens  and  Brun, 
convicted  of  conspiracy  to  murder  Patrick  McArdle,  at  Carrickmacross,  in 
1852."     Such,  in  brief,  is  the  history  of  the  rise  of  this  world-famous  society. 

How  long  it  was  after  their  appearance  in  the  anthracite  regions  1    ""ire 
they  obtained  control  of  the  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians  is  not  know,      bi 
the  history  of  this  association  under  the   new  rej^ime   deserves  ^^ 
notice,  for  it  has  been  very  imperfectly  understood  by  the  public.  Or. 
Prev  ,>us  to  its  capture  by  the  Mollies,  this  society  had  borne  an 
honorable  record  for  its  many  deeds  of  disinterested  benevolence, 
because  of  its  good  name  that  the  Mollies  were  so  desirous  of  getf  ip  control 
of  it ;  for  they  hoped,  under  the  guise  of  its  fair  re'iutation,  to  do  -  N.ings 

which  could  xw''  be  easily  done  in  any  other  manner.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
describe  here  how  the  Mollies  executed  their  design :  suffice  it  to  say,  that  in 
due  time  this  order  was  completely  under  their  baneful  control,  and  in  its 
name  a  series  of  outrages  were  committed  which  the  entire  land  vividly  but 
sadly  remembers.  It  has  been  questioned,  however,  whether  any  organiza- 
tions l>elonging  to  this  order  existing  beyond  the  anthracite  regions  were  drawn 
into  the  fatal  net.  Doubtless  assistance,  in  the  way  of  contributing  money  to 
defend  the  Mollies  when  their  crimes  were  exposed  and  they  were  brought  for 
trial,  was  rendered  by  many  members  who  resided  elsewhere  ;  but  certainly  it 
has  never  appeared  that  any  society  in  an  organized  capacity  furnished  such 
assistance.  It  was  contributed  personally,  not  in  a  corporate  or  organized 
way ;  and  therefore  there  is  no  reason  for  charging  the  societies  belonging  to 
this  order,  lying  beyond  those  directly  implicated,  as  guilty  of  sympathizing 
with  the  Molly  Maguires,  or  furnishing  any  assistance.  The  sins  of  members 
individually  are  not  to  be  visited  upon  the  organizations  themselves ;  for,  if 
they  are,  what  church  or  other  social  organization  can  plead  innocence  ? 

The  conquest  of  the  Labor  Unions  ere  long  by  the  Mollies  was  as  easy 
and  successful  as  the  subjection  of  the  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians.  Yet  the 
public  generally  have  formed  a  wrong  idea  of  these  Labor  Unions,  Labor 
on  account  of  the  presence  and  activity  of  the  Mollies  amongst  Union». 
them  ;  just  as  the  worthy  fame  of  the  Hibernian  Society  was  blasted  ^ly  the 
conduct  of  the  Mollies,  who  in  an  evil  hour,  and  when  no  wrong  was  sus- 
pected, came  in  and  stealthily  took  possession  of  the  organization.  It  may  be 
thought  singular  how  so  small  a  number,  compared  with  all  the  miiiers,  were 
able  to  effect  this  result ;  and  hence  many  have  believed  that  the  Mollies  were 
far  more  numerous,  even  in  the  beginning,  than  they  were  in  fact,  or  else  that 
very  many  of  the  miners  were  in  sympathy  with  them.  Either  alternative  is 
without  much  foundation,  as  we  shall  endeavor  to  prove  before  concluding  this 
chapter. 


■t; 


7" 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Wrong 

impreision 

reipecting 

their 

ignorance. 


Object  of 
"  Labor 
Unions," 


Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  coal-workers,  though  for  the  most  part 
foreigners,  are  not  so  densely  ignorant  as  to  be  unable  to  perceive 
tiieir  rights,  and  comprehend  their  surroundings.  Though  possess- 
ing less  education  than  the  average  American,  they  are  neitiicT  so 
ignorant  nor  lawless  as  many  suppose  them  to  be ;  and  one  wlio 
is  well  qualified  to  judge  declares  that  none  rejoice  more  eaniLstly 
than  they  in  the  belief  that  a  reign  of  terror  is  over,  and  that  law  and  order 
will  rule  once  more. 

Keeping  tills  point  in  sight,  we  proceed  to  note  that  the  Labor  Unions 

arose  as  a  defence  to  the  (Iciuands 
of  capital,  which  was  massing  itself  to 
control  the  entire  anthra- 
cite-region. When  almost 
the  whole  field  was  ab- 
sorbed by  five  companies,  representing 
an  enormous  amount  of  capital,  and 
capable  of  dictating  any  terms  it 
pleased  to  the  workmen,  so  long  as 
they  continued  in  their  old  ways,  \v;is 
it  not  about  time  for  them  to  do  some- 
thing to  meet  this  mighty  power  wiiich 
liung  over  them  like  a  thunder-cloud, 
and  which  grew  blacker  every  mo- 
ment ? 

We  do  not  see  how  any  one  can 
blame  them  for  combining.  If  they  did 
wrong,  it  was  not  in  taking  this  step,  but  in  subsecjuent  ones.  At  first  they 
Not  to  be  ^^'^  "°  hostile  intentions  against  life  or  capital :  it  was  only  to  pro- 
biamed  for  tect  themselves,  and  prevent  future  aggression.  Unluckily  they  had 
com  n  ng.  ^^^  \iQQn  going  long  before  the  Mollies  stole  in,  and  announced 
their  unwelcome  presence.  Under  their  evil  sway  the  Unions  made  new 
demands,  founded  harsher  rules  for  the  government  of  members,  and  extended 
Their  de-  ^^vt  power  over  the  miners  who  held  aloof  from  the  organization. 
mandaand  Thus  they  Went  on  until  they  demanded  of  the  mining-companies 
powers.  ^^^  ^^  ^^^^  should  be  employed  or  discharged  without  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  Union.  To  this  demand  others  were  added  of  hardly  less  impe- 
rious nature.  The  manner  and  hours  of  working,  and  the  superintendents 
and  bosses,  were  regarded  as  under  their  control.  Moreover,  they  claimed 
the  right  to  determine  the  rates  of  wages,  and  times  of  payment,  and  other 
equally  extravagant  and  surprising  demands.  Says  Mr.  Dewees,  "Some  of 
these  acts  are  attributable  to  the  circumstances  which  gave  them  the  power, 
and  others  to  the  pernicious  influence  of  the  band  of  criminals  who  foisted 
themselves  among  them.     Whilst  it  is  an  act  of  simple  justice  to  the  leaders 


MANUS  KULL. 


•T'llsl-i   \ 


'""m 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


%n 


of  the  I«il)or  Union  to  ncknowle(lj;c,  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  true  inter- 
ests of  the  woriting-men,  from  their  stand-point,  were  sought  to  be  obtained 
peaceably  and  through  compromise,  and  whilst,  in  such  efforts,  they  liad  the 
approval  of  the  great  body  of  the  society,  unreasonable  demands  were  pressed 
through  the  influence,  and  granted  through  fear,  of  the  Molly  Maguire. 

•'  Under  the  influence  of  organization  and  of  general  prosperity,"  continues 
Mr.  I  )ewees,  "  the  Mollies  increased  in  numbers  and  in  power.     Throughout 
the  coal-regions  they  completely  controlled  the  organi/atioii  known   Aimtoftha 
as  the  \.  O.  H.,  or  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians,  and,  using  that   Mo"'««- 
order  as  a  cloak,  endeavoretl  to  increase  still  further  their  numbers  and  their 
iiillnence,  on  the  pretext  that  the  order 
was   (bartered   by  tlie   legislature  for 
legal  and  proper  purposes  as  a  benev- 
olent association.      The   ambition   of 
the   leaders    among    tiiem,    many   of 
•.vhom  deserted  labor  and  the  mines, 
for  tiie  more  congenial  and  influential 
|)ositions  of  small  tavern  and  saloon 
keepers,  kept  pace  with  their  increased 
power.      They    sought    not    only    to 
control   the   movements  of  the  Uibor 
Union,  to   inspire  whole   coal-mming 
interests  with  a  fear  of  their  disi)leas- 
iire,  but  also  to  have  a   potent  voice 
in  politics."     Their  more  especial  am- 
liition  was  to  control  the  affairs  of  the 
township,  and   control  the    collection 
and  expeniliturc  of  the  public  funds. 
Possessed  of  but  little  taxable  property 
themselves,  it  was  of  immense  impor- 
tance to   them    to    get   hold   of  the  tikwas  y.  usher. 
iml)lic  purse,  and  be   able  to  empty 
and  replenish  it  according  to  their  own  will  and  pleasure. 

As  they  were  successful  in  an  eminent  degree  in  their  designs,  the  history 
of  their  management  is  but  little  more  than  a  repetition  of  the  man-  Doings  of 
agement  of  the  Tweed  ring  on  a  smaller  though  not  less  frightful  MoiUet. 
scale.  Large  sums  were  assessed  to  repair  roads  which  needed  only  a  small 
outlay  for  this  purpose  ;  and  even  the  school-fimds  were  perverted,  though  it  is 
helieved  the  misapplication  was  not  as  extensive.  They  ahnost  succeeded,  in 
Schnylkill  County,  in  electing  as  associate  judge  a  notorious  Molly  who  has 
since  been  convicted  of  crime.  Both  of  the  great  political  parties  bid  fov 
their  support,  and  the  rewards  demanded  and  received  were  neither  few  nor 
small.    "  Rumors  of  a  vote  to  be  given  on  account  of  a  pardon  to  be  extended 


I-!   ''^I- 


1H 


WDUSTKlAt.    HISTORY 


their 
optratlons. 


to  some  offender  or  offenders  whom  no  perjury  could  save  from  tin-  im'shci 
of  the  law  have  been  common  ;  and  such  pardon,  following  <|uickly  alicr  the 
residt  of  an  election  has  become  known,  has  given  those  rumors  a  func  aiKJ 
effect  they  would  not  otherwise  possess." 

The  effect  of  such  an  accession  of  power  to  an  organization  so  irnsiion- 
sible,  corrupt,  and  desperate,  may  be  easily  imagined.     Nor  is  it  diffK  ult  to 

trace  the  devastating  effects  id'thr  or. 
ganization  upon  the  properly,  dL'si^'iis, 
Effector  '""'  ^'vt-'n  lives,  of  iIidm' 
who  dwell  in  tiu'  (oal- 
regit)ns.  "The  (jwiur  of 
productive  coul-lands,"  says  hewois, 
"  wearied  by  the  «:onliniial  stru^gk' 
between  his  tenants  and  llic  nun, 
whereby  his  income  was  seriously  im- 
paired, was  glad  to  sell  his  laii(l<  at  a 
moderate  figure  in  (onijjarison  witli 
their  true  value  ;  whilst  the  owiKror 
unproductive  lands,  borne  douii  In 
taxes,  and  seeing  no  hope  in  thr  In- 
tiire,  was  glad,  at  a  conipaialivily 
small  price,  to  disi)osc  of  projicrty 
that  was  becoming  an  intolcrabk'  l)iir- 
den.  The  control  and  management  of  the  mines,  the  manner  of  tlieir  work- 
ing, the  right  to  employ  and  discharge  hands,  were  i)assing  away  from  thu 
owners,  and  were  fast  resting  in,  not  the  Labor  Union  proper,  but  the  bahor 
Union  under  the  direction  of  the  Molly  Maguires." 

The  time  had  come  for  the  great  companies  to  make  a  determined  effort 
to  rescue  their  property.     After  a  long  periofl  of  suffering,  and 

Proiecution  11/  n    i  n 

of  Motiietby  another  of  preparation,  the  blow  was  struck  which  delivered  tlicm 
of  an  enemy  whose  history,  though  short,  had  been  truly  ttrrililc, 
and  whose  long  catalogue  of  misdeeds  the  public  have  read  and 
remember  with  horror.  •  \ 

Two  cauies  ^^  "^^X  ^^  wondcrcd  how  it  was  possible  for  any  organization 

of  lucceit  of  in  this  late  age,  in  a  county  of  Pennsylvania,  —  whose  courts  were 
**   "■  supposed  to  be  always  open,  and  where  the  law  never  failed  of 

execution  through  lack  of  force,  —  to  corMnue  such  hellish  work  for  so  long  a 
period.  Two  causes  conspired  in  a  remarkable  degree  to  aid  them  in  their 
dark  and  bloody  work,  the  absence  of  either  of  which  would  have  i)roved  fital 
to  their  plans. 

The  first  was  secrecy.      It  is  difficult,  perhaps,  for  many  to 
reahze  how  thoroughly  this  idea  is  engraved  into  the  texture  of  the 
Irish  race.     To  inform  of  a  crime,  in  many  instances,  is  regarded  a  wrong  as 


I'AIKRK    IIKSTKH. 


railroad- 
companies 


Secrecy. 


OF    THE    UNlTF.n    STATUS, 


7*5 


jjri'.it  as  the  crime  itself;  and  to  such  an  extent  has  liiis  feeling  developed,  that 
it  has  truly  become  a  part  of  the  Irish  <  haracter.  In  the  plottings  of  tlie 
Mollies  a  large  number  were  engaged,  yet  the  utmost  secrecy  was  preserved  ; 
and  their  ways  and  movements  would  have  been  unknown  to  this  day,  for 
aii^ht  we  know,  had  not  a  detective  been  sent  among  them.  From  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  their  fearful  career  they  kept  their  own  sec  rets  until  secre(  y 
would  no  longer  avjii  any  thing.  It  is  a  wonderful  trait  of  «;haracler  which 
they  have  exhibited,  nor  could  it  have  bloomed  so  i)erfeclly  on  American  soil 
iluring  the  short  period  the  organization  has  existed.  This  trait  is  the  product 
of  many  years  of  education,  —  education  of  a  fearfid  sort,  in  which  tyranny 
,inil  revenge  were  the  twin  stimulating  forces. 

The   other  cause  is  the  secrecy  alforded  by  nature  for  executing  their 
(ksigns.    Vast  forests  lie  in  do.se  proximity  to  the  villages,  to  which  the  Mollies 
(onld  (lee  and  find  sure  protection.     It  was  not  possible  to  fill  the   gjcggy 
woods  with  police  ;  and  a  hunt  there  after  the  law-breaker  would   af/orded  by 
liave  proved  a  fruitless  undertaking,     'rhus  a  shelter  was  afforded   """'"• 
lor  the   criminal,  so   secure   as   to  stimulate   him   in   executing   his   lawless 
[iiirposes. 

In  this  chapter  we  have  paid  less  attention  to  the  MoUy-Maguire  move- 
iiK-nt  (as  that  is  known  to  all)  than  to  underlying  causes  of  it,   „,      ,    ,. 

^  '  /      fi  '     Singularity 

as  well  as  the  machinery  employed  to  accomplish  their  designs,   of  Moiiy- 
It  is  a  singular  blur  upon   the    industrial    history  of  the  United   **■«"'" 

°  '  movement. 

States,  and  one  which  will  not  soon  be  forgotten. 


LATER    niSTOKY. 

Having  traced  the  history  of  mining  and  transporting  coal  to  1830,  let  us 
take  uj)  the  thread  at  that  point,  and  follow  it  until  the  present  time.  The 
inilirac  ite-coal  fields  of  Pennsylvania,  wiiich  embrace  nearly  all  Extent  o( 
that  kind  of  coal  known  in  the  world,  lie  in  tiiree  basins,  or  coai-fteidi. 
valleys,  which  are  c;iMod  the  southern,  middle,  and  northern  coal-fields. 
Tlumgh  the  total  area  -;  only  472  miles,  the  coal  i.s  of  such  great  average 
thickness,  varying  from  filty  to  a  hundred  feet,  that  the  entire  region  is  esti- 
iiKitcd  to  contain  26. 36 1,</ -0,000  tons;  from  which  amount,  after  deducting 
imc-half  for  waste  in  mining  and  breaking  the  coal  for  market,  and  for  other 
losses  occasioned  by  faults  and  irregularities  in  the  beds,  13,180,538,000  tons 
ire  left.  Subtracting  from  this  amount  the  206,666.325  tons  mined  between 
iS:o  and  1870,  there  is  still  remaining  a  sufficient  supply,  allowing  consump- 
tiiiii  to  go  on  at  the  rate  of  25,000,000  tons  per  year,  to  last  for  525  years. 

It  was  in  the  southern  or  Schuylkill  region  that  mining-operations  of  any 
importance  first  began.     In  1833  a  charter  was  granted  for  build-   Reading 
ing  a  railroad  from  Philadelphia  to  Reading ;    and  a  year  or  two   R«iiroad. 
later  it  was  emi)owered  to  extend  its  road  farther,  so  as  to  pierce  the  anthra* 


J26 


INDUSmrAL    HISTORY 


I 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


727 


cite-coal  regions  of  Scliuylkill  County.  The  road  was  completed  in  1842,  and 
was  fifty-eight  miles  in  length  ;  but  it  has  stretched  itself  out,  by  building  addi- 
tions and  leasing  other  roads,  until  it  has  found  its  way  into  every  valley  of  the 
southern  and  middle  coal-fields,  and  in  the  year  1870  operated  1,168  miles  of 
single-track  railroad,  of  which  466  miles  were  located  in  the  coal-regions. 

The  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal  Company  was  chartered  as  early  as 
March,  1823,  to  run  from  Rondout  on  the  Hudson  to  Honesdale 

Del  A^vsre 

on  the  Delaware  River ;  from  which  point  the  northern  or  Wilkes-  ^^^  Hudson 
barre  coal-field  was  entered  by  the  addition  of  a  short  railroad  Canai 
extending  to  Carbondale.     About  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  the     °'"P»"y- 
Pennsylvania  Coal  Company  was  formed,  being  composed,  either  wholly  or 
nearly  so,  of  stockholders  and  diiectors  of  the  Hudson  and  Dela-   pennsyi- 
ware  Canal  Company.     To  this  new  concern  was  leased  a  portion   vania  Coai 
of  the  coal-lands  owned  by  the  present  organization  upon  condi-     """P^^y- 
tion  tliat  tlic  coal  mined  should  be  always  transported  over  its  lii.e  to  Rondout. 

\  few  years  later,  however,  when  the  Erie  Railroad  was  in  full  operation, 
and  the  organization  of  the  Pennsylvania  Coal  Company  had  somewhat 
changed,  it  began  shipping  coal  over  the  new  route  to  Jersey  City 
and  other  points.  This  action  of  theirs  gave  rise  to  a  famous 
'iwsuit  between  the  two  companies,  which  lasted  for  a  long  time, 
and  was  conducted  with  a  great  deal  of  ability  as  well  as  bitterness. 
The  president  of  the  coal  company  studied  law,  so  it  is  said,  for 
the  very  purpose  of  taking  an  active  part  in  the  defence  of  the  suit, 
and  was,  in  fact,  the  chief  counsel  in  defending  the  company  from  its  enemies. 
In  the  end  the  Pennsylvania  Coal  Company  won  their  cause,  which  virtually 
ended  the  agreement ;  and  since  that  time  it  has  transported  coal  over  the 
Erie  Railway  without  any  further  interference  by  the  rival  concern. 

The  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal  Company  was  not  simply  a  carrier  of 
coal,  but  mineil  it  also,  having  purchased  large  tracts  in  the  begin-   Miner  and 
ning,  and  added  more  from  time  to  time,  according  to  the  judg-  transporter 
ment  of  its  managers.  °  ""  ' 

In  1853  two  other  railroads  were  chartered,  which  also  engaged  in  the 
business  of  mining  coal,  as  well  as  in  transporting  it,  —  the  Dela-   u^,^^  ^ 
ware,  Lackawanna,  and  Western  Railroad,  which  entered  the  north-   Lackawan- 
ern  coal-field  at  Scranton  ;  and  the  Lehigli-Valley  Railroad,  which   "■'  '"'' 
confined   its  operations   to   the   middle   coal-field.     Although    it 
was  simply  a  carrier  of  coal  in  the  beginning,  a  union  was  effected  with  the 
Beaver-Meadow  Railroad,  which  was  also  a  miniT ;  and  thus  the  fifth  great 
mining-concern  was  engaged  in  this  great  and  rapidly-growing  industry. 

The  year  previous,  however,  the  New-Jersey  Central  Railroad,  concerning 
which  so  much  has  been  heard  of  late,  was  chartered  to  extend   New-jersey 
from  the   sea-coast   to   Easton,  Penn.,  on   the   Delaware  River.   Central. 
At  first  it  was  simply  a  transporter  of  coal ;  but,  not  content  with  tloing  this,  it 


Lawsuit  be- 
tween Dela- 
ware and 
Hudson 
and  Pennsyl- 
vania Coal 
Company. 


I 


728 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Five  com- 
panies chief 
miners  and 
transporters 
of  coal. 


was  possessed  with  a  more  ambitious  aim,  and  accordingly  leased  the  Lehigh 
Canal  and  the  Lehigh  and  Susquehanna  Railroad  Company,  together  with  tiie 
mines  which  these  concerns  were  operating,  and,  in  addition,  the  Wilkesbarre 
Coal  Company,  which  was  chartered  in  March,  1849.  These  six 
companies  have  been  the  chief  miners  and  transporters  of  anthra- 
cite coal  for  several  years,  although  other  concerns  have  also 
mined  and  transported  considerable  quantities.  The  chief  interest 
of  anthracite-coal  mining,  however,  centres  around  the  railroatl 
corporations  above  mentioned,  which  united  the  business  of  mining  witii  that 
of  transporting  coal. 

Until  within  a  very  few  years,  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal  Company 
had  been  uniformly  prosperous.  Its  affairs  have  always  been  conducted  Ijy  a 
Later  his  conservative  board  of  directors  ;  and  with  its  short,  easy,  and  cheap 
tory  of  Del-  mode  of  getting  coal  to  tide-water,  for  years  it  yielded  rich  returns, 
^are  and  ^^^  ^  qj-  j^g  affairs  were  highly  prosperous.  But,  when  other 
railroads  undertook  to  mine  as  well  as  to  transport  coal,  this  con- 
cern also  believed  it  was  necessary,  in  order  to  retain  its  markets,  to  lease  and 
build  railroads  ;  and,  accordingly,  the  Albany  and  Susquehanna  Railroad  was 
leased,  and  other  roads  extending  northward  to  Whitehall  and  Rutland,  while 
a  railroad  was  built  from  the  former  point  to  Montreal.  This  was  a  bold  push, 
and  the  experiment  has  not  yet  proved  successful ;  but  it  is  too  early  to  pro- 
nounce final  judgment  upon  the  scheme.  The  new  policy  has  its  friends  and 
its  enemies ;  and  a  much  longer  space  is  required  to  determine  whether  it  will 
fulfil  the  anticipations  of  its  projectors,  or  continue  a  burden  from  which  relief 
in  some  way  must  ultimately  be  sought. 

Concerning  the  New-Jersey  Central,  its  history  is  fresh  in  tlie  public  ear; 
for  its  terrible  collapse  occurred  only  a  short  time  ago.     For  several  years  after 
its  plans  were  developed,  it  was   successful.     Enormous  (jnantitics 
tory  of  New-   ^^  '^o^^'  ^^''^''•-'  ""'led  and  transported  ;   its  stock  rose  very  high,  and 
Jersey  was  regarded  so  secure,  that  large  numbers  of  persons  along  the 

°""^*  ■  line  of  the  road  invested  in  it,  in  aome  cases,  all  they  possessed; 

tnist-funds  were  jiut  into  it ;  and  it  was  supposed  to  be  one  of  tlie  most 
profitable  concerns  of  the  day.  J?ut  the  company  saw  its  unlucky  hour,  and 
collapsed,  scattering  ruin  and  misery  far  and  wide.  The  immediate  causes  of 
this  sudden  decline  will  be  soon  given. 

The  history  of  the  Reading  Railroad  is,  perhaps,  the  most  astonishing  of 
all  the  railroads  concerned  in  mining  coal.  In  the  beginning  if  was  simply  a 
carrier,  the  mining  of  co?!  being  done  by  a  large  number  of  operators,  who,  for 
Later  his-  ^^  most  part,  Icpscd  the  priiilege  of  mining,  as  we  have  previous- 
toryofRead-  ly  described.  But,  like  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal  Com- 
ing  Railroad,  ^r^^^y^  j^  f^jt  impelled  to  Unite  the  two  branches  of  mining  and 
transporting  coal :  so  another  company,  called  the  Reading  Coal  and  Iron 
Company,  which  was  really  the  same  thing  as  the  railroad  itself,  was  organized, 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


1»9 


eased  the  Lehigh 
together  with  the 
I,  the  Wilkesbarre 
1849.  These  six 
[)orters  of  antlira- 
ncerns  have  also 
The  chief  interest 
3und  the  railroad 
f  mining  with  that 

■1  Canal  Company 
;n  conducted  by  a 
irt,  easy,  and  cheap 
ielded  rich  returns, 
But,  when  other 
)ort  coal,  this  con- 
irkets,  to  lease  and 
lanna  Railroad  was 
and  Rutland,  while 
lis  was  a  bold  push, 
is  too  early  to  pro- 
has  its  friends  and 
mine  whether  it  will 
;n  from  which  relief 


principally  to  engage  in  the  business  of  mining  this  fuel.  At  once  it  began 
the  purchase  of  coal-lands,  and  this  policy  was  continued  until  large  tracts 
were  ac([uired.  New  mines  were  opened  in  every  direction,  railroads  were 
built  and  leased,  and  large  tracts  in  the  anthracite-coal  field  were  purchased. 
Pretty  nearly  the  entire  anthracite-coal  field  is  now  owned  by  the  five  com- 
panies which  have  been  alreaily  described. 

The  Northern  Central  Railroad  of  Pennsylvania  owns  some  coal-land  in 
the  Shamokin  Valley,  which  lies  in  the  middle  coal-field ;  and,  as  pennsyiva- 
this  company  is  leased  to  the   Pennsylvania  Central  Railroad,  it   "'« Central, 
may  be  reckoned  as  the  sixth  largest  concern  engaged  in  the  business. 

While  the  Reading  Railroad  was  merely  a  transporter  of  coal,  its  dividends 
for  many  years  were  regularly  earned  and  paid ;  but,  with  a  change  of  policy 
(whedier  necessary  or  not  is  a  question  lying  outside  of  our  prov-  Effect  of 
ince),the  outlay  for  the  extension  of  roads  and  leases,  the  purchase  new  policy, 
of  coal-lands,  and  the  opening  of  new  collieries,  were  attended  with  enormous 
expense.  Then  the  strikes  occurred  which  we  have  already  described,  and 
the  i)rices  of  coal  began  to  decline  ;  and  the  railroads  which  were  engaged  in 
this  business  of  mining  coal  saw  that  it  was  necessary  to  do  something  in 
order  to  continue  the  payment  of  dividends.  The  production  of  coal  had 
enormously  increased,  and  so  had  their  expenses :  what,  then,  was  to  be 
done  ? 

It  was  finally  determined  to  form  a  combination  for  the  purpose  of  limiting 
the  i)roduction  of  coal,  the  amount  which  each  of  the  five  companies  should 
furnish,  and  the  rates  for  selling  the  same.  This  seemed  a  bold  combina- 
meas\irc,  and  was  strenuously  opposed  by  many  of  the  newspapers  ;  "°"- 
but  the  companies  saw  no  other  mode  of  relief.  Such  a  combination  was  no 
new  thing  ;  for  long  ago  English  mine-owners  united  for  the  purpose  of  fixing 
the  price  of  coal. 

This  modern  combination,  which  was  formed  in  1873,  had  only  a  short  life  ; 
though,  during  the  three  years  in  which  it  held  together,  it  had  a  very  remarka- 
ble history.     Creat  as  the  necessity  for  its  existence  seemed  to  be   short  life  of 
imong  those  who  entered  into  it,  they  were  constantly  violating  it   combina- 
m  one  way  and  anotiier,  each  beiu'^  anxious  to  dispose  of  more 
coal  than  was  permitted  by  the  agreement.     All  sorts  of  schemes  were  de- 
\i'-ed  for  escaping  from  it  ;  while,  of  course,  each  concern  strenu-   Evasion  of 
uusiy  maintained  that  the   others  should   maintain   the  compact   agreement. 
inviolate.     All  the  railroad-companies  transported  more  or  less  coal  for  i)rivate 
operators  ;  and,  as  the  (piantity  which  they  were  allowed  to  mine  was  not  fixed 
m  the  stiptdation,  in  some  cases  their  product  enormously  increased,  although 
It  was  j^enerally  believed  that  tlie  railroad-companies  themselves  were  carrying 
^nd  selling  thjir  own   coal  under  other  names.     Then  rates  were  cut,   and 
various  expedients  were  resorted  to  by  the  several  companies  to  increase  their 
sales  beyond  the  limit  fixed  by  agreement. 


imi' 


m^i 


730 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


One  of  the  new  phases  which  appeared  in  the  business  was  the  cuttiii'  out 
of  the  middlemen,  in  great  measure,  by  the  Reading  Railroad  Coni])an\.  It 
War  on  Sold  coal  by  retail,  as  Well  as  in  larger  quantities,  at  I'liiimklphin 

middlemen,  ^^j  other  places,  and  sought,  so  far  as  ])ossible,  to  bring  (oiisiiniLri 
into  direct  communication  with  themselves,  thus  saving  the  profits  of  ih^ 
middlemen.     This  caused  some  ill  feeling  among  them,  as  one  nwy  ixadiK 


STABLE  IN  A  .MINE. 


imagine  who  knows  any  thing  about  iiuman  nature  ;  and  they  sucrcedcd  in 
investiga-  procuring  an  investigation,  by  order  of  \iie  legislature  of  the  State 
t;c-.  cfRead-   ^f  Pennsvlvauia,  into  some  of  the  doings    of  the  Reading  Kail- 

II. t  Railroad  '  i  i.i 

road,   particularly   their   mode    ot    selluig    coal.       I  he    cc)in])anv 


by  legisla 
ture. 


emerge!  from  the  contest  completely  victorious ;  and  since 


hen 


noth'ii;.'   ha;i  1).  en  said  about  siiort  weights  and  other  practices  on  the  part  of 
this  concern. 

The  repeatrd  violations  of  the  agreement  among  the  conijjanies  conccni- 
iiv-  th':  production  and  sale  of  coal  led  to  an  abandonment  of  it,  am'  at  once 


rmn 


was  the  cutting'  out 

road  Comi)any.    It 

tics,  at  Phiiatk'lphia 

,  to  bring  consmiKis 

the   profits  of  the 

as  one  niav  nadilv 


id  they  sucrcedL'd  in 
Igislaturc  of  the  Slate 
if  the  Reading  K;ul- 
(oal.  The  coiiii)any 
lioiis  ;  and  since  then 
[tices  on  tlic  jiait  ol 

companies 
Int  of  it,  ant'  at  once 


OJ-'    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


73  » 


the  price  of  coal  began  to  decline.     This  also  affected  the  price  of  stocks ; 

and  after  a  short  time  the  New-Jersey  Railroad  succumbed,  and   _   .   , 

•'        ''  c^nd  ot  com- 

passed into  the  hands  of  a  receiver.    Thousands  who  had  invested  bination,  and 

their  fortunes  in  it  were  either  seriously  crippled  or  ruined  :   for  l!''"  °.'    . 

■^  '  '  dissolving  It. 

the  stock  rapidly  fell  from  ii6  to  23.     Never  was  the  collapse  of 
a  vast  corporation   more   unexpected,   sudden,  or  terrible ;  never  were  the 
judgments  of  men  more  completely  ^;et  at  nought ;  never  was  a  solid  enter- 
prise more  speedily  ruined  by  too  sanguine  calculations,  and  what  proved  to  be 
unwise  management.  i 

BITUMINOUS-COAL    MINING. 

The  biunninous  coal  field  is  far  more  extensive  than  the  anthracite  ;  for  it 
underlies  the  western  half  of  Pennsylvania,  the  eastern  portion  of  '  >liio,  West 
Virginia,    liastern    Kentucky,   and,    stretciiing    through    Eastern   Extent  of 
Tennessee,  extends  as  far  as  .Alabama,  cml)racing  an  area  of  coal-   bituminous- 
bearing  rocks  of  nearly  fifty-cigiit   thousand    stpiare  miles.     Coal  '^°"     ''  ' 
of  this  kind  is  also  found  in  Michigan  and  Iniliana ;    the  bed   in  the  latter 
State   being   a   continuation   of  that    in    Illinois,  where  was   made    the   first 
discovery  of  coal  of  which  any  written   account  is  preserveti.     It  was  dis- 
covered by  Father  Hennepin  in  1669  ;  and  in  his  Journal,  published  in  1698, 
there  is  a  map  on  which  is  located  a  coal-mine   by  the   side  of  tiie  Illinois 
River,  near  Ottawa.     Tl-,is,  unquestionably,  is  the  earliest  notice  on  record 
of  the  existence  of  coal   in  .'\merica.     'I'lie  coal-bearing   strata   comprise   a 
larger  area  than  in  any  other  State  in  the  Union,  although  the  coal-measures 
of  luwa,  Kansas,  and  some  of  the  other  States,  are  very  extensive. 

Along  th('  eastern  border  of  the  field  in  Pennsylvania  and  Marylani'  e 
several  small  areas  which  contain  a  semi-bituminous  coal,  which  lie  be  jii 
the  pure  bituminous  coal  farther  west  and  the  anthracite  regions  gem. 
on  the  east.  The  i)osition  of  this  coal,  thus  lying  between  the  two  bitun 
so  differently-formed  coals,  has  given  rise  to  a  great  deal  of  specu- 
lation concerninj^  the  formation  of  coal ;  but  no  theory  has  yet  gained  exten- 
sive currency.  The  two  localities  most  extensively  worked  are  Bloss  1  on 
the  north,  and  Cumberland,  Md.,  cr''  the  south;  but  there  are  other  noints 
whidi  have  been  worked  to  advantage,  —  at  Broad  Toi).  Johnstown,  Towanda, 
and  Ralston.  The  Blossburgh  region  was  opened  by  railway  in  1840  ;  au'l  two 
years  later  the  (Cumberland  field  was  pierced  by  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio, 
which  first  brought  this  coal  to  tide-water,  displacing  the  bituminous  coal  of 
Virginia. 

This  enormous  area  of  bituminous  coal,  which,  including  lignite,  stnu'ies 
across  the  continent,  and  as  far  north  as  Alaska,  is  being  continu-  ^^g,  ^f 
•illy  opened  up  and  employed  for  a  highly  useful  purpose.     T'he   bituminous 
mode  of  extract-on   somewhat   differs  from   that   in  the  anthra     '°' ' 
cite  mines ;   and  as  the  openings  are   far  more   numerous,  while  the    men 


ous- 
el. 


mm^ 


732 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


DftSrnVT   OF    A    HOKSK    DOWN    \    MINE*SM/I"T. 


^m  •■ 


O/-     THE    UNITED    STATES. 


733 


1 

1 

i 

eniployed   in  each  are  fewer,  no  sucli  extensive  combinations  among  them 
h;i\c  arisen,   nor  liave  strikes  been   so   numerous  or  disastrous.     Still   there 
have   been   some,   especially    in    Ohio,   and   of  a   very   serious    nature    too, 
requiring  the   presence  of  troops  to  protect  the   property  of  the  operators 
ami   of  thos(;  v,'lio   were  willing  to  work.     l>ut  a  more   curious 
condition    of  things   hapjjened    in   the   autumn  of  1876    in    the   fr*e'utnt"' 
coal-districts  of  St.  Clair  and  Aladison  Comities,  111.,  from  which  than  in 
St.  Louis,   the   UKUUifaclurers   around   there,    and  the  steamboat   ="*'^''°<;'"=- 

'  coal  fields. 

interest,  chiefly  derive  their  supplies.     It  is  not  often,   es])ecially 
in  ihe.se  "  hard  limes."  that  the  spectacle  is  ])resenled  of  a  numerous  body 
of  workmen  voluntarily  going  into   idleness  in  order  to  get   lower  rates  of 
wages;  yet  that  is  precisely  what  happened  in  this  instance. 

Until  I'Vbruary,  1.S76.  the  miners  were  getting  out  coal  at  the  rate  of  two 
cents  per  imsliel.  They  had  formed  a  I'nion  among  themselves;  but,  as 
there  never  was  a  I'nion  yet  which  did  not  generate  a  non-Union,  singular 
it  was  not  lung  before  it  was  discovered  that  a  numerous  bo(K'  of  strike. 
"Iilacklegs"  (the  sobriquet  of  men  not  belonging  to  the  .i(:.,Ly)  were  at 
work  for  less  than  the  regulation  i)ricc>..  Tiiereupon,  in  order  to  l^"at  them 
with  their  own  weajions.  the  I'nion  men  proposetl  to  the  operators  to  work  for 
one  cent  and  a  half  per  bushel.  'I'hcir  intention,  of  course,  was  to  starve  o'U 
the  iion-l'nionists  ;  but  the  operators,  failing  to  disco\er  how  their  interests 
would  :l)e  promoted  by  the  adoption  of  a  crushing-out  jiolicy  of  this  kind, 
refused  to  accede.  The  Union  men  then  (|uil  work,  and  remained  idle  for 
a  fortnight  or  so  ;  when,  failing  to  <  arry  their  point,  they  returned  to  work 
at  two  cents  a  bushel. 

The  Western  coal-miner  has  been  more  fortunate  in  obtaining  and  retain- 
ing higher  prices  for  his  work  than  his  t'ellow-labo.er  in  the  anthra- 
cite regions.  Vet,  since  this  strike  occurred,  several  reductions 
have  been  made  ;  though  it  is  probable  that  in  every  case  these 
were  necessary  in  order  to  save  operators  from  a  loss.  Heavy  as 
the  (iecline  in  wages  has  been,  those  o])erating  mines  in  many 
cases  have  lf)st  much. 

Concerning  other  strikes  among  tlie  miners,  as  we  shall  consider  them  in 
another  place,  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  more  here.     The  tlevel- 
opment  of   bituminous-mines    has    o(•^er  involved  so   much  risk   2,^^^^^^^ 

'  and  antnra- 

•inil  large  preparatory  outby  as  antirracite-mining,  and  produc-  cite-coai- 
tion  has  kept  mure  nearly  ayiacc  with  the  wants  of  the  people  :  "'^"jj^  "'"' 
•■onsfjuetitly  no  great  panics  or  collapses  have  occurred  ;  and 
the  hiNtow  of  the  business,  as  a  whole,  has  been  peaceful,  and  fairly  pros- 
perous, k  is  true  that  disturbances  in  some  localities  have  arisen  from  strikes 
and  other  difficulties  with  the  miners  ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  these  have  been 
short,  and  no  severe  losses  have  followed  in  their  train. 

It  is  more  difficult   to   collect   statistics   concerning   the    production    of 


Higher 
wages 
received  by 
Western 
coal-miner. 


m 


t! 


t .." 


w 


734 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\\  ' 


I 


m 


bituminous  coal  tlian  anthracite,  on  account  of  the  much  larger  numlicr  of 

mines,  and  varied  regulations  of  the  different  States ;  l)ui  wc  will 
Statistics.  ,  ,  ,.  ,  ,  .  , 

close  the   chapter   by  addmg  a   few,  which  at  once   sliow  tlie 

importance  of  this  branch  of  coal-production :  — 


STATE. 

Pennsylvania 
Maryland    . 
West  Virginia 
Ohio    . 

Kast  Kentucky 
Tennessee   . 
Alabama     . 
Michigan     . 
Indiana 
Illinois 

West  Kentucky 
Iowa    . 
Missouri 
Nebraska    . 
Kansas 
Arkansas    . 
Texas  . 
Virginia 
North  Carolina 
Massachusetts 
Rhode  Island 


TONS. 
7,800,356 

2.34S.'53 
608,878 

2.S27.3SS 
35,488 

>  33-1 18 
1 1,000 
28,150 

437.f<70 
2,624,163 

1 1 5,094 
263,487 
621,930 

'.4^S 
32.93-i 


61,803 


14,000 


The  above  table  represents  the  production  of  bituminous  coal  during  tlie 

year  1869  :  the  production  of  anthracite  for  the  same  year  was  16,375,678 
tons, 

YKAR.  TONS. 

1870 17,819,700 

1871 i7.3rO.355 

1872 22,aS4,oS3 

1873 22,880,921 

1874 21,6(17,386 

1875 20,643,509 

1876 19,000,000 

1877 21,323,000 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


735 


n  larger  munbcr  of 
States  ;  bui  \vc  will 
at  once  show  the 


TONS. 
7,800,356 

2,34  5- '53 
GoS.SjS 

2,527-2^5 

133.1'^ 
11,000 
28,150 
437,S70 
2,f):4.'<''3 
1 1 5.004 
263,4S7 
621,930 
'.4-'S 
32.93'^ 


61,803 


14,000 

iiinous  coal  during  the 
e  year  was  16,375,67s 


TOSS. 
17,819,700 
17.3:0055 

22,oS4,oS3 

22,SSO,92I 

21,6(17,386 

20,643.500 
19,000,000 
21,323,000 


CHAPTER  VII. 


IRON. 


THF'.RI']  is  no  known  variety  of  iron  ore  entering  into  the  commercial 
and  industrial  transactions  of  the  world,  no  matter  iiow  famous  or  rare, 
which  docs  not  iiave  its  exact  countcr|)art  in  the  United  States.     Tlie  cele- 
l)Mtc(l  ores  of  Sweden,  which  supply  to  lOnglanil  the  best  iron   variety  of 
she  makes,  have  an  exact  facsimile  in  those  of  Central  Nortii   °"'*'- 
CarohiKi ;  while  New  York  and  other  States  ])OHsess  ores  substantially  resem- 
bling them    in   great  abundance.       The   etjually   famous   blackband   iron  of 
Scotland  is  duplicated  in  Ohio,  Virginia,  and  Alabama  ;   the  litaniferous  ores 
of  Norway  lie  in  great  beds  of  incaknilable  rlclmess  ant|  value  in  Northern 
New  York  and  Virginia;   the  spathic  ores  for  steel-making  (carbonates)  are 
ahimii.uit  in  Connecticut  and  New  York  ;  and  the  manganiferous  varieties,  so 
desirable   for  the   manufacture    of  si)iegeleisen    (consumed   in  the    Hessemer 
steel-works),  exist  in  Missouri  and  elsewhere   in  all  luxuriance.     The  whole 
Lake  Superior  region  abotinds  in  hematites  and  magnetic  ores  of  the  richest 
character,  and  Missouri  contains  deposits  unecpialled  in  extent  and  i)urity  in 
ihe  most  celebrated  regions  of  other  parts  of  the  world.     Hog-iron  ores  are 
scattered  all  along  the  northern  .Atlantic  seacoast.     Not  only  in  cjuantity,  but 
in  variety,  the  iron  of  .\merica  is  the  most  remarkable  in  the  world  ;  and  when 
we  consider  that  its  (juantity  is  so  enormous  th.'it  it  cannot  be  exhausted  for 
centuries  to  come,  nor  the  fuel  required  in  its  manufactures,  it  will  be  seen 
how  favored  a  part  of  the  earth  is  this  republic.     Its  people,  with  such  sup- 
plies of  iron  to  manufiicture,  are  certain  to  be  rich,  strong,  free,  and  aggressive, 
even  if  there  were  nothing  in  the  character  of  the  race  to  make  them  so. 

The  first  iron-mining  in  the  United  States  was  done  in  Virginia  by  the 
early  colonists  of  Jamestown.     The  little  band  of  white  men  who  emerged 
Ironi  tlic  ship  which  had  brought  them  from  Fllngland,  like  the   Early  iron- 
animals  from   Noah's  ark,  to   populate  and  occupy  a  new  and  mining  in 
strange  w-orld,  kept  their  eyes  wide  open  and  their  wits  about  ^''"B'"'"- 
them  when  they  took  up  their  residence  in  Virginia  ;  and  they  were  soon  aware 
of  all  the  resources  of  the  region  of  which  they  had  taken  possession.    John 


h':rif, 


^ 


Mm 


IJfi 


INP  US  TRIA  I.    Ills  TDK  Y 


Smith,  havfng  returned  from  his  voyage  up  the  ('hjrkahominy  River,  wliic  h  he 
had  thought  was  a  water-way  leading  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  settled  down  to 
the  conviction  that  the  Virginia  Colony  would  have  to  depend  fur  its  futurt' 
wealth  on  the  resources  of  Virginia  alone,  and  not  on  those  of  Inilia ;  and  he 


set  about  with  his  people  to  labor  tnily  to  get  a  living  in  that  part  of  tlie  world 
to  which  it  had  pleased  God  to  call  them.  One  of  the  first  discoveries  which 
was  made  created  a  great  excitement  in  the  colony,  which  took  the  form  of 
what  would  be  called  in  the  Territories  in  these  times  a  gold  "  stampede." 


OF    THE    UN'ITED    STATES. 


737 


Iron  pyrites  had  been  found ;  and  the  excited  colonists,  who  immediately 
saw  tlicnisulvcs  rollinjf  in  wealth  in  their  mind's  eye,  sent  a  ship-  The  gold 
load  of  it  to  iMigland.  'I'liis  was  the  first  iron-miPMig  in  America,  "•tampede." 
Gloiiin  followed  the  discovery  of  the  true  character  of  those  yellow  crystals; 
but  that  did  not  prevent  Virginia  from  being  the  first  colony,  after  all,  to  begin 
iron-mining  seriously.  'The  bog-ores  and  brown  hematites  of  tlie  vicinity  were 
soon  brought  to  light;  and  in  i6oS  a  ([uantity  of  them  was  sent  to  lOngland, 
ami  seventeen  tons  of  good  merchant-iron  extracted  therefrom.  In  1620  iron- 
works were  erected  to  utilize  these  ores.  In  1 702  the  bog-ores  of  Massachu- 
setts were  put  to  use  ;  and,  for  a  century  at  least  after  that  date,  the  spongy 
iron  crusts  from  Uie  bottoms  of  the  bogs  all  along  tiie  whole  North-Atlantic 
coast  were  taken  out  freely,  and  converted  into  pig  and  bar  iron  by  the 
colonists. 

The  stony  ores  of  iron  in  Connecticut  were  discovered  as  early  as  1651, 
when  (iov.  Winthrop  obtained  a  license,  with  extraordinary  privileges,  for  the 
working  of  any  mines  that  he  might  choose  to  open.  The  legis-  Salisbury 
lature  took  cognizance  of  the  ores  of  the  State  several  times  ores  of  Con- 
afterward.  It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  any  iron-mines  were  "•"='"="*• 
worked,  in  conseciuence  of  tlie  charters  and  privileges  granted,  until  very 
nearly  the  time  of  the  Revolutionary  war.  'l"he  famous  Salisbury  beds  of 
brown  hematite  (a  hydrated  peroxide  containing  fifty  or  sixty  per  cent  of 
metallic  iron)  were  then  opened.  These  beds  were  a  great  source  of  strength 
to  our  forefiUhers  in  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  they  have  now  been  the 
means  of  supporting  the  population  of  that  part  of  Connecticut  in  active  anil 
profital)le  inilustry  for  a  ])criod  of  over  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  years.  The 
Salisbury  ore-hill  still  supplies  the  furnaces  of  the  IJarnuni-Richardson  Com- 
pany, and  the  metal  retains  its  reputation  to-day  for  a  good  tough  car-wheel 
iron.  The  (piantity  of  shot,  shell,  and  cannon,  cast  from  Salisbury  iron  during 
the  fight  for  independence,  was  very  large.  Another  iron-mine  of  Connecticut 
was  also  worked  at  a  very  early  date.  It  was  opened  at  Mine  Hill  in  Roxbury 
in  1760,  as  a  silver-mine,  by  Hurlbut  and  Ibiwley,  and  was  worked  again  in 
1764  under  a  Cerman  jeweller  named  Fcuchter.  It  is  said  that  this  latter 
ingenious  person  supi)licd  the  company  from  time  to  time  with  a  small  ingot 
of  silver,  which  he  said  he  had  obtained  from  the  mine,  but  which  is  at  present 
believed  to  have  been  ol)tained,  if  at  all,  from  Mine  Hill,  by  a  process  which 
is  p(jpularly  termed  in  these  days  "  salting."  These  ingots  affected  the  com- 
]Kiny  as  the  bag  of  oats  on  the  wagon-tongue  affects  the  charger  harnessed 
hehind  it.  They  were  a  stimulus  to  renewed  efforts  to  reach  the  rich  stores  of 
silver  which  were  ever  thought  to  be  only  a  few  feet  farther  down  in  the  rock ; 
and  tlie  company  kept  on  until  it  had  sunk  a  shaft  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
feet  deep  :  it  then  gave  uj)  in  disgust.  A  New- York  company  afterwards 
tried  its  hand  at  silver-mining  here,  and  still  later  a  Cioshen  company.  Finally 
a  resident  of  the  locality,  by  the  name  of  Asahel  Bacon,  who  realized  better 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


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► 

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Hiotographic 

Sciences 
Corporation 


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23  WEST  MAIN  STREET 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  MSM 

(716)172-4503 


4fy 


4^  ^ 


l/j 


738 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


than  the  other  owners  of  the  mine  that  the  way  ad  astra  was  not  up  a  step, 
ladder,  and  who  saw  more  wealth  in  hunting,  per  aspera,  for  a  humbler  metal 
than  silver,  tried  the  mine  for  iron,  and  got  out  an  ore  which  yielded  a  very 
tough  iron  and  an  excellent  steel.     It  was  thereafter  mined  only  for  iron. 

New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  North  Carolina,  and  Maryland  were  also  mining 
iron  twenty  or  thirty  years  before  the  Revolution.  The  first-named  State  has 
iron-minitiK  ^^ways  been  the  main  dependence  of  the  furnaces  of  the  great 
before  th:;  Lehigh  region  in  Pennsylvania.  Its  ores  are  the  rich  magnetic 
ev.  ution.  Qxides,  with  some  specular  peroxides  and  limonites,  and  are 
needed  in  Pennsylvania  for  mixture  with  the  brown  hematites  of  that  region. 
In  New  York  the  mines  of  the  northern  part  of  the  State  were  opened  after 
1800.  The  iron  of  the  other  States  of  the  Union  was  taken  from  the  ground, 
and  manufactured,  as  fast  as  the  wave  of  pop'ilation  flowing  in  from  the  East- 
em  States  and  from  Europe  had  subdued  the  joil,  and  liad  given  the  different 
localities  a  census  large  enough  to  demand  the  creation  of  other  industries 
besides  agriculture. 

The  citizen  who  is  interested  in  the  resources  of  his  country,  and  desires  a 
general  idea  of  the  subject  now  under  discussion,  would  not  be  edified  by  a 
minute  account  of  the  beginning  of  the  mining-industry  in  each  of  the  several 
States  of  the  Union.  The  details  would  be  confusing,  and  no  useful  end 
would  be  subserved  by  relating  them.  Instead  of  going  into  the  subject  in 
that  way,  it  is  proposed  to  give  merely  a  general  account  of  the  character  of 
the  principal  ores  found  in  the  United  States,  and  of  their  distribution.  The 
character  of  the  deposits  of  a  few  01  the  great  iron  States  will  be  glanced  at 
afterwards,  with  possibly  some  detail. 

There  appears  to  be  no  better  practical  classification  of  the  ores  than 
ciasrificB-      Professor  J.  P.  Lesley's.     It  is  as  follows  :  — 
tion  of  orsi.  j_  Primary  ores,  including  the  specular  and  magnetic,  and  the 

red  oxides  or  red  hematites. 

2.  Brown  hematites  (limonites).  i 

3.  Fossil  ores. 

4.  Carbonates,  including  those  of  the  coal-fields. 

5.  Bog-ores. 

Three-quarters  of  the  iron  made  in  the  United  States  is  from  the  first  two 
classes.  The  magnetic  ores  are  the  richest  of  all.  They  are  an  oxide  of  iron 
containing  about  seventy-two  per  cent  of  iron  and  twenty-eight  per  cent  of 
oxygen.  They  are  heavy,  black,  compact,  or  in  coarse  crystalline  grains,  and 
mixed  with  quartz  and  other  rocks.  Chunks  of  the  ore  are  magnetic,  and 
not  only  affect  the  needle,  but  often  support  small  bits  of  iron  like  nails.  The 
richness  of  f*  is  variety  of  iron  ore  makes  it  peculiarly  fit  for  working  in  a 
bloomary-furnace.  The  Catalan  forge,  invented  in  old  Spain,  was  set  at  work 
upon  this  class  of  ore ;  and  in  Northern  New  York  and  North  Carolina,  wiierc 
it  abounds,  a  large  number  of  bloomaries  are  still  employed  in  its  reduction. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


739 


f  the  ores  than 


nagnetic,  and  the 


It  is  often  difficult  to  work,  and  is  conseciuently  more  generally  smelted  with 
the  hematites. 

Specular  ore,  so  called  from  the  shining  plates  in  which  it  is  often  found,  is 
a  peroxiii  of  iron  containing  seventy  per  cent  of  the  metal  and  thirty  per 
cent  of  oxygen.  It  is  very  nearly  the  same  as  the  magnetic  va-  Specular 
riety,  but  differs  from  it  in  being  red  (making  a  red  powder  instead  ""■'• 
of  a  black  powder),  ard  having  distinct  qualities,  which  are  observable  in  smelt- 
ing. It  mfkes  metallic  iron  very  fast.  It  is  generally  found  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  magnetic  ore,  and  is  widely  distributed  throughout  the  United  States.  The 
red  hematites  are  merely  a  variety  of  the  specular  ores. 

The  fossil  ores,  which  comprise  the  so-called  red  fossiliferous  and  oolitic 
ores,  are  found  in  shale,  limestone,  and  sandstone  formations,  in  bands  of  ore 
which  are  generally  from  one  to  six  feet  in  thickness.  Attention  has'  been 
recently  called  to  the  enormous  deposits  of  red  fossiliferous  oxides  in  the  State 
of  Alabama,  where  they  exist  in  bands  from  fifteen  to  twenty  and  thirty  feet 
in  thickness.  The  fossiliferous  ores  appear  to  have  been  formed  by  the  filtra- 
tion of  iron  into  beds  of  marine  shells,  which  they  gradually  replaced  in  the 
form  of  peroxide  of  iron.  They  vary  in  richness  from  twenty  to  sixty  per  cent 
of  metallic  iron.  Wisconsin  has  seventy-five  per  cent  ores.  The  beds  abound 
in  the  forms  of  organic  life,  encrinital  stems,  and  fossil  shells.  The  oolitic 
variety  is  often  found  compact ;  but,  both  in  Middle  Pennsylvania  and  Wis- 
consin, it  appears  often  in  the  form  of  grains  resembling  flaxseed.  The  fos- 
siliferous variety  is  divided  into  hard  and  soft  ores,  the  former  often  resembling; 
red  hematite ;  but  its  blood-red  powder  alw.-'vs  betrays  its  true  character. 
Tiie  red  oxides  are  eagerly  sought  after  wherever  found.  They  contain  car- 
bonate of  lime  and  silica,  and  are  therefore  easily  worked ;  and  their  richness 
and  good  qualities  make  tiiem  desirable  ores. 

The  hematite  ore  is  a  peroxide  of  iron  containing  from  seventy-two  to 
eighty-five  per  cent  of  the  metal.  This  class  of  ore  constitutes  the  great  body 
of  the  iron  of  Pennsylvania,  Connecticit,  and  Tennessee,  and  is  Hematite 
found  in  greater  or  less  degree  in  all  the  iron- producing  States.  It  "'■'• 
occurs  in  large  deposits  of  irregular  form,  sometimes  in  ledges  and  strata  of 
great  size,  as  in  Missouri  and  Pennsylvania,  and  often  in  scattered  lumps  and 
blocks.  In  Michigan  it  occurs  in  lens-shaped  masses  of  great  extent.  The 
hematites  aiC  readily  and  cheaply  worked  ;  but,  as  they  contain  very  little  silica, 
the  magnetic  ores  are  generally  added  to  them,  these  ores  containing  quartz ; 
and  a  silicious  limestone  is  employed  for  a  flux  in  smelting. 

The  carbonates  are  not  of  the  highest  importance ;  but  they  are  good  ores 
wherever  found,  and  are  so  readily  reduced,  owing  to  the  amount  of  lime  they 
contain,  as  often  to  require  no  flux  whatever.  They  occur  in  Great  Britain  in 
enormous  quantities,  but  occupy  a  minor  position  among  the  ores  of  the  United 
States.  The  carbonates  are  found  in  seam^,  in  balls,  or  flattened  spheroidal 
masses,  and  are  often  called  the  "  kidney  "  ores  in  consequence.    They  are 


740 


IND  i  KH  TKIA  L    II IS  TOR  Y 


Bog-ores. 


easily  picked  out  of  the  shales  in  which  they  exist.  The  spathic  ore  is  a  car 
bonate.  The  mine  in  Roxbury,  Conn.,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made,  is  of 
this  variety.  It  contains  sixty  per  cent  of  tlie  protoxide  of  iron,  thirty-six  ot 
carbonic  acid,  and  some  manganese,  lime,  and  magnesia. 

The  bog-ores  form  at  the  bottom  of  ponds  or  in  sandy  loam,  being  depos- 
ited by  chalybeate  waters.  They  formerly  were  worked  to  a  lart,'L' 
extent  in  the  coast  States,  but  attract  little  attention  now,  except 
in  Wisconsin,  where  they  are  found  in  extraordinary  abundance  in  \V()od, 
Portage,  and  Juneau  Counties. 

As  for  the  distribution  of  the  iron  ores  of  the  United  States,  it  would  be  far 
easier  to  tell  where  iron  does  not  exist  than  to  set  forth  where  it  does.  'I'lie 
Distribution  great  magnetic  iron-range  of  North  America  begins  in  Maine,  and 
of  ores/  courses  thence  southward  through  the  coast  States  in  a  massive 

rampart  until  it  terminates  in  an  abutment  upon  the  dulf  of  Mexico.  In  this 
range  the  magnetic,  sijecular,  red  hematite,  and  liinonite  (brown  hematite)  oris 
are  found  in  close  jjroximity  to  each  other,  and  in  masses  which  set  figures  at 
defiance,  and  absolutely  overwhelm  the  imagination.  In  Pennsylvania  the 
magnetic  and  sjiecular  ores  about  entirely  disai)[)ear  from  the  range,  though  thi  y 
are  present  in  it,  and  are  occasionally  worked.  They  re-appear  after  passing 
the  border  of  the  State,  howeser,  and  are  found  in  every  connnonwealth  lyiii^ 
between  Pennsylvania  and  the  Gulf,  including  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  As 
though  Providence  had  designed  that  this  republic  should  present  a  front  of 
iron  to  the  foreigner  in  every  direction  from  which  a  foe  might  invade  our 
soil,  the  immense  metallic  deposits  of  the  Atlantic  States  repeat  themselves  in 
the  Lake-Superior  region  in  the  States  of  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Missouri, 
extending  as  far  south  as  into  Arkansas.  The  ores  are  magnetic,  specular,  and 
hematite.  Farther  westward,  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  in  Oregon  and 
California,  these  ores  have  been  discovered  in  inexhaustible  beds  ;  and  in  the 
Territory  of  Utah  a  deposit  has  been  recently  brought  to  light  in  the  soiitlum 
part  of  the  Territory,  which  i)resents  an  iron  scowl  towaril  Mexico,  ami  whii  h 
is,  perhaps,  the  richest  discovery  of  iron  yet  made  on  this  continent.  Twenty- 
eight  mountains,  the  smallest  the  size  of  the  famous  Iron  Mountain  of  Mi--- 
souri,  stand  in  a  group,  absolutely  laden  with  the  richest  forms  of  the  ore  ;  and 
("hina,  Japan,  India,  and  Mexico  could  draw  their  supplies  of  iron  and  stcil 
from  that  group  of  peaks  alone  for  ages.  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Iowa,  lying 
within  the  iron  rampart  which  seems  to  rear  its  head  upon  every  border  of  tlic 
republic,  contain  no  important  bodies  of  iron  <jre.  Indiana  and  Iowa 
contain  carbonates  and  bog-ores  which  are  workable  ;  but  Illinois  has  very 
little  iron  of  any  character,  and  that  little  so  contaminated  with  sulphnr  as  to 
be  worthless.  All  except  Iowa  are  great  iron-working  States  ;  but  they  get  tlicir 
ores  from  Michigan  and  Missouri.  (Jhio  receives  about  five  hundred  thousand 
tons  from  Michigan.  The  position  of  these  three  States  as  iron-manufacturing 
regions  is  due  to  their  beds  of  coal,  it  being  found  as  a  rule  that  it  is  cheaper 


OF  THE    UNITED    STATES. 


741 


to  transport  the  ore  to  tlie  coal,  and  that  consequently  the  great  coal  States  are 
more  likely  to  be  filled  with  blast-furnaces  and  rolling-mills  than  those  which 
have  iron,  but  no  fuel,  and  are  distant  from  the  coal-measures  of  the  country. 
The  carbonates  appear  all  to  lie  within  the  basin  surrounded  by  the  magnetic 
iron-range.  They  are  abundant  in  Eastern  Kentucky,  in  the  Hanging-Rock 
region  of  Ohio,  and  in  Central  Pennsylvania  ;  and  they  exist  in  West  Virginia, 
Connecticut,  and  Indiana.  The  fossil  ores  are  found  in  Western  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Alabama,  and  Wisconsin.  Titaniferous 
iron  is  found  in  large  ciuantities  in  Northern  New  York,  and  also  in  North 
Carolina,  Virginia,  Vermont,  Rhode  Island,  Pennsylvania,  and  probably  else- 
where ;  while  the  manganiferous  ores,  so  valuable  for  the  purposes  of  Bessemer 
steel-making,  exist  in  Georgia,  Missouri,  Maryland,  New  Jersey,  Arkansas,  and 
Maine.  I5lackband  veins  are  found  in  Muhlenburgh  County  and  on  the  east 
fork  of  the  Little  Sandy,  in  Kentucky ;  in  Tuscarawas  County,  O.,  where  the 


IKON-DIMI'S. 


largest  supply  in  the  countr>'  is  foimd  and  worked  ;  and  in  small  quantities  in 
Virginia,  Alabama,  and  Pennsylvania.  The  last  ore  of  any  account,  the  first  one 
worked  in  this  country  (namely,  that  taken  from  the  bogs),  was  once  worked 
extensively  in  Delaware,  where,  between  181 4  anil  1841,  about  three  hundred 
thousand  tons  were  taken  out.  Extensive  deposits  are  found  under  a  black 
mould  near  (Georgetown  ;  but  they  are  neglected  now.  and  there  is  not  a  blast- 
furnace in  the  State.  Bog-ores  are  found  in  all  the  northern  coast  States, 
though  they  are  no  longer  worked,  and  also  in  Indiana  and  Wisconsin. 

In  some  of  the  States  of  the  Union  the  deposits  are  of  such  enormous 
extent,  and  so  interesting  in  character,  that  they  deserve  special  mention. 

New-York  State  has  long  been  celebrated  for  its  mines,  especially  for 
those  of  magnetic  and  specular  ores  in  the  wild  region  lying  between  Lake 
Champlain  and  Lake  Ontario.  Not  only  has  New  York  supplied  Lake-cham. 
her  own  furnaces  fiom  these  mines,  but  also  those  of  other  States  ;  p'"'"  "8'°"- 
and  she  has  also  furnished  all  the  rolling-mills  east  of  the  Alleghanies  from 


742 


INDUSTRIAL    JIISTOKY 


them  with  the  material  for  fettling  or  lining  the  plates  of  the  puddling-fumace. 
So  important  are  these  ores  to  the  iron-makers  of  the  country,  that  they  con- 
tract for  them  regularly  at  the  l)eginning  of  every  year ;  and  the  mine-owners 
pay  no  attention  to  orders  received  after  a  certain  date.  The  most  extensive 
deposits  are  in  Essex  and  Clinton  Counties,  where  they  occur  in  vast  cliffs  and 
ledges,  in  masses  and  veins,  as  black  oxides,  also  as  a  red  jjowder,  and  in  stcul- 
bright  crystalline  masses.  West  of  Port  Henry  are  beds  of  great  purity,  now 
the  property  of  the  Port  Henry  Iron  Company,  where  the  ore  is  sixty  feet 
thick,  and  is  worked  in  an  excavation  a  hundred  feet  deep,  and  from  a  hundred 
to  three  hundred  feet  wide.  This  ore,  mixed  with  phosphate  of  lime,  makes 
an  excellent  fertilizer ;  and  it  is  a  curious  fact,  that  works  were  once  built  at  tiiis 
mine  to  manufacture  fertilizers,  to  the  neglect  of  the  iron.  Immense  deposits 
occur  also  in  Franklin,  Jefferson,  St.  Lawrence,  and  Warren  Counties,  ail  in 
that  region  ;  but  they  have  been  scarcely  touched  as  yet.  In  Warren  County 
there  is  a  bed  of  magnetic  ore  at  least  eight  hundred  feet  thick.  Work  ujion 
it  began  some  time  ago,  but  was  abandoned  for  the  reason  that  titanic  acid  was 
found  present  in  it  in  considerable  (juantities,  and  the  furnace-men  did  not 
know  how  to  treat  the  ore.  The  same  is  true  of  other  deposits  of  this  rctjion 
Titanic  acid  has  been  a  great  terror  of  the  fumace-men  of  the  United  States , 
and  they  have  hitherto  neglected  ores  containing  it,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  the  pig-iron  made  from  them  i?  worth  twice  as  much  in  the  market  as 
other  iron.  The  celebrated  titanic  ores  of  Norway  have  been  successfully 
worked  in  Kngland  ;  and  the  product  brings  a  price  three  times  as  great  as  any 
other  iron,  owing  to  the  circumstance,  that,  when  worked  into  armor-i)latcs,  the 
iron  will  sustain  a  terrible  strain,  equal  to  a  hundred  thousand  poimds  t<}  ti-,e 
square  inch.  The  strongest  cast-iron  ever  tested  in  America  stood  no  more 
than  fifty  thousand  pounds'  strain.  It  is  believed  that  the  titanic  ores  of  New 
York  will  now  no  longer  be  neglected.  Sheffield  capital  has,  it  is  said,  been 
attracted  to  the  region  within  the  last  five  years  ;  and  the  ores  will  probably  I)e 
mined  ere  long,  on  a  large  scale,  for  steel-making.  Iron-men  claim  that  the 
working  of  titanic  ores  constitutes  to-day  one  of  the  most  inviting  fields  for 
the  employment  of  capital.  In  Southern  New  York,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Hudson  River,  magnetic  ores  exist  in  Putnam,  Orange,  and  Westchester 
Counties,  and  red  and  brown  hematites  in  Columbia  and  Dutchess  Counties,  in 
astonishing  abundance.  The  Stirling  mines  of  Orange  County  were  discov- 
ered in  r75o  by  Lord  Stirling,  who  owned  them.  The  iron  was  sent  to  Eng- 
land, and  was  noted  for  its  strength  and  polish. 

Rhode  Island,  without  a  single  blast-furnace,  and  almost  wholly  given  up  to 
cotton  spinning  and  weaving,  contains  more  iron,  in  proportion  to  her  popula- 
Rhode  tion,  than  any  State  in  the  Union.     The  principal  deposit  is  at 

Island.  Cumberland  Mountain,  which  is  one  great  bed  of  iron.     The  ores 

of  the  State  are  magnetic  and  red  hematite.     As  early  as  the  French  war  in 
I7SS,  the  colony  worked  the  Cumberland  mine,  mixing  the  ore  with  hematite 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


743 


from  Cranston,  R.I.,  and  casting  cannon  therefrom  to  be  used  in  battle  against 
the  French  and  Indians.  In  iSoo  cannon  were  again  cast  from  these  ores,  at 
the  village  of  Hope,  l)y  Mr.  John  Ikown,  who  had  a  contract  with  the  govern- 
ment, and  who  cast  his  guns  hollow.  One,  perhaps  more,  of  these  old  gjns,  is 
still  in  existence.  Rhode  Island  entirely  negl  cts  her  mines,  owing  to  the 
lack  of  coal ;  but  her  lines  of  coal-steamers  from  Philadelphia  ought  now  to 
supply  her  with  the  means  for  working  these  deposits.  The  industrial  produc- 
tion of  the  State  could  be  easily  doubled  by  the  mining  of  iron. 

Pennsylvania  contains  more  than  one-third  of  the  blast-furnaces,  and 
produces  fully  one-half  of  the  pig-iron,  of  the  United  States.  Nevertheless, 
without  her  priceless  mines  of  coal,  she  would  scarcely  be  a  great  pennsyiva- 
iron-manufacturing  State.  She  is  surpassed  in  wealth  of  iron  ore  "'■• 
by  at  least  fifteen  other  States  in  the  Union,  and  is  obliged  to  import  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  tons  of  ore  annually  from  New  York,  Michigan,  and  New 
Jersey,  in  order  tc  work  her  own  iron  successfully.  Magnetic  ores  are  rare  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  form  no  great  part  of  the  product  of  the  State.  The  prin- 
cipal dependence  of  the  furnaces,  as  far  as  local  ores  are  concerned,  is  upon 
the  brown  hematites,  or  limonites,  which  are  found  in  limitless  quantities 
throughout  the  eastern,  south-eastern,  and  central  portions  of  the  State. 
Fossil  ores  are  found  in  Central  Pennsylvania  and  the  Broad-Top  region  of 
the  southern  part  of  the  State  in  great  abundance  ;  but  the  ores  are  lean,  and 
the  iron  of  this  great  State  is  principally  made  from  the  brown  hematites  mixed 
with  the  magnetites  of  other  regions.  Discoveries  of  iron  are  being  made 
every  year  by  the  Pennsylvanians.  It  is  an  interesting  fact,  as  showing  the 
former  imperfect  state  of  information  about  iron  in  this  country,  that  the  old 
Cumberland  furnace,  built  in  1 790  at  Dickinson  in  Cumberland  County,  had 
great  difficulty  in  its  early  years  to  obtain  ore.  Most  of  what  the  furnace 
consumed  was  taken  from  mines  miles  away,  and  hauled  over  bad  roads  at  a 
great  expense  of  trouble  and  time.  Recent  investigations  have  disclosed  the 
fact  that  the  furnace  was  itself  actually  planted  upon  a  bed  of  ore  of  vast 
extent,  of  the  existence  of  which  no  one  had  had  any  knowledge. 

The  New-Jersey  mines  have  yielded  as  much  as  670,000  tons  of  ore  in  a 
year,  that  being  the  case  in  1873  ;  but  never  has  there  been  a  production  of 
pig-iron  of  over  150,000  tons  therefrom,  and  the  production  at 
present  is  only  about  30,000  tons  a  year.  This  result  is  due  to  the 
exportation  of  the  greater  part  of  the  ores  to  Pennsylvania,  where  they  are 
consumed  by  the  great  furnace-comjjanies  of  the  Lehigh  coal-region  in  admix- 
ture with  the  Lehigh  hematites.  The  ores  are  almost  entirely  magnetic  oxides, 
with  some  specular  peroxides  and  limonites.  They  lie  in  the  counties  of  Sussex, 
Passaic,  Morris,  and  Warren,  covering  an  area  of  four  hundred  square  miles, 
and  show  no  signs  of  exhaustion,  though  some  of  them  have  been  worked  for 
a  century  and  a  half  The  Franklinite  magnetic  ore  of  the  Wallkill  Mountain 
is  remarkably  curious  and  refractory.     It  is  a  black  ore  containing  sixty-six 


New  Jersey. 


I 


744 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


per  cent  of  peroxide  of  iron,  sixteen  per  cent  of  zinc,  and  seventeen  per  rent 
of  red  oxide  of  manganese.  It  supplies  an  iron  of  wonderful  strength  and 
hardness,  and  is  greatly  used  in  the  construction  of  burglar-proof  safes. 

The  two  Virginias  are  both  full  of  iron.  They  produce  little  in  the  manu- 
factured form  yet,  being  fourth-class  States  in  that  respect ;  but  their  future  is 
The  Vir-  a  great  one.  The  colonial  manufacture  was  of  bog  ores  and  bnnvn 
ginias.  hematites  near  the  sea.     Tiie  great  deposits  of  the  Virginias  wcpl 

not  then  known :  they  have,  in  fact,  only  been  brought  to  ligiit  of  late  years. 
Every  effort  at  examination  now  reveals  fresh  iron  in  some  part  of  the  State 
As  far  as  discovery  has  gone  up  to  the  jircsent  time,  it  indicates  the  cxistLiK  c 
of  the  most  valuable  tleposits  of  magnetic  and  red  oxides,  and  rich  l)r<)\vn 
hematites,  all  along  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  especially  along  tiiL- 
James-River  Valley  near  Lynchburg.  In  this  iron  belt  the  metal  is  found  in 
such  quality,  that  in  1871  it  was  bringing  fifty-five  dollars  a  ton  in  I'hiiadLl- 
phia;  while  Lehigh  iron  was  selling  for  thirty-five  and  forty  dollars.  Hrowu 
Glides  and  carbonates  are  also  found  in  the  .Appalachian  coal-fields.  The  i;rcs 
are  lean,  but  abundant.  In  West  Virginia  so  much  of  the  country  is  still  under 
timber,  that  its  resources  with  respect  to  iron  are  ill  understood  ;  but  rich  red 
and  brown  hematites  certainly  exist  in  Putnam,  Giles,  Craig,  Monroe,  .\lie- 
ghany,  Mercer,  and  Tazewell  Counties.  The  State  has  an  abundance  of  timljer 
and  coal  for  working  them. 

The  great  magnetic  iron-range  whi<"h  we  have  so  far  been  following  goes 

on  through  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  a  ul  North  Carolina,  endowing  each  of  those 

States  with  an  immens;  wealth  of  ore,  and  ends  at  the  (lulf  of 

Kentucky, 

Tennessee,  Mexico  m  the  magnificent  deposits  of  the  State  of  .Mahania. 
and  North  Alabama  is  still  a  virgin  region  ;  but  so  huge  are  her  stores  of  iron 
and  coal,  so  near  together  do  the  iron,  coal,  and  limestone  lie, 
and  so  near  are  they  all  to  the  sea,  that  it  is  supposed  that  to  this  State  tiie 
world  may  look  for  its  future  supply  of  cheaji  ]iig-nietal.  Iron  can  be  made  in 
Alabama,  and  transported  to  Kngland  and  sold  there,  with  more  profit  than  the 
same  grade  of  metal  can  be  made  for  in  the  kingdom.  Capital  could  l)e  more 
judiciously  invested  in  the  mines  of  this  young  and  aspiring  State  than  mi 
lands  in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  The  ores  are  the  red  hematites  and  the 
fossiliferous.  The  latter  of  these  extends  from  a  point  near  Pratt's  F"err\  in 
Bibb  County  to  the  upper  end  of  Wills's  Valley  in  De  Kalb  County:  on  the 
west  it  runs  up  to  Murphree's  Valley.  The  veins  often  "pinch  "  to  one  font 
in  thickness  ;  but  sometimes  they  are  six,  ten,  fifteen,  and  thirty  feet  in  tiii(  k 
ness.  The  hematites  occur  ii  enormous  beds  in  the  northern  part  of  tlie 
State.  In  the  Red-Mountain  region  the  straturr.  is  of  solid  ore  thirty  feet 
thick,  yielding  about  fifty  per  cent  of  metallic  iron  of  the  very  finest  descrip- 
tion. The  ore  is  the  red  hematite,  soft,  and  remarkably  dry.  A  common 
laborer,  with  a  pick  and  crowbar,  can  get  out  a  ton  of  it  in  a  few  hours.  The 
brown  hematites  yield  about  fifty  or  sixty  per  cent  of  metallic  iron.     It  is 


OF    THE   UNITED    STATES. 


745 


I  seventeen  per  rent 
nderful  strength  and 
ir- proof  safes, 
e  little  in  the  nianii- 
:t ;  but  their  future  is 
f  bog  ores  and  brown 
of  the  Virginias  witl 
J  light  of  late  years. 
le  part  of  the  State, 
ilicates  the  existenc  e 
des,  and  rich  brown 
,  especially  along  tiie 
le  metal  is  found  in 
■s  a  ton  in  Phiiadel- 
forty  dollars,  iirnwn 
:oal-fields.  The  ores 
country  is  still  under 
rstood  ;  but  rich  red 
Craig,  Monroe.  Alli.- 
abundance  of  timber 

r  been  following  goes 
idowing  each  of  those 

ends  at  the  ( lulf  of 
;  State  of  .Alabama. 
are  her  stores  of  iron 
al,  and  limestone  lie, 
that  to  this  State  the 

Iron  can  be  made  in 
1  more  profit  than  tlie 
Capital  could  l)e  more 
ipiring  State  than  on 
ed  hematites  and  tlu' 
near  Pratt's  Ferry  in 
Call)  Coimty  :  on  tin- 
"  pinch  "  to  one  font 
\  thirty  feet  in  tiii<  k 
northern  part  of  the 
r  solid  ore  thirty  feet 
le  very  finest  descrip- 
bly  dry.     A  common 

in  a  few  hours.     'Ihe 

metallic  iron.     It  is 


claimed  that  pig-iron  can  be  produced  in  .Alabama  at  twelve  dollars  a  ton,  the 
cost  in  Pennsylvania  being  twenty  dollars  a  ton. 

The   Lake-Superior  iron-mines  were  first  ojjcned  about   1846.     The  first 
trials  of  tiieir  ores  in  the  luist  were  at  the  old  Sliarpsville  (i'enn.)  furnace  in 
1854.     In   1S56  the  shipments  of  Lake-Superior  ores  by  Eastern    Lake-Supe- 
furnaces    hatl   fairly  begun,  and  amounted  to   7,000  tons  :    since   '■'°''  "Bion- 
then  the  shipments  have  grown  to  over  1,000,000  tons  a  year.     Michigan  and 


CIT   IN    IKON    MOCSTAIS. 


Wisconsin  produced  iqo.ooo  tons  of  pigiron  in  1S73,  but  now  make  only 
about  150.000  tons.  I''ive->i.\ths  of  the  ore  produced  is  exported  to  Ohio, 
Pennsylvania.  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  other  States.  Only  two  classes  of  ores  have 
been  found  in  the  Lake-Superior  region,  and  they  the  richest  anci  best :  they 
are  the  rich  hematites,  containing  about  seventy  per  cent  of  metallic  iron,  and 
the  magnetic  oxides,  yielding,  when  nearly  pure,  seventy-two  per  cent.  A 
number  of  varieties  of  these  ores  are  recognized  as  the  specular,  the  slate,  the 
soft  red-and-brown.  and  the  fuie-grained  and  steely  ores  :  they  all  occur  in 
enormous  beds,  lying  in  the  ridges  running  along  the  southern  shore  of  Lake 


746 


IND  US  TRIA  L    HIS  TO/iY 


Superior,  and  off  southerly  into  Wisconsin.  It  is  reported  liy  tlic  gcoloj,'ists 
that  this  iron  was  probably  dissolved  out  of  the  pre-existing  strata  by  chcinic.il 
agency,  and  deposited  by  filtration  in  great  horizontal  beds,  which  were  after- 
wards exposed  to  heat  and  pressure,  and  then  upturned  in  folds  and  displaced. 
By  subsecpient  erosion  the  tops  of  the  ore-beds  were  removed,  giving  to  the 
folds  the  appearance  of  fissure-veins.  The  largest  iiematite  deposits  are  'ear 
Negaunee  and  Ishpening  and  at  Cascade.  Near  Negaunee  the  dejjosits  an' 
lens-shaped,  and  one  or  two  of  them  have  been  worked  out.  That  reninn 
has  sent  1,300,000  tons  of  hard  and  soft  hematite  ore  to  market  since  1X5(1, 
The  ore  of  the  Cascade  region  is  a  hard  slate.  In  the  vicinity  of  numixildt 
and  of  Smith  Mountain,  eight  miles  therefrom  in  a  southerly  direction,  are  the 
largest  mines  of  magnetic  and  specular  ore  now  being  worked  in  the  State. 
At  Humboldt  a  tunnel  has  been  driven  into  the  mountain  to  get  access  to  the 
magnetic  and  specular  ores  of  the  Washington  mine,  which  lie  in  four  seams 
between  strata  of  talcose,  schist,  and  quartzite.  The  tunnel  is  450  feet 
long,  and  cost  ;S  i  ,000,000.  At  Smith  Mountain  the  richness  and  jjurity  of  the 
specular  ore  are  unparalleled.  The  deposit  lies  against  the  north  face  of  the 
ridge.  Upon  entering  the  openings  of  the  mine  the  visitor  is  confronted  with 
a  face  of  ore  as  glittering  and  splendid  as  metallic  silver,  whose  beauty  is 
unblemished  by  seams  of  rock  or  inferior  ores,  but  whose  texture  is  as  uniform 
as  refined  metal.  Other  rich  mines  are  found  to  the  westwaril  of  Smith  Mour.- 
tain,  in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  Michigamme,  and  also  near  L'Ance.  They  (oii- 
stitute  what  are  called  the  mines  of  the  Marquette  District,  —  a  region  wiiidi 
contains  the  largest  deposits  of  rich  iron  ores  in  the  world.  Northern  \\is- 
consin  contains  deposits  of  the  magnetic  oxides  similar  to  those  in  Northern 
Michigan :  they  are  found  principally  in  the  Pinokee  range.  The  State  has 
also  brown  hematites,  fossiliferous  ores,  and  bog-ores. 

The  only  other  region  that  need  be  referred  to  in  detail  is  Missouri.  Tiie 
deposits  of  this  State  all  lie  south  of  the  Missouri  River,  with  the  single  unim- 
portant exception  of  the  red  hematite  beds  of  Callaway  County. 
The  celebrated  Iron  Mountain  is  the  largest  single  deposit  of  ore 
in  the  known  world  which  is  being  worked.  It  may  yet  find  a  rival  in  the 
iron-peaks  of  Utah ;  but  at  present  it  stands  without  a  peer.  Deposits  are 
frequent  all  through  the  southern  portion  of  Missouri,  extending  also  into 
Arkansas.  Pilot  Knob,  Shepherd  Mountain,  Cedar  Hill,  and  Buford  Moimtain, 
are  among  the  great  beds.  The  great  i.->ines  are  all  being  actively  developed. 
The  ore  is  sent  out  of  the  State  almost  entirely  to  be  smelted,  the  export 
amounting  to  400,000  tons  annually.  The  principal  species  of  ore  are  the 
specular,  red  hematite,  and  limonite.  The  oldest  and  richest  deposits  arc  in 
the  iron-bearing  porphyries,  —  a  geological  formation  which  is  regarded  as 
being  of  the  same  great  age  as  those  of  Michigan,  New  Jersey,  and  Sweden. 
They  exist  in  all  sorts  of  shapes,  veins,  beds,  and  pockets,  some  very  regular, 
and  others  broken  and  irregular.     At  Iron  Mountain  there  are  beds  of  specular 


Mliaouri. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


747 


ore  on  the  surface  from  four  to  twenty  feet  thick,  and,  within  the  mountain, 
masses  of  ore  with  (Icconiposcil  jtorpliyry  between.  The  ore  is  nearly  a  pure 
peroxide,  containing  seventy  per  cent  of  metallic  iron.  There  are  2,000,000 
tons  of  it  in  this  d(;posit.  Magnetic  particles  are  scattered  through  the  moun- 
tain. At  IJuford  Mountain  the  ore  is  rich  in  manganese.  The  Pilot-Knob, 
IJenton-Creek,  and  Simmons-Mountain  mines  are  of  specular  ore,  and  contain 
from  500,000  to  1,500,000  tons  each.  The  red  hematites  and  limonites  are 
scattered  throughout  the  iron  region  in  irregular  deposits. 

It  ought  to  be  evident  from  this  hasty  glance  at  the  wonderful  resources 
of  this  republic  in  respect  to  iron,  and  from  the  additional  fact  that  the  blast- 
furnace cajjacity  of  the  country  is  now  more  than  equal  to  its  wants,  Richnenof 
that  the  era  of  high-priced  metal  through  which  the  country  has  country  in 
been  passing,  and  which  appears  to  have  terminated  with  the  panic  *'''""""*'■'• 
of  1873,  is  really  and  truly  at  an  end,  as  well  as  ajjparently  so.  With  more 
iron  ore  than  any  other  country  in  the  world,  with  coal  in  unsurpassed  abun- 
dance, and  with  means  for  :heap  transportation  fully  adequate  to  the  wants 
of  the  age,  and  an  abundance  of  labor,  we  have  all  the  recjuisites  for  the 
working  of  iron  upon  an  enormous  scale,  and  consequently  for  its  production 
at  a  price  which  will  bid  defiance  to  foreign  competition.  It  could  only  be 
by  some  extraordinary  demoralization  of  the  labor  of  the  country,  or  some 
unwonted  demand  for  iron  in  other  jjarts  of  the  world,  that  iron  would  ever 
be  likely  to  rise  again  to  seventy-three  dollars  a  ton,  as  it  did  in  the  year  1864. 
The  probabilities  are,  that  America  will,  m  the  course  of  the  next  five  years, 
become  one  of  the  world's  regular  sources  of  supply  for  pig-iron  in  competi- 
tion with  England. 


tif -: 


748 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


MINOR   METALS. 


A 


1 


MONO  the  minor  metals  produced  in  the  United  States,  zinc  is  the  most 
important.  Its  existence  in  this  country,  in  greater  or  less  alninchuv  e, 
Zinc,  where  was  discovered  at  a  very  early  day.  In  one  form  or  another,  and 
found.  often  in  combination  with  the  ores  of  other  metals,  it  was  repeatedly 

found  along  the  Appalachian  chain.  It  was  known  in  colonial  days  to  be  stored 
away  in  the  tlrand  Monadnock  in  New  Hampshire;  but  only  tiie  most  insig- 
nificant quantity  has  ever  been  i)ractically  mined  in  that  State.  Northern  New 
Jersey  and  E^astern  Pennsylvania  were  also  known  to  contain  several  com- 
pounds of  zinc  at  an  early  day.  The  red  oxide  is  only  fotmd  near  Franklin. 
Sussex  County,  of  the  former  State  ;  l)ut  sulphides,  carbonates,  silicates,  and 
other  ores,  are  foimd  in  that  neighborhood  and  at  the  Wheatleyand  Perkionu-n 
mines  in  Pennsylvania.  The  one  county  above  specified,  and  Northamiiton 
County,  I'enn.,  are  the  only  two  in  that  section  that  are  profitably  engageil  in 
the  production  of  the  metal.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  lead-dejiositi 
of  Wythe  County,  Va. :  zinc  is  also  found  there  to  a  limited  extent.  The 
famous  Davidson  mines  of  North  Carolina  abound  in  this  metal,  and  they  are 
credited  with  an  even  greater  product  than  those  of  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey.  Large  deposits  of  zinc  are  known  to  exist  in  P^astern  'I'ennessee. 
One  locality  spoken  of  is  at  Mossy  Creek,  a  little  north-east  of  Knoxville  ;  and 
another  is  about  forty  miles  from  that  city,  at  Powell's  River,  Campbell  County. 
As  yet,  however,  this  resource  has  not  been  developed.  A  lead-mining  region 
in  Arkansas,  including  Lawrence,  Marion,  and  Independence  Counties,  is  s;iid 
to  show  the  same  very  favorable  indications,  but  without  their  having  been 
turned  to  account.  Zinc  is  obtained  in  small  quantities  from  Iowa  and 
Lafayette  Counties,  Wis. ;  and  might  also  be  procured,  probably,  from  tlie 
Rocky-Mountain  ran^e. 

While  this  useful  metal  is  by  no  means  rare  or  of  recent  discovery  in  this 
country,  its  systematic  and  profitable  production  dates  back  only  a  few  years. 
American  zinc,  or  spelter,  is  of  a  better  quality  for  some  purposes,  notably  gal- 
vanic batteries,  than  the  foreign  article ;  and  we  now  produce  some  $800,000 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


749 


worth  annually,  whiih  is  cnoiigli  for  our  home-consumption :  we  import  only 
a  very  small  (luantity  ;  Init  the  character  of  the  ores  was  such,  that   ,. 

'  *  '  '  ItF  produc- 

the   metal  «oulil   not   easily  be  extracted.     In   183S  experiments   t.on  proflt«- 

were  made  with  New-Jersey  ore  at  the  United-States  Assay  Office.   "«o"'y '" 

•  1  •  rtcent  tlmei. 

/inc  was  ()l)tame<l ;  but  the  process  cost  more  than  the  product, 
and  this  announc  cment  (juite  discouraged  operations  for  over  ten  years.  In 
1850  the  New-Jersey  Zinc  ("umpany  opened  mines  on  Stirling  Hill,  near 
which  the  Passaic  ('()n)])any  afterward  sunk  shafts,  The  New-Jersey  Company 
have  taken  out  the  fmest  specimens  of  zinc  ore  the  world  ever  New-jeney 
saw.  In  1S51  they  sent  to  the  (Ireat  Kxhibition  in  London  a  Company, 
single  mass  weighing  16,400  |)()imds.  whi(  h  attracted  great  attention.  The 
I'ranklinite  which  accomp.mied  this  rich  ore,  however,  proved  a  great  em- 
barrassment ;  and,  after  much  expenditure,  labor  wa.s  temporarily  abandoned. 
'I'lu'  New-Jersey  Company  afterward  worked  mines  in  the  Saucon  Valley,  north 
of  Kriedensville,  I'enn,  ;  near  wlii(  Ii  the  Pennsylvania  and  Lehigh  Zinc  Com- 
pany .ilso  began  operations  sinuiltaneously  in  1853,  For  this  latter  corporation 
a  Mr.  Hoofstetter  erected  a  smelting-furnace,  and  made  costly  experiments  in 
1S56;  but  these  .also  proved  failures.  Sul)se(]iiently  Joseph  Wharton  of  the 
Pennsylvania  and  Lehigli  Conii)aiiy,  and  Sanuiel  Wetherill  of  lielhlehem, 
where  the  comi)any's  furnaces  are  located,  hit  upon  a  new  idea.  Neither  of 
them  met  with  encouraging  success  at  first ;  l)Ut  finally  tiie  obstacles  were  all 
overcome,  and  work  progressed  finely  thereafter.  The  Saucon  mine  was  the 
first  to  get  under  way  again,  about  1858-59;  and  the  Lehigh  was  put  on  a 
paying  basis  in  i860.  .Success  here  soon  encourageil  it  elsewhere  ;  but  these 
mines,  those  of  New  Jersey,  and  those  of  Davidson  County,  N.C.,  furnish  all 
but  about  one-fortieth  of  the  country'>  luoduct. 

The  manufacture  of  paint  from  white  oxide  of  /inc  as  a  substitute  for  lead- 
paint  was  conducted  profitably  by  the  three  corporations  above  named  before 
they  could  realize  any  thing  from  their  efforts  to  produce  metallic  ^^^ 
zinc.  The  New-Jersey  Comjiany  was  organized  in  1849,  and  its 
success  led  to  the  formatii)n  of  the  Pennsylvania  and  Leliigli  Company  in 
1853  ;  and  the  two,  in  like  manner,  induced  the  organization  c)f  the  Passaic 
Company  in  1856,  The  discovery  of  the  possibility  of  economically  utilizing 
the  red  oxide  for  this  i)uriu)sc  was  made  in  Kurope ;  but  the  process  now  in 
extensive  use  was  invented  by  Richard  Jones  of  Philadelphia  in  1850. 

Tin  is  found  in  small  ([uantitios  in  several  parts  of  this  country,  but  has 
never  been  mined  on  any  systematic  plan.  The  ores  are  of  too  poor  a  quahty 
to  pay  for  working ;  although  si)ecimens  wore  found  some  years  ^^^  j  y^ 
."SO  near  Jackson,  N.H.,  containing  from  thirty  to  forty  per  cent  of 
the  metal  in  crystals.  It  has  also  been  discovered  in  appreciable  quantities  in 
California,  Idaho,  near  Paris  and  Hebron,  Me.,  and  near  Goshen  and  Chester- 
field, Mass.  Traces  of  it  have  also  been  detected  in  the  iron  ores  of  the 
Hudson  Valley  and  in  the  zinc  of  New  Jersey. 


i 


750 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Quicksilver. 


Quicksilver,  or  mercury,  is  a  metal  which  is  very  rare,  and  for  which  the 
world  is  largely  dependent  upon  this  country.  The  greatest  producer  known 
is  the  Alniaden  mine  in  Spain,  from  w!  '^  the  Greeks  imported  the 
ore  —  red  cinnabar  —  seven  hundred  )i  ,is  before  Christ.  About 
half  of  the  total  supply  oomes  from  that  source.  After  this  mine,  that  at  Iilri:i 
in  Austria  long  ranked  second ;  but  for  a  time  the  State  of  California  has  held 
this  position,  though  she  may  not  just  at  presf.nt.  Tliis  metal  has  not  been 
discovered  anywhere  in  this  hemisphere,  except  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
Andes.  Peru  and  Mexico  yielded  large  (juantities  before  California's  store 
was  revealed.  The  discovery  in  this  last-named 
quarter  was  particularly  opportune  ;  for,  in  addition 
to  ils  use  in  making  mirrors,  certain  forms  of  medi- 
cine, and  otherAvise,  it  had  been  found  a  particularly 
valuable  agent  in  the  extraction  of  gold  from  quartz 
by  the  amalgam-process. 

The  existence  of  cinnabar  in  California  was  known 
Cinnabar  in  long  before  its  value  was  understood. 
California,  'j'j^g  ^^e  was  found  in  a  range  of  hills  on 
the  south  side  of  the  Valley  of  San  Jose,  sixty  miles 


QUICKSILVER-WOKKS. 


south  of  San  Francisco,  and  was  used  by  the  Indians  for  a  pigment,  its  ver- 
milion hue  rendering  it  particularly  valuable  in  the  adornment  of  their  persons. 
Indians  came  thither  from  as  distant  a  point  as  the  Columbia  River  to  obtain 
this  desirable  paint.  As  early  as  1824  the  whites  began  to  search  for  the  ore, 
having  learned  of  its  existence  from  the  aborigines,  and  hoping  to  extract  gold 
or  silver  from  it.  Its  real  character  was  not  discovered,  however,  until  1845 : 
whereupon  operations  were  immediately  begun  by  Antlres  Castillero.  Little 
New  Alma-  was  accoi.iplishcd,  however,  owing  to  the  Mexican  war,  until  1S50, 
den  mine.  when  a  company  of  Englishinen  and  Mexicans  engaged  exten- 
sively in  mining  and   smelting.     The   mine   was   named  "  New  Almaden." 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATED 


7S> 


for  which  the 
oclucer  known 
s  imported  the 
Jhrist.  About 
I,  that  at  Iciri;i 
fornia  has  held 

has  not  been 
Mountains  and 
ilit'ornia's  store 


Mgment,  its  ver- 
f  their  persons. 
River  to  ol)tain 
rch  for  the  ore. 

to  extract  gold 
ver,  until  1845: 
\stiliero.  Little 
war,  until  1^50, 

ngaged  exten- 
«c\v   Ahnaden." 


This  whole  region  of  country  had  already  come  into  (he  possession  of  the 
United  States ;  Ijut  the  government  did  not  discover  the  flaw  in  the  miners' 
title,  and  stop  proceedings,  until  1858.  In  these  eight  years  more  than  20,000,- 
000  pounds  of  (luicksilver  were  extracted,  at  a  profit  of  more  than  §8,000,000. 
The  production  during  this  period  was  second  only  to  that  of  Spanish  Alma- 
den.  The  action  of  the  Federal  authorities  led  the  American  discoverers  to 
look  elsewhere  in  the  neighborhood,  and  they  found  cinnabar  within  a  mile  of 
the  first  mine.  A  s!;.tfl  was  sunk,  called  "  Enreciuita,"  and  a  company' formed, 
in  June,  i860,  called  "The  California  Quicksilver  Mining  Association."  Nearly 
500,000  pounds  were  obtained  the  first  year  from  this  mine ;  and  soon  after 
the  same  company  opened  another  mine,  called  "The  Providencia,"  from 
which  they  obtained  some  cinnabar. 

On  the  same  range  of  hills  the  Santa  Clara  Mining  Company  of  Baltimore 
opened  a  mine  which  yielded  200,000  ])ounds  the  first  year  (i860),  g^^^^  q,\^^9. 
Prospecting  has   since  discovered  cinnabar  up  in   Lake  County,   Mining 
and  mining  and  smelting  are  now  carried  on  there  with  profit.  ompany. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  discoveries  of  cinnabar  has  been  made  at  New 
Idria,  in  Fresno  County,  on  the  Big  Panoche  Creek,  some  hundred  and 
thirty  miles  south-cast  of  San  Francisco.  The  property  has  been  New-idria 
in  litigation  for  many  years.  One  McCarrahan  laid  claim  to  it  on  Company, 
the  pretence  of  having  a  title  from  the  l\inochc  Indians,  (or  was  it  from  the 
Mexican  (iovernment  ?)  but  the  United-States  Government,  not  regarding  the 
title  valid,  granted  the  land  to  the  New  Idria  Quicksilver  Mining  Company. 
The  courts  have  sustained  the  latter  in  all  contests  ;  but  the  controversy  is  not 
yet  ended.  The  New  Idria  Company  are  now  in  possession,  and  operating 
the  mines. 

It  is  impossible  to  get  accurate  figures  of  the  total  production  of  this 
country  ;  but  the  exports  of  <iiiicksilver  for  1877  alone  amounted  to  3,625,713 
pounds,  and  the  total  yield  could  hardly  have  been  less  than  5,000,-  Extent  of 
000,  which  is  only  e(iualled,  if  at  all,  by  Spain.  If  California  does  production, 
not  now  stand  at  the  head  of  the  producers  of  quicksilver  in  the  world,  she 
doubtless  will  shortly.  The  value  of  her  product  can  be  estimated  from  the 
price,  —  nearly  fifty  cents  a  pound. 

Platinum  is  found  in  this  country  only  in  California  and  Oregon,  where  it 
exists  in  pure  scales  mingled  with  scales  of  gold  in  placers.  It  is  collected  in 
too  small  quantities  to  make  any  accurate  statement  of  its  value 

'  ^  Platinum. 

possible.     Its   presence   has   also  been   detected  in    Rutherford 
County,  N.C.,  and  in  the  copper  and  lead  of  Lancaster  County,  Penn.     Most 
of  our  supply  is  imported,  Russia  being  the  chief  producer  of  the  world.     It 
is  valued  principally  because  of  its  power  of  resisting  the  action  of  heat  and 
the  strongest  chemical  agents  ;  but  this  very  quality  makes  it  hard  to  work. 

Nickel  is  a  hard,  white  metal,  which  for  a  long  time  was  used  almost  exclu- 
sively to  make  the  alloy  known  as  "  German  silver,"  the  proportions  of  its 


75  i 


INDUSTRIAL    J. /STORY 


I 


^ 


Nickel. 


ingredients  being  eight  parts  of  copper  to  three  each  of  zinc  and  nickel.  But 
since  1857  it  has  been  utiUzed  in  our  coinage  to  some  extent,  and 
still  more  recc  'v  the  hardness  and  lustre  of  the  metal  have  led 
to  the  extensive  plating  of  steel  and  copper  ware  with  it.  For  this  purpose  it 
is  far  preferable  to  silver.  Says  "The  Eighty  Years'  Progress,"  "The  metal 
has  been  mined  at  Chatham,  Conn.,  and  is  met  with  at  Mine  La  Motte,  Mo., 
and  other  localities  where  col)alt  is  found.  It  occurs  in  the  greatest  alnm- 
dancc  at  an  old  mine  in  Lanca'^ter  County,  Penn..'  where  it  is  associated  with 
copper  ores.  'J'he  mine  was  originally  worked  for  co])per,  it  is  said,  more  than 
a  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago,-  and  was  re-o])ene(l  for  supplying  nickel  for 
the  United-States  mint  on  the  introduction  of  the  new  cent  in  1857.  Tlie 
sulphuret  of  nickel,  containing,  wiien  \n\xc,  64.9  per  cent  of  nickel  and  35.1 
per  cent  of  sulpiiur,  is  in  very  large  quantity,  in  two  veins  of  great  size,  one  of 
which  has  been  traced  six  hundred  feet  and  the  other  over  nine  hundred  feet 
in  length.  In  1.S59  it  was  producing  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  tons  of  ni(kel 
ore,  and  ten  tons  of  copper  ore,  ])cr  month.  A  pyritous  variety  of  nickel  ore, 
called  seigenite,  is  found  at  Mine  La  Motte,  Mo.,  and  in  Carroll  County,  Md. 
In  (laston  and  Lincoln  Counties,  N.C.,  similar  ore  was  fo\md  i)y  Professor 
Wurtz." 

Two  exceedingly  hard  white  metals,  whicji  are  very  rare,  and  used  for 
Iridium  and  scarcely  any  thing  but  pointing  gold  pens,  are  found  witii  tlie  gold 
osmium.  ^y^^\    platinum   washings    of   tiie    Pacific-coast    States :     these    are 

iridium  and  osmium,  and  are  generally  alloyed  by  nature  with  one  another. 

Cobalt,  prized  particularly  for  the  rich  blue  color  it  imparts  to  glass,  and  of 

rare  occurrence,  was  obtained  in  this  country  as  early  as   17S7  at  Chatham, 

3L^  Conn.,  where  it  is  found  in  combination  with  arsenic,  and  associated 

Cobalt.  ' 

with  nickel.     The  mine  h.is  been  worked  irregularly  in  the  present 

century.  Traces  of  it  are  foimd  also  in  Maryland.  Mine  La  Motte,  in  Mis- 
souri, furnished  fur  some  time  an  oxide  combined  with  manganese  ;  but  the 
vein  is  now  virtually  exhausted.  A  like  ore  is  found  in  d.iston  and  Lincoln 
Counties,  N'.C.  :  it  is  mingled  with  galena,  blende,  tin-l)earing  iron,  and  other 
metallic  comuounds. 

Chrome,  or  chromium,  occurs  in  combination  with  iron,  the  ore  being 
called  chromate  of  iron.  It  is  used  chiefiy  as  a  coloring-matter  iri  dyeing  and 
printing  calico.  'Ihe  deposits  are  generally  in  the  serpentine 
rocks  of  the  United  Slates.  The  Ilase  Hills  near  lialtimore,  the 
Marylard  line  just  south  of  Chester  and  Lancaster  Counties,  Penn.,  Hohoken, 
Staten  Island,  and  Northern  Vermont,  yield  it  in  greater  or  less  (piantities. 
'llie  locality  mentioned  along  the  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  border,  however, 
is  the  source  from  which  the  greatest  quantity  is  obtained.  In  this  region  the 
ore  was  not  only  embedded  in  the  rock  whence  it  was  mined,  but  was  found 

'  This  is  the  only  establishment  returned  in  the  census  as  producing  in  1870. 
'  This  was  written  in  i860. 


Chrome. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


753 


nd  nickel.  But 
)me  extent,  and 
metal  have  led 
■  this  purjiose  it 

is, rhe  metal 

La  Motte,  Mo., 
2  greatest  abun- 
;  associated  with 
s  said,  more  than 
[)lying  nickel  for 
t  in   1857.     The 
nickel  and  35.1 
great  size,  one  of 
ine  hundred  feet 
red  tons  of  nickel 
ctv  of  nickel  ore, 
•roll  Covmty,  Md. 
iind   by  Professor 


Manganese. 


in  loose  fragments  among  the  serpentine  rocks  upon  the  tracts  called  the  "  Bar- 
rens." This  latter  supply  was  exhausted  about  1854 ;  but  mining  still  continues 
at  a  small  profit. 

Manganese  is  a  metal  of  litth  value  for  itself;  but  one  of  its  ores,  pyrolu- 
site,  by  giving  up  its  oxygen  readily,  is  of  great  use  for  chemical  purposes.  It 
is  largely  employed  in  th2  manufacture  of  chloride  of  lime,  or 
bleaching-powder.  Its  faintly  reddish  color  makes  it  serviceable, 
also,  in  destroying  the  greenish  tinge  of  glass,  in  the  manufacture  of  which  it 
is  generally  employed.  Pyrolusite  is  found,  according  to  "  Eighty  Yearo' 
Progress,"  along  the  range  of  hematite  ores  from  Canada  to  Alabama,  and  has 
been  mined  to  a  considerable  extent  at  Chittenden  an'l  Bennington,  Vt.,  West 
Stockbridge  and  Sheffield,  Mass.,  on  the  Delaware  River  near  Kutztown, 
Berks  County,  Penn. ;  and  it  abounds,  also,  in  different  parts  of  the  gold 
region,  as  on  Hard-Labor  Creek,  Edgefield  District,  S.C. 


re,  and   used  for 
und  with  tlie  l;()1<1 
itates  :    these   arc 
h  one  another, 
to  glass,  .and  of 
87  at  Chatham, 
•,  and  associated 
y  in  the  present 
a  Motte,  in  Miv- 
ganese  ;  Itnt  the 
sion  and  Linroln 
H  iron,  and  othrr 


ts 


n. 


the  ore  beint; 
tier  in  dyeing  and 
in  the  serpentine 
car  T.altiniore,  tlie 

I'enn.,  Hol)oken, 
or  less  (luantities. 
I  border,  however, 

n  this  region  the 
ed,  but  was  found 


% 


ill  1870. 


I 


i:, 


754 


INDUSTRIAL  HISTORY 


CHAPTER  IX. 


QUARRYING. 

MINERALOGISTS  are  accustomed  to  discriminate  between  the  deposits 
of  mi  'als  and  stone  by  applying  the  term  "  veins  "  to  the  former,  and 
Di  f  "  ^"^^^  "  ^^  ^^  latter.     Our  rocks,  being  mostly  of  sedimentary 

between  formation,  lie  in  horizontal  strata,  except  where  the  same  have 
mine  and  been  upheaved  into  mountains  by  the  gigantic  subterranean  forces 
of  nature.  B:;t  metals  are  usually  found  in  cracks  or  fissures  run- 
ning more  or  less  perpendicularly  through  the  stone  formations,  the  deposits 
having  been  made  by  injection  of  molten  matter  from  below,  or  by  infiltration 
and  accretion  brought  about  by  the  circulation  of  metal-freighted  currents  of 
water  at  a  time  when  the  rocks  were  submerged.  This  distinction  between 
veins  and  beds  is  carried  still  further  by  the  application  of  the  word  "  mine  " 
to  the  excavation  for  metals  and  carboniferous  deposits,  and  of  "  quarry  "  to 
that  made  for  the  removal  of  stone. 

It  needs  no  explanation  to  show  that  (juarrying  could  not  have  been 
carried  on  in  this  country  until  stone  was  needed  for  building  and  paving 
Colonists  did  pwposes,  or  for  such  art  and  minor  mechanical  uses  as  the  rarer 
not  engage  stones  are  put  to.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  quarries  were  not 
n  quarry  ng.  Qpg,^g(j  wxiXA  long  after  the  need  was  felt.  Of  course  the  early 
settler  found  the  log-cabin,  the  corduroy  road,  and  the  wooden  bridge, 
sufficient  for  his  requirements ;  and  loose  stone  enough  for  foundation-walls 
could  easily  be  gathered  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  Yet,  even  after  the 
desirability  of  more  handsome  and  durable  building-material  for  public  edifices 
in  the  colonial  cities  was  keenly  appreciated,  the  ample  resources  which  nature 
had  afforded  in  this  country  were  slighted,  and  brick  and  stone  were  imported 
by  the  Dutch  and  English  settlers  from  the  Old  World.  Thus  we  find  the 
colonists  of  New  Netherlands,  afterwards  New  York,  putting  yellow  brick  on 
their  list  of  non-dutiable  imports  m  1648;  and  such  buildings  in  Boston  as 
are  described  as  being  "  fairly  set  forth  with  brick,  tile,  slate,  and  stone,"  were 
thus  provided  only  with  foreign  products.  Isolated  instances  of  quarrying  are 
known  to  have  occurred  in  the  last  century  ;  but  they  were  rare.     The  edifice 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


755 


:en  the  deposits 
he  former,  and 
of  sedimentary 
the  same  have 
lerranean  forces 
or  fissures  run- 
ns,  the  deposits 
or  by  infiltration 
r\ted  currents  of 
inction  between 
le  word  "mine" 
of  "  quarry  "  to 


known  as  "King's  Chapel,"  Boston,  erected  in  1752,  is  the  first  one  on  record 
as  being  built  from  American  stone  :  this  was  of  granite,  brought  from  Brain- 
tree,  Mass. 

Granite  is  a  rock  particularly  abundant  in   New  England,  though  also 
found  in  lesser  quantities  elsewhere  in  this  country.    The  first  granite  quar- 
ries that  were  extensively  developed  were  those  at  Quincy,  Mass. ;  Qj,ni,e 
and  work  began  at  that  point  early  in  the  present  century.    The  where 
fame  of  the  stone  became  wide-spread,  and  it  was  sent  to  distant  ''""'^'  **=• 
markets,  —  even  to  New  Orleans.    The  old  Merchants'  Exchange  in  New  York 
(afterwards  used  as  a  custom-house),  the  Astor  House  in  that  city,  and  the 
Custom  House  in  New  Orleans,  all  nearly  or  tiuite  fifty  years  old,  were  con- 
structed  of  Quincy  granite,  as  were  also  many  other  fine  buildings  along 
the  Atlantic  coast.     In  later  years,  not  only  isolated  public  edifices,  but  also 
whole  blocks  of  stores,  have  been  constructed  of  this  material.     It  was  from 
the  Quincy  quarries  that  the  first  railroad  in   this  country  was  built :   this 
was  a   horse-railroad,  three  miles  long,  extending  to  Neponset  River,  built 
in  1827. 

Other  points  in  Massachusetts  have  been  famed  for  their  excellent  granite. 
;\fter  Maine  was  set  off  as  a  distinct  State,  Fox  Island  acquired  repute  for 
its  granite,  and  built  up  an  extensive  traffic  therein.  Westerly,  R.I.,  has 
also  been  engaged  in  quarrying  this  valuable  rock  for  many  years,  most  of  its 
choicer  specimens  having  been  wrought  for  monumental  purposes.  Statues 
and  other  elaborate  commemorative  designs  are  now  extensively  made 
therefrom.  Smaller  pieces  and  a  coarser  quality  of  the  stone  are  here  and 
elsewhere  along  the  coast  obtained  in  large  ciuantities  for  the  construction  of 
massive  breakwaters  to  protect  harbors.  Another  point  famous  for  its  granite 
is  Staten  Island,  N.Y.  This  stone  weighs  a  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  to 
the  cubic  foot,  while  the  Quincy  granite  weighs  but  a  hundred  and  sixty- 
five.  The  Staten-Island  product  is  not  only  used  for  building-purposes,  but 
is  also  especially  esteemed  for  paving  after  both  the  Russ  and  Belgian  patents. 
New  York  and  other  cities  derive  large  supplies  from  this  source.  The  granite 
of  Weehawken,  N.J.,  is  of  the  same  character,  and  greatly  in  demand.  Port 
Deposit,  Md.,  and  Richmond,  Va.,  are  also  centres  of  granite-production. 
Near  Abbeville,  S.C,  and  in  Georgia,  granite  is  found  quite  like  that  at 
Quincy.  Much  Southern  granite,  however,  decomposes  readily,  and  is  almost 
as  soft  as  clay.  This  variety  of  stone  is  found  in  great  abundance  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains ;  but,  except  to  a  slight  extent  in  California,  it  is  not  yet 
quarried  there. 

Granite,  having  litde  grain,  can  be  cut  in  blocks  of  almost  any  size  and 
shape.     Specimens  as  much  as  eighty  feet  long  have  been  taken  out,  and 
transported  great  distances.     The  quarrying  is  done  by  drilling  a  Process  of 
series  of  small  holes,  six  inches  or  more  deep,  and  about  the  same  <iu«"y>n«- 
distance  apart,  inserting  steel  wedges  along  the  whole  line,  and  then  tapping 


yY 


:i:'.Wiil 


n:m^ 


1}     ^'f4:r;.:i: 


i$6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


each  gently  with  a  hammer  in  succession,  in  order  that  the  strain  may  be 
evenly  distributed. 

A  building-material  which  came  into  general  use  earlier  than  granite  is 
brown  freestone,  or  sandstone ;  although  its  first  employment  probably  does 
Brown  not  date  back  farther  than  the  erection  of  King's  Chapel,  IJoston, 

■andgtone.  already  referred  to  as  the  earliest  well-known  occasion  where 
granite  was  used  in  building.  Altogether  the  most  famous  of  American  sand- 
stone quarries  are  those  at  Portland,  opposite  Middletown,  on  the  Connecti- 
cut River.  These  were  worked  before  the  Revolution ;  and  their  product 
has  been  shipped  to  many  distant  points  in  the  country.  The  long  rows 
of  "  brown-stone  fronts  "  in  New-Vork  City  are  mostly  of  Portland  st(jne ; 
though  in  many  cases  the  walls  are  chiefly  of  brick  covered  with  thin  layers 
of  the  stone.  The  old  red  sandstone  of  the  Connecticut  Valley  is  distin- 
guished in  geology  for  the  discovery  of  gigantic  fossil  footprints  of  birds,  first 
noticed  in  the  Portland  (luarries  in  1802.  Some  of  these  footprints  measured 
ten  by  sixteen  inches,  and  they  were  from  four  to  six  feet  apart.  The  sand- 
stone of  Belleville,  N.J.,  has  also  extensive  use  and  reputation.  Trinity 
Church  in  New- York  City  and  the  Boston  .Athenaeum  arc  built  of  the  prudiu  t 
of  these  quarries.  St.  Lawrence  County,  N.Y.,  is  noted  also  for  a  fine  bed 
Potsdam  of  sandstonc.  At  Potsdam  it  is  exposed  to  a  depth  of  seventy 
•andatone.  fegj^  There  are  places,  though,  in  New  England,  New  York, 
and  Eastern  Pennsylvania,  where  a  depth  of  three  hundred  feet  has  ijeeii 
reached.  The  Potsdam  sandstone  is  often  split  to  the  thinness  of  an  inc  h. 
It  hardens  by  exposure,  and  is  often  used  for  snielting-furnace  hearthstones. 
Shawangunk  Mountain,  in  Ulster  County,  yields  a  sandstone  of  inferior 
quality,  which  has  been  unsuccessfully  tried  for  paving ;  but  it  wears  very 
unevenly.  From  Ulster,  (Jreene,  and  Albany  Counties  sandstone  slabs  for 
sidewalks  are  extensively  (juarried  for  city  use ;  the  principal  outlets  of 
those  sections  being  Kingston,  Saugerties,  Coxsackie,  Bristol,  and  New  Balti- 
more, on  the  Hudson.  In  this  region  (juantities  amounting  to  millions  of 
square  feet  are  taken  out  in  large  sheets,  which  are  afterwards  sawed  into  the 
sizes  desired.  The  vicinity  of  Medina  in  Western  New  York  yields  a  sand- 
stone extensively  used  in  that  section  for  paving  and  curbing,  and  a  little 
for  building.  A  rather  poor  quality  of  this  stone  has  been  found  along  the 
•Potomac,  and  some  of  it  was  used  in  the  interior  of  the  old  Capitol  building 
at  Washington.  Ohio  yields  a  sandstone  that  is  of  a  light  gray  color: 
•  Berca,  Amherst,  Vermilion,  and  Massillon,  are  the  chief  points  of  production. 
St.  Genevieve,  Mo.,  yields  a  stone  of  fine  grain,  and  of  a  light  straw-color, 
which  is  quite  equal  to  the  famous  Caen  stone  of  France.  The  Lake-Superior 
sandstones  are  dark  and  coarse-grained,  but  strong. 

In  some  parts  of  the  country,  where  neither  granite  nor  sandstone  is  easily 
procured,  blue  and  gray  limestone  are  sometimes  used  for  building,  and,  when 
hammer-dressed,  often  look  like  granite.    A  serious  objection  to  their  use,  how- 


"*'1»'H 


OF    THE    UN  J  TED    STATES. 


757 


e  strain  may  be 


Limestone. 


ever,  is  the  occasional  presence  of  iron,  wiiich  rusts  on  exposure,  and  defaces 
;i  building.  In  Western  New  Yoric  they  are  widely  used.  To- 
peka  stone,  like  the  coquina  of  Florida  and  Bermuda,  is  soft  like 
wood  when  first  quarried,  and  easily  wrought ;  but  it  hardens  on  exposure. 
The  limestones  of  Canton,  Mo.,  Joliet  and  Athens,  111.,  Dayton,  Sandusky, 
MarMehead,  and  other  points  in  Ohio,  Ellittsville,  Ind.,  and  Louisville  and 
ISowiing  Green,  Ky,,  are  great  favorites  West.  In  many  of  these  regions 
limestone  is  extensively  used  for  macadamizing  roads,  for  which  it  is  excellently 
adapted.     It  also  yields  excellent  slabs  or  flags  for  sidewalks. 

One  of  the  principal  uses  of  this  variety  of  stone  is  its  conversion,  by 
burning,  into  lime  for  building-purposes.  All  limestones  are  by  no  means 
Lciually  excellent  in  this  regard.  Thomaston  lime,  burned  with  Pennsylvania 
coal,  near  the  Penobscot  River,  has  had  a  wide  reputation  for  nearly  half  a 
century.  It  has  been  shipped  thence  to  points  all  along  the  Atlantic  coast, 
invading  Virginia  as  far  as  Lynchburg,  and  going  even  to  New  Orleans. 
Sniithfield,  R.I.,  and  Westchester  County,  N.Y.,  near  the  lower  end  of  the 
Highlands,  also  make  a  particularly  excellent  quality  of  lime.  Kingston,  in 
Ulster  County,  makes  an  inferior  sort  for  agricultural  purposes.  The  Ohio 
and  other  Western  stones  yield  a  poor  lime,  and  that  section  is  almost  entirely 
(lejiendent  on  the  I^ast  for  its  supplies. 

Marbles,  like  limestones,  with  which  they  are  closely  related,  are  very 
abundant  in  this  country,  and  are  also  to  be  found  in  a  great  variety  of  colors. 
As  early  as  1 804  American  marble  was  used  for  t)urposes  of  statu- 

,.     ,      •      T  •        ,  ,       ■        ,  •  ,  M.rbles. 

ary.  Kariy  in  the  century  it  also  obtained  extensive  employment 
for  gravestones.  Its  use  for  building-purposes  has  been  more  recent  than 
granite  and  sandstone  in  this  country,  and  it  is  coming  to  supersede  the  latter 
to  a  great  degree.  For  mantles,  fireplaces,  [)orch-pillars,  and  like  ornamental 
purposes,  howevei,  our  variegated,  rich-colored,  and  veined  or  brecciated 
marbles  were  in  use  some  time  before  exterior  walls  were  made  of  them. 
Among  the  earliest  marble  buildings  put  up  in  this  country  were  Oirard  Col- 
lege, Philadelphia,  the  old  City  Hall  in  New  York,  and  the  Custom  House  in 
the  latter  city,  afterwards  used  for  a  sub-treasury.  The  new  Capitol  building 
at  Washington  is  among  the  more  recent  structures  composed  of  this  material. 
Our  exports  of  marble  to  Cuba  and  elsewhere  amount  to  over  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars  annually,  although  we  imjiort  nearly  the  same  amount  from 
Italy.  And  yet  an  article  can  be  found  in  the  United  States  fully  as  fine  as 
the  famous  Carrara  marble.     We  refer  to  that  which  comes  from  Rutland,  Vt. 

This  State  yields  the  largest  variety  and  choicest  specimens.     The  marble 
belt  runs  both  ways  from  Rutland  County,  where  the  only  quality  fit  for  statu- 
ary is  obtained.     Toward  the  north  it  deteriorates  by  growing  Vermont 
less  sound,  though  finer  in  grain  ;  while  to  the  south  it  becomes  """bies. 
coarser.     A  beautiful  black  marble  is  obtained  at  Shoreham,  Vt.     There  are 
also  handsome  brecciated  marbles  in  the  same  State ;   and  in  the  extreme 


I.l ' 


758 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


(ill  i 


I 


northern  part,  near  Lake  Champlain,  they  become  more  variegated  and  ri(  li 
in  hue.  The  peculiar  variety  known  as  "serpentine  "  is  also  very  plenty  in  the 
Green-Mountain  State.  Serpentine  and  verd-anti(|ue  were  hewn  out  in  slal)^ 
for  fireplaces  at  Milford,  Conn.,  before  1820,  and  taken  to  New  Haven,  New 
York,  and  elsewhere.  Such  other  marble  as  is  found  in  New  luigland  is  of  an 
inferior  quality.  That  (juarried  near  Thomaston,  Me.,  is  nothing  more  tliaii 
limestone  ;  but  the  gray  and  clouded  tints  have  led  to  its  wide  use  for  niantlts. 
(Jlenn's  Falls,  N.Y.,  is  also  noted  for  a  limestone  that  passes  for  marble,  htinu 
black,  and  quite  highly  prized  :  it  takes  a  good  polish.  The  pillars  of  Ciranl 
College  came  from  Berkshire,  Mass.,  which  ranks  next  after  Vermont  in 
reputation. 

The  marble-belt  extends  from  New  England  through  New  York,  IVnii 
sylvania,  Maryland,  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  Virginia.  Tennessee,  and 
Extent  of  the  Carolinas,  to  (leorgia  and  .Mabama.  The  material  of  wliii  h 
(narbie-bed.  (1^^  United-States  Sub-Treasury  of  New  York  was  built  came  from 
the  Kast-Chester  quarries,  and  the  main  portion  of  Cirard  College  is  from 
Pennsylvania  marble.  Chester  County  in  that  State  yields  a  fine  <iuality  of 
seqientine  also.  Brecriated  or  veined  marble  is  found  on  the  Maryland  side 
of  the  Potomac,  at  the  Point  of  Rocks.  This,  and  some  of  the  variicitcil 
and  high-colored  varieties  obtained  near  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  nearly  eciual  liiii 
of  Vermont.  The  Potomac  and  Tennessee  marbles  were  used  more  or  Kss 
in  the  new  Capitol  and  other  ])ublic  buildings  at  Washington.  Good  marhlts 
in  the  South  and  West  are  of  exceptional  occurrence.  The  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, though,  contain  a  vast  abundance  and  variety. 

Slate  was  known  to  exist  in  this  country  to  a  slight  extent  in  colonial  day-.. 
It  was  then  largely  used  for  gravestones,  and  to  some  extent  for  roofing,  tik  >, 
and  school-purjioses.  But  most  of  our  supplies  came  from  NN'alcs. 
pA'en  in  the  i)resent  century  it  has  been  quite  common  for  shi]is 
to  go  out  from  the  United  States  with  cargoes  of  cotton,  and  bring  back  slate 
in  return. 

It  is  stated  by  one  authority  that  a  company  was  formed  to  work  a 
slate-quarry  in  Northamj)ton  County,  Penn.,  as  early  as  1S05  ;  but  anotlKT 
says  no  quarry  was  opened  there  until  1826,  when  James  M.  Porter  and 
Samuel  Taylor  engaged  in  the  business,  obtaining  their  supply  from  Kittan- 
ninny  Mountain.  But  the  former  statement  seems  to  have  been  applied  to 
roofing-slate,  and  the  latter  to  the  manufacture  of  slates  for  schools.  I'roni 
1826  the  business  developed  rapidly,  the  village  of  Slateford  being  an  out- 
growth of  it,  and  large  rafts  being  employed  to  float  the  products  down  the 
Schuylkill  to  Philadelphia.  By  i860  the  industry  had  reached  the  capacity  of 
twenty  thousand  cases  of  slates,  valued  at  ten  dollars  a  case,  annually ;  and  in 
1854  three  hundred  thousand  feet  of  lumber  were  consumed  in  making  slate- 
frames  alone. 
.-    In  1839  quarries  were  opened  on  the  Piscataquis  River,  forty  miles  north 


Slate. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


759 


variegated  and  ri(  h 
Iso  very  plenty  in  llio 
e  hewn  out  in  slabs 
to  New  Haven,  New- 
lew  England  is  of  an 
i  nothing  more  than 
wide  use  for  mantles. 
;ses  for  marble,  lieinu 
I'he  pillars  of  Ciiranl 
xt   after  Vermont    in 

gh  New  York,  IVnn- 
ijinia.  Tennessee,  and 
'he  material  of  whiiii 
k  was  built  tame  from 
lirard  College  is  from 
cl<ls  a  fine  (luality  of 
on  the  Maryland  side 
)me  of  the  variiL'atcd 
;nn.,  nearly  e(iiial  ihal 
;re  used  more  or  less 
ngton.  Good  marl)les 
The  Rocky  Moun- 

;xtent  in  colonial  day>. 

•xtent  for  roofing,  tilo, 

ies  came  from  Wales. 

uite  common  for  ships 

I,  and  bring  back  slate 

as  formed  to  work  a 
as  1S05  ;  but  another 
Tames  M.  I'orter  and 
supply  from  Kitlan- 
have  been  applied  to 
es  for  schools.  From 
ateford  being  an  ont- 
the  products  down  the 
cached  the  capacity  of 
case,  annually  ;  and  in 
umed  in  making  slatc- 


of  Bangor,  Me. ;  but  poor  transportation  facilities  prevented  the  product  reach- 
ing a  market  exsily.  Vermont  began  to  yield  perceptibly  in  1852.  Castleton 
and  Poultney  in  Rutland  County,  and  Cuiiford,  Windham  County,  are  the 
chief  points  of  production  in  that  State.  New  York's  quarries  are  confined 
to  Washington  County,  near  tiie  Vermont  line.  Maryland  has  a  limited  supply 
from  Harford  County.  The  Huron  Mountains,  north  of  Marc}uette,  Mich., 
also  contain  slate  ;  and  fine  beds  are  said  to  exist  in  Pike  County,  Ga. ;  but 
they  have  not  been  tieveloped. 


BURR  MILLSTONE. 


Grindstones,  millstones,  anil  whetstones  are  quarried  in  New  York,  Ohio, 
Michigan,  Pennsylvania,  and  other  States.  Mica  is  found  at  Acworth  and 
Grafton.  N.H.,  and  near  Salt  T>ake  :  but  our  chief  supply  comes  Grindstones 
from  Haywood,  Yancey,  Mitchell,  and  Macon  Counties,  N.C. ;  millstones, 
and  our  jjroduct  is  so  large,  that  we  can  afford  to  export  it. 
Silex,  or  ijuartz,  for  the  finer  varieties  of  glass,  is  obtained  chiefly  from 
Lanesborough,  Mass.,  and  Stonington,  Conn. 


liver,  forty  miles  north 


76o 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


CHAPTER  X. 


SALT. 


SALT  is  the  one  great  mineral  which  enters  into  the  diet  of  mankind,  and 
to  so  wide  an  extent,  that  it  is  called  one  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  It  is 
Utaofamit  known,  however,  that  the  American  Indians  never  used  it  until 
by  indiani.  ^f^gf  (jjgy  learned  the  habit  from  the  whites.'  Their  meat  w;is 
cured  by  smoke  and  drying,  or  "jerked  ;  "  and  for  seasoning  they  sometimes 
used  the  ash  of  certain  plants.  The  craving  for  salt,  nevertheless,  seems  to 
be  natural  to  many  wild  and  domesticated  animals,  the  deer  of  this  country 
having  been  hunted  more  frequendy  at  the  "salt  licks,"  about  which  they 
rendezvoused,  than  elsewhere. 

The  first  white  men  who  settled  on  this  continent  derived  their  supplies  of 
salt  from  the  old  country ;  but  the  great  distance  of  this  source,  and  the 
Salt  in  the  expense  of  the  commodity,  soon  stimulated  effort  to  make  it  fur 
colonies.  themselves.  As  the  reader  is  well  aware,  the  principal  uses  of  salt 
are  for  the  table,  the  dairy,  preserving  meat,  and  curing  fish.  The  last-named 
was  the  more  prominent  need  of  the  early  colonial  days,  inasmuch  as  our 
fisheries  were  among  the  first  and  foremost  of  our  industries.  Accordingly 
there  was  a  great  demand  for  the  coarser  grades  of  salt,  especially  in  New 
England,  at  the  very  earliest  period  of  our  history. 

How  soon  the  manufacture  of  salt  first  began  here  is  not  positively  known ; 
but  there  are  references  to  salt-works  on  Cape  Charles,  Va.,  as  early  as  1620  in 
the  colonial  records ;  and  to  such  an  extent  was  the  business  carried  on,  that, 
Ways  of  ^y  '633,  this  colony  was  exporting  salt  to  New  F2ngland.  Salt  is 
obtaining  obtained  in  three  different  ways,  —  from  solid  beds  of  the  mineral, 
from  springs  or  wells  which  have  their  origin  in  otherwise  inacces- 
sible salt-beds,  and  from  the  ocean,  which  may  have  acquired  its  saline  prop- 


'  The  Peruvians  made  and  ate  salt  when  Plzarro  made  his  famous  conquest  of  their  country,  and  t>e  Soin 
found  the  Florida  Indians  making  salt  from  springs  near  the  banlcs  of  the  Arkansas  River.  They  employed 
earthen  pans  in  the  manufacture,  and  moulds,  which  turned  out  small  square  cakes,  which  they  traded  for  furs 
and  mantles.  Long  before  the  manufactflre  of  salt  was  begun  by  the  whites,  it  was  brought  by  the  Indiani 
of  Western  New  York  (o  Quebec  and  Albany,  with  their  furs,  for  trade,  from  the  Onondaga  Springs,  which 
was  their  source  of  supply. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


761 


erties  by  dissolving  great  deposits  of  this  substance,  or  have  retained  it  from 
tiic  days  of  the  creation.  x)wing  both  to  the  nrecedents  of  the  manufacture 
in  the  Old  World,  and  to  the  fact  that  as  yet  neither  salt-springs  nor  rock-salt 
iiad  been  found  in  this  country,  the  first  attempts  made  by  the  American 
colonists  were  with  sea-water,  which  was  collected  in  ponds  and  vats,  and 
subjected  to  artificial  heat.  Doubtless  these  first  salt-works  of  Virginia  were 
uf  this  kind. 

The  first  beginnings  in  New  Kngland  were  made  in  1621.  In  that  year  a 
company  erected  salt-works  on  the  present  site  of  Portsmouth,  N.H. ;  and  in 
1622  a  salt-maker  was  sent  over  to  Boston  by  the  London  proprie-   „ 

■'  '      '  Erection  of 

tors  to  begin  this  important  manufacture.     This  indiviilual  appears  latt-workt 
to  have  made  great  boasts  of  what  he  would  accomplish,  antl  yet  "'  *"*"'•■ 

I         '  y         mouth. 

to  have  treated  the  art  as  a  peculiar  mystery  for  the  sake  of  blind- 
ing those  who  were  employed  to  assist  him.  Thus  the  colony  was  led  to  incur 
the  expense  of  erecting  a  storehouse  for  salt  before  any  had  been  manufac- 
tured. In  1623  he  was  sent  with  his  pans  to  Cape  .Xnn,  so  as  to  be  nearer 
the  seat  of  the  fisheries ;  but,  before  summer  was  over,  he  burned  the  works, 
thereby  spoiling  most  of  his  pans.  This  and  other  early  enterprises  were 
under  the  control  of  the  government ;  a  fact  which  has  many  parallels  in 
history.  The  greatness  of  Venice  was,  in  a  measure,  due  to  her  monopolizing 
the  salt-manufacture  of  her  domain  ;  and  for  a  time  that  of  Rome  was  under 
governmental  regulation.  The  famous  salt-manufacture  of  Syracuse,  N.Y.,  and 
of  that  neighborhood,  is  partly  under  the  State's  auspices,  inasmuch  as  the 
government  reserves  its  right  to  the  springs,  and  sells  the  salt  water  to  the 
manufacturers.  After  the  transfer  of  the  authority  over  Massachusetts  from 
Ixjndon  to  Boston,  this  industry  appears  to  have  been  put  on  a  plane  with  all 
others,  and  to  have  been  conducted  by  private  enterprise.  Tiiis  was  the  case 
with  the  salt-works  f  unded  at  Salem  in  1636.  The  Colonial  Government 
encouraged  activity  and  ingenuity  in  this  direction  by  granting  especial  privi- 
leges to  inventors  of  new  methods.  We  find  the  Assembly  of  Connecticut 
doing  the  same  thing.  The  younger  Winthrop  was  authorized  in  1647-48  to 
take  land  for  the  estal)lishment  of  salt-works  at  Pequod  (New  London)  and 
elsewhere,  and  the  State  commissioners  were  authorized  to  buy  two  hundred 
tons  a  year  of  him  at  the  rate  of  three  shillings  a  bushel.  How  far  he  availed 
himself  of  these  concessions  does  not  api)ear. 

French  people  landed  at  the  mouth  of  the  Raritan  River,  N.J.,  in  1631, 
who  began  salt-making  there.  The  Swedish  Government  instructed  the  gov- 
ernor of  its  colony  on  the  Delaware  to  engage  in  salt-making  in  sait-making 
1642.  In  the  Dutch  colony  on  the  Delaware,  at  New  Castle,  salt  »t  mouth 
was  made  to  such  an  extent  in  1657,  that  shipping  stopped  there 
for  supplies.  In  what  is  now  New  York  attempts  to  make  salt  were  begun 
quite  early  by  the  Dutch ;  but  as  early  as  1649  it  was  charged  against  the  pro- 
prietary West-India  Company's  servants  in  the  New  Netherlands,  that  they  had 


l6» 


INDUSTRIAL    ///STORY 


wasted  the  public  money  in  fruitless  attempts  to  manufarttire  salt  nnd  other 
commodities.  Hy  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  French  missionaries 
had  discovered  the  saline  springs  in  Onondaga  County,  N.Y.,  anil  runiors  (jf 
them  had  reached  the  Dutch  settlements;  but  the  settlers  made  no  atteinjjt 
for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  to  utilize  this  resource.  We  have  already  men- 
tioned the  early  attempts  in  Virginia.  That  colony  still  further  encouraged  the 
industry  by  prohibiting  the  importation  of  foreign  salt  after  1683.  The  New 
Sir  Nathan-  Netherlands  had  imposed  a  heavy  tariff  on  the  importation  ioii^ 
iei  johnion.  i)efore.  Sir  Nathaniel  Johnson,  governor  of  the  Leeward  Islands, 
took  up  his  residence  in  Stnith  Carolina  in  1689,  and,  besides  rice,  wine,  ami 
silk,  gave  some  attention  to  the  production  of  sail.  He  named  the  jjlace  011 
Sewee  Hay,  where  he  conducted  his  operations,  the  "  Salt  I'onils."  Colonial 
legislation  encouraged  the  industry  in  1725. 

Without  further  detail,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  business  of  making  salt 
from  ocean-water  was  carried  on,  with  more  or  less  governmental  encourage- 
Sait  impor-  ment,  in  all  the  Atlantic  colonies  prior  to  the  Revolution.  ( )nly  a 
tationi.  small  proportion  of  what  was  needed,  however,  was  produced  at 

home  ;  and  a  heavy  importation  was  carried  on,  mostly  as  ballast  in  tlie  sliips 
returning  from  Si)ain  and  the  wine  islands.  It  was  also  obtained  from  the 
West  Indies,  although  our  salt-trade  with  Turk's  Island  and  the  neigiilioring 
manufacturing  localities  has  been  mostly  of  a  later  period.  \\c  also  imiwried 
English  (Liverpool)  salt  somewhat  before  the  Revolution.  Foreign  salt  was 
prized  more  highly  than  that  obtaineil  from  Tortugas,  as  the  latter  impainij 
the  quality  of  the  fish  cured  with  it ;  and,  in  order  to  sustain  the  tiuality  and 
reputation  of  the  fish-exports,  M;issachusetts  declared  in  1C70  that  no  fish 
cured  with  Tortugas  salt  should  be  merchantable.  So  small  was  the  ae(  uimi- 
lation,  and  so  irregular  the  supi)ly,  of  salt  in  those  days,  that  the  arrival  of  a 
cargo  of  salt  greatly  depressed  the  price.  Thus  (lov.  Winthrop  writes  in 
1646,  "There  arrived  yesterday  a  Dutch  ship  of  three  hundred  tons,  with 
two  hundred  and  fifty  tons  of  salt,  sent  by  Mr.  Onge  of  Lisl)on,  so  as  salt  was 
abated  in  a  few  hours  from  thirty-six  to  sixteen  a  hogshead." 

During  the  Revolution  salt  was  very  scarce  and  costly  in  this  country, 
owing  to  the  check  put  upon  commerce,  to  the  withdrawal  of  men  from  the 
Salt-making  paths  of  productive  industry  to  military  pursuits,  and  to  the  occa- 
during  the  sional  destruction  of  salt-works.  A  number  of  these  were  de- 
stroyed in  New  Jersey  by  British  troops  during  the  war.  .'\  special 
guard  of  a  hundred  men  was  applied  for  to  protect  salt-works  in  Cape-May 
County  in  1777;  and  Congress  urged  upon  the  colonies,  that  they  each 
encourage  salt-manufacturing.  Salt  ran  as  high  as  six  dollars  a  bushel  durinj^ 
most  of  the  Revolution,  and  even  as  high  as  eight,  and  was  always  in  demand : 
indeed,  at  times,  it  formed  a  sort  of  currency.  < 

The  following  anecdote  is  related  of  those  dark  days.  During  the  encamp- 
ment at  Morr  stown,  N.J.,  in  1780,  provisions  were  exceedingly  scarce;  and 


'U'i  * 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


7^3 


<:ontincntal  money  so  depreciated,  that  four  months'  pay  of  a  private  would  not 
buy  a  busljcl  of  wheat  for  iiis  fainil/.  The  ordinary  army  rations  were  poor 
enough  even  for  the  rank  and  file  ;  but,  as  is  always  customary,  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  provide  the  officers  with  something  more  delicate,  purchased,  of 
course,  at  their  jirivate  expense.  "  We  have  nothing  but  the  rations  to  cook, 
sir,"  said  Mrs.  Thomjison,  a  very  worthy  Irish-woman  and  housekeeper,  to 
<;en.  Washington  one  day.  "Well,  Mrs.  Thompson,  you  must  then  cook  the 
rations;  for  I  have  not  a  farthing  to  give  you."  —  "  If  you  please,  sir,  let  one 
of  the  gentlemen  give  me  an  order  for  six  bushels  of  .salt."  —  "Six  bushels  of 
Silk  !  l'"or  what  ?  "  —  "  To  preserve  the  fresh  beef,  sir."  One  of  the  aitles  gave 
the  order.  I'he  next  day  his  ICxcellency's  table  was  remarkably  will  iiovided. 
Washington  misunderstooil  the  source  of  this  bounty,  and,  sending  for  Mrs. 
Thompson,  told  her  that  she  should  not  have  expended  her  own  money  in  this 
way,  when  there  was  no  (  hance  of  her  being  repaiil.  "  I  owe  you  too  much 
already  for  the  debt  to  be  in(  reased  ;  and  our  situation  is  not,  at  this  moment, 
such  as  to  induce  very  strong  hopes."  —  "Dear  sir,"  said  the  lady,  "it  is 
always  darkest  just  l)efore  daylight ;  and  I  hope  your  Kxcellency  will  forgive 
me  for  bartering  the  salt  for  other  necessaries  which  are  now  on  the  table." 
She  had  sold  the  salt  to  the  country-people,  at  eight  dollars  a  bushel,  in 
e.xciiange  for  provisions. 

With  a  few  slight  exceptions,  all  the  salt  made  in  this  country  until  near  the 
close  of  the  last  century  was  obtained  by  boiling,  or  evaporation  by  artificial 
heat.  ,\s  early  as  1671,  however,  tliere  had  been  talk  in  Massa-  How  ««it 
chusetls  of  making  salt  "  by  tiie  sun  ;  "  and  the  government  encour-  waiformeriy 
aged  the  formation  of  a  company  to  try  this  process.  The  solar  ""*  *' 
method  was  employetl  to  some  extent  on  Long  Island,  too,  by  exposing  the 
sea-water  to  the  sun  and  wind  in  shallow  \ats.  New  Jersey  also  resorted  to 
this  ilevice,  the  salt  water  being  condenseil  by  natural  evaporation  in  ponds  to 
nearly  ten  times  its  natural  strength,  and  then  being  boiled  in  kettles.  It 
reiiuired  from  two  hundred  and  fifty  to  three  hundred  gallons  of  sea-water 
to  make  a  bushel  of  salt.  The  discovery  of  particles  of  salt  on  clam-shells 
along  the  beach  suggestetl  the  idea  of  solar  evaporation  to  the  salt-boilers  at 
llanvich,  Cape  Cod,  and  led  to  experiments  which  were  but  partially  success- 
ful in  1774  and  the  few  years  immediately  thereafter.  At  length  a  jjartnership 
was  formed,  in  which  John  Sears,  a  sailor,  was  the  leader,  and  which  erected 
salt-works  on  this  principle  at  Dennis,  Barnstable  County.  They  constructed 
a  vat  one  hundred  feet  by  ten  in  size,  with  a  level  floor  and  a  curiously  con- 
structed roof.  At  first  the  sea-water  was  conveyed  thereto  by  buckets ;  but 
afterwards,  in  1 790,  a  pump  was  obtained  from  the  stranded  British  ship-of- 
w.ir  "  Somerset,"  and  a  windmill  erected  to  work  the  pump.  The  establishment 
met  with  great  ridicule,  and  was  long  known  as  "John  Sears's  Folly;"  but  it 
was  successful,  and  led  to  the  establishment  of  a  large  number  of  similar  works 
on  Cape  Cod,  Cape  Ann,  near  New  Bedford,  and  elsewhere.    This  industry 


''Mil 


rii^ 


764 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


H 


If  i 


■*f 


was  carried  on  extensively  during  tiie  first  quarter  or  third  of  tiiis  century,  hut 
since  1830  has  declined.  A  few  years  ago,  however,  there  were  to  be  seen  some 
of  these  old  windmills  still  standing.  'The  discovery  of  richer  salines  than 
ocean-water  very  naturally  destroyed  the  more  costly  and  laborious  enter- 
prises. 

A  great  revolution  in  salt-manufacture  was  wrought  by  the  utilization  of  the 
valuable  salt-springs  of  Onondaga  County,  N.Y.,  to  which  we  ha\e 
salt-springs  already  referred.  These  were  known  very  early  to  tiie  Indians, 
in  Onondaga  Father  Lallemant  is  the  first  white  who  is  recorded  as  having 
°""  ^'  visited  them.     Le  Moyne,  a  Jesuit,  mentions  them  in   1O53.     In 

1770  Onondaga  salt  was  well  known  in  ()uebec  antl  .Albany,  whitiier  tlie 
Indians  brought  it.  The  whites  first  made  salt  there  in  1787  ;  in  which  year, 
or  the  following  one,  the  Oneida  Indians  ceded  the  lands  to  tlie  State. 
Leases  were  then  granted  to  manufacturers,  who  sunk  wells,  and  went  to  pump- 
ing from  the  rich  salines  beneath.  iJut  the  State  reserved  tiie  control  of  this 
mineral  production  to  itself,  and  soon  took  charge  of  the  pumping.  It  still 
maintains  the  management  of  this  work,  and  supplies  the  water  to  consumers, 
who  pay  the  State  a  tax  on  the  salt  produced.  .At  one  time  the  duty  was 
twelve  cents  on  a  bushel  of  fifty-six  pounds  ;  then  it  was  redv.ced  to  six  cents, 
and  then  to  one  :  but  to  such  an  extent  has  the  business  developed,  that  tlie 
State  has  thus  obtained  an  enormous  revenue.  .At  first  the  system  of  solar 
evaporation  ado]>ted  on  Cape  Cod  was  employed  ;  but  now  seven-eighths  of 
the  salt  produced  at  Syracuse,  Salina,  and  tlie  adjacent  centres  of  manufacture, 
are  obtained  by  boiling.  Here,  as  with  the  sea-water,  expedients  have  been 
devised  for  separating  the  other  mineral  substances,  such  as  Epsom  anil 
Cilaubcr  salts,  from  the  article  manufactured  for  the  market. 

In  1789  the  product  from  the  Ononilaga  springs  was  about  five  hundred  or 
six  hundred  bushels,  and  the  price,  anywhere  within  sixty  miles,  was  reduced 
Extent  of  to  half  a  dollar  a  bushel,  —  a  remarkable  reduction.  In  1S59,  tlie 
production,  culminating  date  of  production  in  this  region,  the  annual  jiroduct 
was  7,521,335  bushels,  which  cost  the  manufacturers  to  make  about  six  cents  a 
bushel.  To  such  dimensions  has  the  business  grown,  that  whole  villages  of 
vats  and  brii  k  "  blocks  "  for  containing  the  kettles  have  sprung  up  around 
Syracuse.  Tiie  commerce  in  salt,  and  siijiplies  for  the  salt-makers,  has  done 
much  to  pay  the  expense  of  constructing  the  ICrie  Canal  and  the  railroads 
of  that  section. 

An  interesting.';  story  is  told  in  connection  with  the  early  development 
of  the  Onondaga  salines.  Towards  the  close  of  the  last  century  the  I'V-deral 
Government  let  contracts  for  the  supjjly  of  the  United-States  troops  with 
provisions  at  Oswego.  At  this  time  Gen.  James  O'Hara,  an  enterprising  and 
well-informed  citizen  of  Pittsburgh,  Penn.,  undertook  a  contract,  believing 
that  he  could  execute  it  at  less  cost  from  that  basis  of  supply,  in  consideration 
of  certain  advantages  which  he  at  first  concealed,  than  any  one  could  from  tiie 


(;/••    THE    UX/TED    STATES. 


765 


of  this  century,  hut 
were  to  l)e  seen  some 
;  richer  sahnes  tliaii 
nd   laborious   entcr- 

the  utilization  of  the 

Y.,  to  which  we  liave 

■arly  to  the   Indians. 

recorded   as  iiavini; 

them  in   1653.     In 

Albany,  whitlier  the 

1787  ;  in  which  year, 

lands  to  the  State. 

s,  and  went  to  pump- 

:1  the  control  of  this 

ic  pumping.     It  still 

:  water  to  cons\uiiers. 

le  time  the  duty  was 

reduced  to  six  cents, 

s  developed,  that  tlie 

t  the  system  of  solar 

now  seven-eighths  of 

ntrcs  of  manufacture, 

xpedients  have  l)een 

ucli   as    I'".psom   anil 

;t. 

ibout  live  hundred  or 
V  miles,  was  reduced 
uction.  In  1S59,  the 
,  the  annual  i)rodu(  t 
ake  about  six  cents  a 
lat  whole  villages  of 
e  sprung  up  around 
salt-makers,  has  done 
iial  and   the  railroads 

le  early  develo]inK'nl 
t  century  the  l^'cderal 
_Hl-States  troops  with 
an  enterprising  and 
I  contract,  l)elieving 
pply,  in  consideration 
ly  one  could  from  the 


Mohawk  River,  whose  head-waters  were  not  far  from  Oswego.  Accordingly, 
he  estabiishetl  a  line  of  communication  by  rafts  up  the  Alleghany  and  I'Vench 
Creek  from  Pittsburgh,  a  wagon-portage  across  to  lOrie  on  the  lake  of  that 
name,  a  l)oat-line  to  lilack  Rock  near  lluffalo,  another  boat  to  cany  still  nearer 
Niagara,  a  wagon- portage  around  the  falls,  and  a  third  boat-line  thence  through 
Lake  Ontario  to  Oswego.  Vessels  we-.e  built  on  Lakes  ImIc  and  Ontario 
expressly  for  this  busiucss.  It  was  a  part  of  0'Hara"s  contract  that  he  shoultl 
retain  his  iiarrcis  whin  ijieir  contents  were  consumed.  'I'hese  barrels  he  then 
filled  with  salt,  which  lie  caused  to  be  brought  from  Syracuse  in  wagons,  and 
re-shipped  them   over  the  same  route  by  which  they  came  from  rittslnirgh. 


MMIiM.    SALT. 


At  this  time  Pittsburgh  had  obtained  her  salt  from  Philadelphia  by  [lack-horses, 
which  came  in  trains  across  tiie  mountains.  The  business  of  sui>])lying  all 
these  settlements  west  of  the  Alicghanies,  and  down  the  Ohio  River,  centred 
at  this  point  ;  and  salt  brought  eight  dollars  a  bushel.  IJut  O'Hara  was  now 
able  to  deliver  it  at  Pittsburgh  for  half  that  price,  and  make  a  handsome  i)rofit  ; 
and,  as  he  had  a  monopoly  of  the  Onondaga  supply,  he  could  destroy  all  com- 
petition. Capital  was  soon  invested  in  traile  with  Syracuse,  however  ;  and  in  a 
few  years  the  price  was  brought  down  to  twelve  dollars  a  barrel  of  five  bushels. 
A  few  years  later,  the  development  of  the  Virginia  and  Western  Pennsylvania 
salines  still  further  reduced  the  ])rii  e. 


iS:.im 


\^'m 


••>■■} 


^•i'^i'' 


-■4-.' 


tijki:m 


li 


I 


m 


I 


766 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Virginia, 


There  are  numerous  other  valuable  salt-deposits  in  this  country,  the  princi- 
pal ones  being  in  West  Virginia,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,  and  Michigan.  West 
Other  salt-  Virginia,  while  yet  the  new  State  of  that  name  was  included  within 
deposits.  thg  original  limits  of  the  old  one,  was  famous  for  salt-wells  along^ 
the  line  of  the  Great  Kanawha  River.  Attention  was  drawn  to  the  springs  by 
seeing  the  deer  visit  them.  'I'he  early  wells  were  bored  only  thirty  feet  deep  ; 
but  subsequently  a  depth  of  seven  hundred  or  eiglit  hundred  feet  became 
common,  while  even  fifteen  hundred  has  been  attained,  (las  was  obtained 
from  these  wells,  which  was  burned  to  heat  the  kettles ;  but  this  practice  has 
since  been  discontinued.  In  1829  this  region  produced  at  the  rate  of  1,000,- 
000  bushels  annually ;  and  by  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the  product  had 
reached  nearly  3,000,000,  and  formed  the  principal  part  of  the  salt  manufac- 
tured in  Virginia.  The  amount  has  since  been  increased  to  nearly 
5,000,000 ;  and  from  its  separation,  until  recently,  West  Virginia 
ranked  next  after  New  York  as  a  salt-producing  State.  The  other  salt-deposits 
of  that  vicinity  are  in  the  south-western  part  of  old  Virginia,  in  Smyth  and 
Washington  Counties,  along  the  north  fork  of  the  Holston.  Here  there  are 
beds  of  rock-salt ;  but  no  wells  that  are  available  are  found  outside  a  very 
limited  locality.  This  one  product,  and  the  plaster-banks,  give  almost  ex- 
clusive business  to  the  branch  railroad  of  the  Virginia  and  Tennessee  line 
penetrating  that  section.  Prior  to  the  war  it  had  developed  its  product  to 
something  like  300,000  bushels  a  year ;  but  since  that  period  its  yield  has  been 
inconsiderable,  the  census  of  1870  returning  but  2,063  bushels. 

Pennsylvania  has  a  consider:  ble  salt  district  along  the  Alleghany,  Kiskiniinc- 
tas,  and  Beaver  Rivers.  Wells  were  first  sunk  here  in  181 2  to  the  depth  ot' 
Pennsyi-  two  hundred  feet ;  and  in  1829  salt  was  produced  there  at  the  rate 
vania.  Qf  twenty  or  twenty-five  cents  a  bushel,  wiiile  farther  west  it  cost 

at  least  fifty.  In  1850  the  annual  production  was  over  900,000  bushels,  and 
at  that  time  Pennsylvania  ranked  third  as  a  salt-producing  State.  Since  then 
Ohio  and  Michigan  have  stepped  in  ahead  of  her. 

Ohio's  salt-springs  are  mostly  in  the  southern  and  south-eastern  jxirts  of 
that  State,  along  the  Muskingum,  Hocking,  and  Scioto  Rivers,  and  on  the  Ohio 
River  at  Pomeroy,  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Kanawha. 
The  first  attempts  in  that  State  to  make  salt  were  in  1798,  at  the 
"  Old  Scioto  Salt-Works  "  in  Jackson  County.  The  wells  were  only  thirty  foct 
deep ;  and  six  or  eight  hundred  gallons  of  the  brine  were  needed  to  make  a 
bushel  of  the  salt,  wiiich  was  dark  and  i)oor.  But  even  tliis  article  brought 
three  or  four  dollars  a  bushel  as  late  as  1808.  Until  after  1850,  when  the  total 
product  was  about  500,000  bushels,  the  development  of  tlie  business  was 
slow;  but  the  wells,  which  were  then  but  four  hundred  or  five  hundred  feet 
deep,  were  sunk  to  a  depth  of  twelve  hundred,  where  much  strongc*  brine  was 
obtained,  and  the  business  so  improved,  that  by  1857  the  estimated  ]-ro(hiri 
of  the  State  was  nearly  three  times   that  of  1850.     In   1870  it  had  reached 


Ohio. 


i  country,  the  princi- 
iid   Michigan.     West 
;  was  included  within 
IS  for  salt-wells  alonj,^ 
,wn  to  the  springs  by 
only  thirty  feet  deep  ; 
hundred  feet  became 
[.     (las  was  obtained 
but  this  practice  has 
at  the  rate  of  i,ooo,- 
var  the   product   had 
of  the  salt  manufai  - 
en  increased  to  nearly 
•ecently,  West  Virginia 
The  other  salt-deposits 
/irginia,  in  Smyth  and 
ston.     Here  there  are 
found  outside  a  very 
janks,  give  almost  ex- 
ia  and  Tennessee  line 
veloped  its  product  to 
eriod  its  yield  has  been 
bushels. 

e  Alleghany,  Kiskimine- 
1812  to  the  depth  of 
iduced  there  at  the  rate 
lile  farther  west  it  cost 
■r  900,000  bushels,  and 
,ing  State.     Since  then 

south-eastern  parts  ot 
livers,  and  on  the  Ohio 
If  the  Great  Kanawha. 
lit  were  in  1798,  at  the 
Ills  were  only  thirty  feet 
lore  needed  to  ni.ike  a 

\,'en  this  article  brouglit 
[er  1850,  when  the  total 
It  of  the  business  was 
Id  or  five  hundred  feet 
|nich  strongc-  brine  was 
the  estimated  producl 
1870  it  had  reached 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


767 


almost  3,000,000  bushels.  The  heavy  carburetted  hydrogen  gas  which  comes 
from  these  wells  has  been  extensively  used  for  heating  the  kettles  in  which  the 
salt  was  boiled.  The  Wabash  salines,  well  known  in  early  colonial  days,  have 
been  the  basis  of  quite  a  litde  salt-making  industry  in  Indiana  and  other 
Illinois,  which  has  now  declined.  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  have  States. 
also  abounded  in  salt-licks  and  working-wells.  Kci-tucky  has  had  quite  a 
reputation  for  her  salt  in  times  past.  Missouri,  Minnesota,  Arkansas,  and 
several  other  States,  have  also  salt-springs  of  slight  value. 

(^ne  of  the  most  remarkable  developments  in  this  industry  has  been  that 
of  Saginaw  County,  Mich.  The  salt-licks  of  the  deer  were  well  known  to  the 
first  settlers,  and  in  1838  unsuccessful  attempts  were  made  at  saginaw 
manufacturing  salt  there.  The  legislature  passed  a  law  in  1859  'egion. 
offering  a  bounty  often  cents  a  bushel  on  the  salt  produced  in  the  State.  This 
gave  a  slight  impetus  to  the  manufacture.  A  well  was  sunk  six  hundred  and 
sixty-nine  feet  in  Kast  Saginaw,  and  in  the  last  six  months  of  i860  a  yield  of 
23,000  busiiels  of  excellent  salt  was  obtained.  Prior  to  this  time  the  product 
hail  been  insignificant;  but  in  1870  it  amounted  to  nearly  4,000,000  bushels, 
and  Michigan  then  ranked  next  after  New  York  and  Virginia.  Since  then  she 
■  has  outstripped  both ;  and  though  she  has  >iot  yet  reached  New  York's  figures 
of  i860,  which  were  upwards  of  7,000,000,  the  1  ompetition  has  cut  down  New 
York's  product  to  less  than  5,000,000  bushels  annually.  The  great  secret  of 
the  success  of  the  Michigan  salt-makers  is  the  economy  secured  by  combining 
tiie  salt-boiling  business  with  lumbering.  The  salt-wells  abound  in  the  great 
lumber-districts  around  Saginaw  Bay.  The  saw-mills  are  run  by  steam,  and 
the  furnaces  fed  by  saw-dust.  The  wells  are  pumped  by  engines,  and  the 
surplus  steam  is  used  to  carry  on  the  evaporating  process.  Thus  the  item  of 
fuel  is  entirely  saved  in  the  expenses  of  production,  and  salt  can  thus  be  pro- 
duced more  cheaply  than  anywhere  else  in  the  country. 

The  annual  product  of  salt  in  the  United  States  at  the  present  time  is  about 
20,000,000  bushels  ;  of  which  Michigan  produces  about  6,000,000  ;    ^ 

'  1  Annual  prod- 

New  York  and  West  Virginia,  each,  4,500,000  ;  Ohio,  nearly  3,000,-   uct  in  the 
000 ;  and  the  other  States,  something  over  2,000,000.     Yet  this  United 
is  l)ut  about  half  of  our  consumption ;   for  we  imported  in  1877 
over  18,000,000  bushels.     A  mere  trifle,  less  than  75,000  bushels,  —  most  of 
which  went  to  Canada,  —  was  exported. 


^r'-  it  IT 


Wsl 


wmi  ■  ^: 


t  \'m' 


•  a 


768 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Youth  and 
eminence 
of  the 
industry. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

PETROLEUM. 

ALTHOUGH  petroleum  is  one  of  the  oldest  mineral  products  of  wliich 
mankind  is  known  to  have  n^ade  use,  the  business  which  it  has  given 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States  is  the  most  recent  of  all  our 
prominent  industries.  It  is  less  than  twenty  years  since  the  i>ro- 
duction  of  petroleum  in  large  enough  quantities  for  it  to  sui)|)lant 
our  candles,  spirit-lamps,  sperm-oil,  and  rosin  and  coal  gas,  as  tlie 
popular  means  of  illumination  :  and  yet  our  coal  and  iion  are  the  only  two 
mineral  products  which  this  country  now  yields  in  larger  measure  of  value ; 
and,  except  cotton  and  cereals,  it  is  our  most  valuable  article  of  export. 

Bitumen  and  naphtha,  two  forms  of  this  same  hydro-carbon  deposit,  were 
found  in  oth»;r  parts  of  the  world  in  the  earliest  historic  period.      Hitunien, 
/  *-     ^  or  asphaltum,  was  used  as  a  cement  in  building  ancient  Balnlon. 

The  cerements  of  Egyptian  mummies  were  smeared  with  it,  that 
the  corpses  might  be  the  better  preserved  ;  and  it  is  the  prcsenee 
of  that  substance,  dried  to  a  rosin,  which  makes  the  mummy  such 
excellent  fuel  in  the  Orient.     The  Scriptures  make  frequent  refer- 
ence to  the  rock  giving  out  fountains  and  rivers  of  oil ;  and  inasmuc  h  as 
Jacob  is  said  to  have  been  embalmed,  and  as  embalming  undoubtedly  meant 
being  wrapped  after  the  man.    ••  of  l.ie  Egyptian  dead,  there  is  excellent 
reason  to  believe  that  rock-oil  was  known  not  only  in  the  days  of  Job  and 
Moses,  but  even  before  the  time  when  Israel  served  the  Pharaohs,  thirty- 
six  centuries  ago.     Indeed,  we    may  trace  its  appearance  still  farther  ba(  k. 
The  Tower  of  Babel  was  erected  over  four  thousand  years  ago, 
and  its  builders  used  "  slime  for  mortar."     In  the  ruins  of  C  hal- 
dean  edifices  near  Bagdad,  known  to  have  been  conteinporaneous 
with  the  Tower  of  Babel,  there  have  been  found  pieces  of  reed 
cemented  with  asphalt.     However,  when  one  remembers  that  geology  proves 
the  carboniferous  age  of  the  world's  formation  to  be  millions  of  years  before 
our  day ;  that  the  era  which  saw  the  prod.'ction  of  the  bitumen  of  Egypt,  the 
asphalt  of  Mesopotamia,  and  the  coal  and  oil  of  Pennsylvania,  was  all  one,  — 


Antiquity  of 
the  discov- 
ery and  use 
of  hydro- 
carbons. 


Asphaltum 
used  in  the 
Tower  of 
Babel. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


769 


the  interval  Iietween  its  discovery  and  use  by  those  who  lived  about  the  Lower 
Nile  and  the  people  of  the  United  States  is  but  as  a  day.  ; 

'I'lie  bitumen  used  by  tlie  Assyrians  came  from  slime-pits  near  the  River 
Is,  a  tributary  of  the  Kuphrates.     It  was  also  found  in  very  ancient  vvidedis- 
times  near  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  the  product  of  Bakoo  still  con-   tribution  of 
tinues  to  su])ply  all   I'ersia  with  the  means  of  illumination.     The   »''= '''PO''*"- 
oil    there   is   iigiit-coiored  and  very  choice.     Asphaltum,  only  another  form 
of  tlie  same  substance,  has  been  found  about  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea, 
which   is  supposed   to   cover  tiie   ancient   cities  of  Sodom   and   Clomorrah. 
In   India  and    Hurmah   petroleum   has  been  in  use  as  a  medicine,  and  for 
illuminating-puri)oses,  no  one  knows  how  long ;  the  excavation  of  wells  and 
pits  in  the  Rangoon  I  )istrict  for  procuring  the  oil,  its  collection,  transporta- 
tion, and  sale,  amounting  to  (juite  an   industry.     Burmah   and   the   Bakoo 
District  rank  ne.\t  to  America  as  producers.     In  China  the  people  have  found 
this  same  treasure  in  the  form  of  gas  rather  than  oil,  and  have   i-^g  g^g. 
bored   artesian  wells  witliout  number,  simply  to  get  this  product  weiii  in 
as  a  means  of  light  and  lieat.     Some  of  tiiese  wells  have  been  ^'""•• 
bored  fifteen  hundred  and  two  thousand  feet  deep,  and  the  machinery  by 
which  the  work  is  performed  is  verj'  curious  and  crude.     When  the  cavity 
where  the  gas  is  confmetl  is  finally  reached,  an  explosion  of  terrific  violence 
often  occurs,  and  the  orifice  of  the  well  is  with  the  utmost  difficulty  secured, 
especially  if  the  escaping  gas  takes  fire.     Mgr.  Imbert,  a  Catholic  missionary 
in  China,  thus  describes  one  of  these  catastrophes  :  — 

"  The  flame,  which  was  about  twenty  feet  high,  flitted  about  without  burn- 
ing any  thing.     Four  men  volunteered  to  risk  their  lives  in  endeavoring  to 
arrest  it.     They  cast  a  large  stone  on  the  mouth  of  the  well ;  but  Description 
it  was  instantly  hurled  far  into  the  air.    Three  of  the  men  were  of  burning- 
burned,  and  tiie  fourth  escaped  only  by  a  miracle.     Neither  water  ^'  '* 
nor  earth  would  extinguish  the  flames ;   until  at  length,  after  two  weeks  oi 
incessant  toil,  a  sufficient  quantity  of  water  was  conveyed  to  the  adjacent 
heights,  where  it  was  collected  in  a  little  lake,  and  suddenly  let  loose  on  the 
well  in  one  volume  with  success." 

This  gas  is  conveyed  long  distances  liy  bamboo  pipes,  and  is  used  for 
lighting  salt-mines  and  to  heat  furnaces,  the  extremities  of  the  pipes  being 
tipped  with  metal  to  prevent  their  being  burned  ;  although  the  gas-   Economii- 
tlanie  does  not   usually  adhere  to  the  tip,  as  in  the  case  of  our  '"B8"- 
artificial  illuminating-gas,  but  hovers  about  it  at  a  short  distance.     In  Java 
and  Japan -the  oil  which  yields  this  gas  is  found  in  small  quantities. 

There  is  little  record  of  any  form  of  coal,  petroleum,  or  natural  gas,  being 
found  in  Africa,  elsewliere   than  in   I'^-gypt ;   but  they  have  been   Distribution 
found  plentifully  in  Kurope,  —  though  not  together,  it  may  be  re-   of  oil  in 
marked.     Wales,  the  great  coal-producing  region  of  Great  Brit-     "'"P"- 
ain,  does  not  yield  petroleum,  although  the  burning-well  at  \\'igan,  Lancashire, 


,  \!iea 


77° 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


i    ■, 


American 
•borigines 


is  in  a  coal-region.  France,  Helgium,  Northern  Italy,  and  Hungary  have 
yielded  either  oil  or  gas,  or  botli,  in  comparatively  insigniiicant  quantities, 
for  over  two  centuries ;  but  little  effort  has  been  made  to  secure  the  possible 
deposits  below  by  any  thing  like  modern  appliances.  Very  recently  something 
has  been  done  in  South  (lermany,  and  near  the  Volga  in  Russia,  to  utilize 
the  oil-deposits  that  have  been  discovered  there ;  but  as  yet  no  effect  upon 
the  world's  supply  or  the  world's  market  has  been  wrought. 

Just  at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  petroleum  was  discovered  in  small 
quantities  in  the  West  Indies ;  but  production  has  never  practically  amounted 
to  any  thing  there. 

The  first  white  settlers  who  came  to  the  United  States  found  that  the 
natives  were  familiar  with  and  made  use  of  rock-oil,  which  they  skimmed  from 
Petrol  ^^*^  surface  of  springs  and  pools.     It  was  supposed  to  possess  rare 

known tothe  medicinal  virtues;  although  it  has  little  recognized  effect  nowa- 
days, except  as  a  cathartic,  sudorific,  anti-spasmodic,  and  bane 
to  the  tape-worm.  It  was  also  found  an  excellent  balm  for 
wounds,  and  a  good  medium  in  mixing  the  Indians'  war-paint,  tut  it  is 
well  known  to  all  students  of  American-Indian  history  that  there  was  a  race  of 
aborigines,  closely  allied  to  the  Toltecs  and  Aztecs  of  Mexico,  who  occupied 
much  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States  before  the  red  men  came  whom 
Raleigh  and  the  Pilgrims  found  here.  That  earlier  and  more  highly  civilized 
people  have  left  many  tokens  of  their  former  residence  here ;  and  among 
them  are  placed  by  some  savans  the  devices  found  near  Titusville,  Penn., 
for  the  collection  of  rock-oil.  In  the  valley  of  Oil  Creek  are  found  a  number 
of  pits,  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  deep,  either  circular,  oval,  or  sc[uare,  and  care- 
fully cribbed  and  walled  with  timber.  The  oil  has  preserved  the  wood  from 
decay,  no  one  knows  how  long ;  but  their  location,  character,  and  resem- 
blance to  the  oil-pits  of  Burmah,  indicate  plainly  enough  that  they  were 
constructed  to  obtain  petroleum ;  and  as  trees  have  been  growing  from 
the  bottom  of  these  pits  for  two  and  three  centuries,  if  not  longer,  the  period 
of  their  disuse  is  carried  back  to  a  time  precedent  to  the  first  white  settlements 
in  the  United  States. 

In  various  parts  of  the  American  continent  the  early  setders  have  found 
what  they  have  called  tar-springs,  or  streams  and  pools  of  water  mingled 
with  strongly  odorous  rock-oil.  This  substance  was  discovered 
by  explorers  near  the  mouth  of  the  Athabasca  River,  in  Britisli 
North  America,  nearly  a  century  ago.  It  has  been  found  near  Lake  Huron, 
and  in  other  parts  of  Canada ;  but  nowhere  in  that  country  has  its  production 
become  a  business  of  any  consequence,  except  at  Enniskilk  n,  in  the  western 
peninsula  of  the  Province  of  Ontario.  Since  i860  the  oil-industry  has  grown 
up  to  quite  respectable  proportions,  though  insignificant  as  compared  with  the 
business  of  the  United  States, 

The  fact  is,  that  the  production  of  petroleum  for  the  world's  use  is  almost 


Tar-springs. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


771 


and  Hungary  have 
igniricant  quantities, 
,  secure  the  possible 
■y  recently  something 

in  Russia,  to  utilize 
s  yet  no  effect  upon 

t. 

,  discovered  in  small 
practically  amounted 

States  found  that  the 
;h  they  skimmed  from 
pposed  to  possess  rare 
cognized  effect  nowa- 
-spasmodic,  and  bane 
n   excellent  balm   for 
war-paint,     l^ut  it  is 
lat  there  was  a  race  of 
Mexico,  who  occupied 
red  men  came  whom 
d  more  highly  civilized 
^ce  here  ;    and  among 
near  'I'itusville,  Penn., 
k  are  found  a  number 
or  square,  and  care- 
■served  the  wood  from 
character,  and  resem- 
nough  that   they  were 
e   been   growing   from 
not  longer,  the  period 
first  white  settlements 

irly  settlers  have  found 
ools  of  water  mingled 
stance  was  discovered 
basca  River,  in  British 
und  near  Lake  Huron, 
^ntry  has  its  production 
liskilkn,  in  the  western 
oil-industry  has  grown 
:  as  compared  with  the 

world's  use  is  almost 


exclusively  a  monopoly  of  this  country,  and  is  chiefly  confined  to  the  region  of 
Western  Pennsylvania  and  West  Virginia,    The  same  series  of  oil-  Petroleum  a 
bearing  rocks  extend  to  Kentucky.     Says  the  annual  report  of  the  monopoly. 
New- York  Produce  Exchange  for  1875-76, — 

"  The  oil-belt  in  West  Vftginia  is  now  being  surveyed,  and  the  survey  is 
to  be  continued  to  the  Hig  Sandy  River,  on  the  boundary-line  of  Kentucky, 
for  the  purpose  of  the  future  development  of  oil-production.  Extent  of 
Colorless  petroleum  has  been  found  in  Nevada,  near  a  place  called  o'I-"b'<»>' 
Black  Rock,  where  there  are  two  springs,  from  which  flows  colorless  oil, 
aggregating  from  eighty  to  ninety  gallons  daily.  In  Colorado,  six  miles  north 
of  Canon  City,  there  are  oil-bearing  rocks,  from  which  an  excellent  quality  of 
petroleum  is  obtained  at  a  depth  of  from  two  hundred  to  four  hundred  feet. 
In  tiie  Tulare  Valley  in  California,  fifteen  miles  west  of  Tulare  Lake,  there  are 
petroleum-springs  which  were  first  discovered  by  a  government  surveying- 
party  in  1854.  The  oil  from  these  springs  is  of  the  heavy  lubricating  variety, 
and  is  much  more  valuable  than  the  burning-oil  produced  in  Western  Penn- 
sylvania, and  is  similar  to  that  of  West  Virginia.  In  Los  Angeles  County, 
Cal.,  in  the  township  of  San  Fernando,  a  refinery  for  petroleum  was  estab- 
lished about  four  years  ago  by  a  stock  company.  At  this  place  there  are  five 
producing-wells,  each  about  a  hundred  and  forty  feet  deep,  giving  an  aggre- 
gate daily  product  of  crude  oil  of  from  forty  to  fifty  barrels.  There  are  also 
wells  at  Ventura,  and  a  refinery,  turning  out  twenty  barrels  of  refined  oil  daily. 
At  Wheeler's  Caiion,  sixty-seven  miles  from  Ventura,  there  are  oil-wells  ;  and 
a  pipe-line  is  being  laid  from  the  former  to  the  latter  place.  In  the  Cumber- 
land Valley,  in  Kentucky,  there  is  an  extensive  region  of  countr)'  underlaid 
with  coal-bearing  rocks.  In  boring  for  salt  in  1829  on  Little  Renox  Creek, 
about  half  a  mile  from  Big  Renox  Creek,  in  Cumberland  County,  oil  was 
struck  ;  and  the  well  called  the  '  (Ireat  .American  '  well  continued  to  flow  daily 
for  a  considerable  period,  producing  a  thousand  barrels  of  crude  petroleum. 
Recent  borings  in  Cumberland  County  have  resulted  in  obtaining  oil  in  large 
([uantitie?.  The  oil-bearing  rocks  are  said  by  Professor  Owen  to  extend  into 
Tennessee."  To  this  it  may  be  added,  that  oil  has  also  been  struck  in  Ohio, 
and  in  1866  there  were  some  six  or  seven  hundred  wells  in  Trumbull  County. 
At  Pomeroy,  Meigs  County,  still  later,  highly  productive  wells  have  been  bored. 
There  has  been  some  boring  in  .-\llcghany  County,  N.Y.,  but  with  little  result. 
Indeed,  at  points  innumerable  throughout  the  country,  attempts  have  been 
made  to  strike  oil ;  but,  except  at  those  here  specified,  these  enterprises  have 
been  mostly  failures. 

The  report  we  have  above  quoted  continues :  "  In  Western  Pennsylvania 
the  oil-district  commences  at  Edinburg,  about  twelve  miles  north  of  St. 
Petersburg,  in  Clarion  County,  and  extends  to  a  point  about  two  miles  south 
of  St.  Jo,  in  Butler  County,  being  nearly  forty  miles  long,  and  varying  from 
twenty  to  several  hundred  rods  in  width.     The  southern  extremity  of  this  belt 


772 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


\  \ 


it 


has  proved  to  be  the  most  prolific  portion  of  the  pr^'sent  oil-prochiring  terri- 
tory, including  a  distance  of  about  seven  miles  on  the  line  of  the  belt.  At 
Parker's  Landing,  about  fifteen  miles  from  St.  Jo,  the  oil-belt  crosses  beneath 
the  bed  of  the  .Alleghany  River. 

"  A  new  oil-region  has  been  somewhat  developed  in  McKean  and  Bradford 
Counties,  in  North-western  Pennsylvania,  in  the  territory  between  the  Phila- 
delphia and  Krie  Railway  and  the  .Atlantic  and  (Ireat-Western.  The  want  of 
facilities  for  transporting  oil  has  checked  i)roduction." 

Until  between  1850  anil  i860  the  finding  of  oil  in  this  country  was  scarcely 
ever  viewed  otherwise  than  with  indifference  or  annoyance.  Its  appearance  in 
.    .    ..  the  salt-springs  of  Ohio  and  elsewhere  i)roved  very  detrimental 

cance  of  the  to  the  interests  of  the  salt-boilers,  and  on  that  account  the  sight 
oii-induBtry     ^j^^^j  ^y^^}\  gf  it  were  detested.     Yet  so  early  as  the  commence- 

until  1839. 

ment  of  this  century  it  was  collected  for  market  in  Western  Penn- 
sylvania. Wherever  the  oil  would  manifest  itself  by  bubbling  up  with  water 
through  the  soil,  pits  were  dug,  and  the  two  litiuids  allowed  to  accumulate ; 
and  then  blankets  were  thrown  upon  the  surface  of  the  oil  (which  floated  on 
the  water),  soaked  with  the  greasy  mineral,  and  then  wrung  out  into  tubs.  A 
Mr.  Cary,  one  of  the  more  enterprising  of  the  early  settlers  along  Oil  Creek, 
is  reported  to  have  collected  or  purchased  cargoes  of  this  oil  from  his  neigh- 
bors, put  it  into  five-gallon  kegs,  slung  one  on  each  side  of  a  horse,  and  thus 
conveyed  it  to  Pittsburgh,  a  distance  of  seventy  or  eighty  miles ;  and  it  is 
related,  that,  at  a  later  period,  "  Gen.  Hayes,  who  settled  in  Franklin  (Venango 
County)  in  the  year  1803,  .  .  .  purchased  at  one  time  the  entire  product  of 
the  region,  amounting  to  sixteen  barrels,  which  he  sold  in  Pittsburgh  for  about 
a  dollar  per  gallon."  These  two  incidents  serve  admirably  to  illustrate  the 
diminutive  proportions  of  the  petroleum-industry  of  America  during  the  first 
half  of  the  present  century. 

The  true  beginning  of  the  great  era  of  petroleum-development  in  this 

country,  and  indeed  of  the  world,  was  Aug.  28,  1859  ;  when  an  artesian  well, 

sunk  on  the  lands  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rock  Oil  Company,  near 

Drake  well,     Titusville,  Struck  a  vein  of  hydrogen  gas  mingled  with  oil.     We 

and  it!  gj^^u  j^^^g  more  to  say  presently  of  this  organization,  its  previous 

influence* 

experiments,  and  its  employment  of  Col.  E.  L.  Drake  to  under- 
take this  enterprise.  This  well  was  sunk  to  a  depth  of  sixty-nine  feet  and  a 
half,  where  a  cavity  was  struck,  and  the  drill  immediately  sunk  more  than  a 
foot.  Previously  the  natural  oil  was  obtained  by  pumping  from  salt-wells,  or 
from  pits,  as  above  described  ;  the  processes  being  slow  and  laborious,  ami 
the  product  small.  But  here  was  a  vein  of  oil  struck  in  such  quantity,  that  it 
rose  in  the  well  to  within  five  inches  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  yielded  four 
hundred  gallons  of  oil  a  day,  unmingled  with  water. 

This  unparalleled  and  splendid  success  opened  up  to  people's  imagina- 
tions the  most  tremendous  possibilities.     Excitement  ran  high.     Attention  was 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


773 


oil-producing  terri- 
le  of  the  belt.  At 
elt  crosses  beneath 

Kean  and  Bradford 
between  the  I'hila- 
tern.    The  want  of 

country  was  scarcely 
Its  appearance  in 
ed  very  detrimental 
lat  account  the  sight 
■  as  the  commence- 
;et  in  Western  Penn- 
jbling  up  with  water 
wed  to  accumulate  ; 
oil  (which  floated  on 
ig  out  into  tubs.     A 
lers  along  Oil  Oeek, 
;  oil  from  his  neigh- 
of  a  horse,  and  thus 
hty  miles  ;   and  it  is 
n  Franklin  (Venango 
he  entire  product  of 
Pittsburgh  for  about 
ably  to  illustrate  the 
erica  during  the  first 

development  in  this 
rhen  an  artesian  well, 
k  Oil  Company,  near 
ingled  with  oil.     We 
mization,  its  previous 
L.  Drake  to  under- 
sixty-nine  feet  and  a 
y  sunk  more  than  a 
Ig  from  salt-wells,  or 
w  and  laborious,  and 
such  quantity,  that  it 
ace,  and  yielded  four 

to  people's  imagina- 
high.     Attention  was 


directed  to  the  locality,  and  to  the  new  mode  of  procuring  this  abundant 

product.     I'jiterijrise   was    stimulated    to   a   remarkable    deuree.   „ 

i>  1      1  .1.1,1,,  .  Excitement 

hverybody  wanted  to  buy  land,  and  to  bore.     I'ropciiy  rose  im-   produced 

niensely  in  value  for  miles  around  :   the  field  of  operations  was   ^^  "^''' 

rapidly  extended  down  Oil  Creek  and  Alleghany  River,  and  nu-   ^'"°^"'*'" 

merous  wells  were  sunk.     Few  of  them  paid,  however ;  and  a  slight  re-action 

soon  set  in.     It  siiculd  be  remarked,  that  as  yet  jnunps  were  necessary  to 

extract  the  oil;  and  hence  the  year  of  1X59,  with  its  great  accomplishments, 

was  rather  a  period  of  promise  than  of  realization. 

The  great  element  of  success  in  the  oil-industry  was  the  use  of  the  artesian 

well ;  but  a  better  application  of  tiie  principle  was  necessar)'.     In  i860  some 

one  conceived  the  idea  of  sinkinir  wells  to  a  L'reater  depth  than   r. 

*-  01  ueeper  weUs 

formerly,  believing  that  the  more  productive  veins  were  deeper  reach  richer 
down.  Accordingly  wells  were  bored  to  the  third  stratum  of  sand-  *"pp''*"- 
rock,  alternately  piercing  shales  and  other  deposits,  and  going  to  the  depth  of 
several  hundred  feet.  The  result  of  this  experiment  was  startling.  An  accumu- 
lation of  oil  and  gas  was  struck,  which  was  under  such  heavy  internal  pressure 
that  the  boring-apparatus  was  hurled  from  the  whole  length  of  the  bore,  and 
the  contents  of  the  vein  gushed  forth  in  a  torrent  of  great  impetuosity.  These 
wells  were  tubed  and  secured  with  great  ilifficulty,  and  the  science  of  managing 
them  necessarily  attained  great  development  in  a  short  time.  The  cjuantity  of 
oil  now  obtained  was  vastly  increased,  some  wells  flowing  as  much  as  three 
thousand  or  four  thousand  barrels  a  day  for  a  long  time.  This  yield  was  not 
steadily  maintaineil,  however,  the  ([uantity  and  force  of  the  discharge  lessening 
gradually,  —  sometimes  suddenly  antl  unaccountably  when  oil  was  struck  near 
by,  —  imtil  pumi)ing  became  necessary  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  or 
months  ;  and,  finally,  wells  that  had  made  their  owners  a  huge  fortune  would 
become  improduitive.  Old  wells  were  known,  though,  sometimes  to  recover 
some  of  their  former  productiveness. 

From  the  year  i<S6o  the  develoi)ment  of  the  petroleum-industry  was  so  rapid 
and  vast  as  to  be  without  a  parallel  in  .American  history,  all  things  considered. 
Though  the  oil-lands  proper  were  contained  within  a  small  geo-   ^^^  sudden 
graphical  area,  the  influence  of  the  excitement  and  greed  of  gain   and  vast  de- 
thereby  aroused  extended  all  over  the  country,  and  even  to  foreign  veiopmentof 

^  -1  '*'"  industry. 

lands.  C'ompanies  were  formed  to  bore  for  oil  in  thousands  of 
places  where  traces  of  petroleum  had  been  noticed  for  years  previous.  Land 
that  was  theretofore,  and  even  then,  worthless,  brought  fabulous  prices.  In  the 
oil-region  itself  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  buy  land.  The  business  of  getting 
out  and  refining  oil  grew  like  Jonah's  gourd.  Derricks,  tall,  strange,  but  useful, 
sprang  up  l)y  the  thousand.  Cities,  even,  came  into  being  almost  in  a  day. 
Huge  fortunes  were  made  in  weeks.  There  was  a  new  class  of  shoddy  aris- 
tocracy created  by  the  wealth  ]iroduced  by  petroleum.  The  ignorant  but 
\ucky,  the  low  but  shrewd,  suddenly  became  immensely  rich.     New  branches 


'KVfi:' 


l|"'1 
W^'-^ 


*>^r' (.■,,, 


774 


IND  US  TK/A  L    II IS  TOK  Y 


n: 


of  industry  essential  to  the  operations  of  tlie  oil-interff-t  —  improved  mininj^ 
apparatus  and  processes,  railroad  extensions,  new  kinds  of  cars,  pipe-lines, 
oil-boats,  tanks,  refineries,  barrel-facuries,  lamp-factories,  ship-building,  co-i)|)- 
erative  organizations  of  producers,  transporters,  refiners,  and  exporters  —  were 
reciuired  to  meet  the  exorbitant  anil  pressing  demands  of  the  petroleum-traffic. 
Hanking,  insurance,  and  other  interests,  were  reciuired  to  enlarge  their  tacilitics. 
Tile  arteries  of  <lomestic  trade  ar.  '  transportation  were  made  to  jjulsate  with 
unnatural  life  and  vigor,  and  our  whole  business-system  was  ([uickened  into 
abnormal  activity.  Our  foreign  commerce  was  rapidly  extended,  petroleum 
leaping  to  the  third  rank  among  our  exi)orts  inside  of  fifteen  years. 

Hut  the  lowering  of  ])rices  in  consetpience  of  increased  production  ruined 
many  owners  of  small  wells.  Speculators  bought  land  at  high  prices  wlii(  1\ 
proved  good  for  nothing.  Money  was  lavished  on  derricks  and  boring-im|)lc- 
ments  and  labor,  which  never  returned  tiic  ailventurers  one  single  cent  ;  and, 
as  the  money  was  often  borrowed,  the  chain  of  indiviilual  disaster  sometimes 
had  several  links.  The  world  hears  mostly  of  men's  successes,  and  little  of 
their  failures ;  but  along  the  pathway  of  the  petroleum-interest's  progress  are 
strewn  a  host  of  wrecks  of  fortune. 

It  is  necessary  tiiat  one  know  something  about  the  ex])erimcnts  which  had 
been  made  to  produce  artificial  illuminating-oil  before  he  can  fully  understand 
how  C(j1.  Drake  came  to  bore  for  natural  oil,  and  also  how  the  way 
was  opened  for  promjnly  utilizing  these  newly-discovered  pnxhu  ts. 
Nearly  tliree  centuries  ago  coal  gas  was  discovered  in  Kngiand. 
though  it  was  not  used  until  about  1 792.  The  exi)eriments  connected  with  its 
manufacture  yieldetl  also  various  natural  oils,  and  Swiss  and  French  chemists 
set  themselves  to  utilizing  these.  Mr.  James  Young  of  Hathgate,  Scotland. 
took  out  a  patent  for  distilling  oil  from  coal  in  1850,  and  later  got  one  out  in 
the  United  States,  which  expired  in  1.S71.  The  product  of  the  first  distillation 
was  a  dark,  crude  oil,  which  it  was  necessary  to  refine  before  using.  ( )ur 
word  "petroleum"  means  rock-oil,  and  api)lies  more  particularly  to  the  natiinil 
product  distilled  from  carboniferous  sliales  in  Nature's  laboratory  by  the  iuiu  r 
heat  of  the  earth.  The  artificial  product  from  distilling  coal  is  known  as 
"kerosene."  The  crude  oil  in  each  case,  however,  is  very  much  tiie  same  in 
composition,  as  are  also  the  refinetl  oils  from  the  two  sources. 

The  Kerosene  Uil  Company  founded  the  first  distillery  and  refinery  in  this 
country,  on  Young's  system,  at  Newtown  Creek,  L.I.,  in  1S54.  They  utili/cd 
I'lrst  refine-  hitmr.inous  coal.  The  business  ra])idly  extended,  especially  in 
ry  in  United  Oiiio,  where  soft  coals  alK)und  ;  and  in  1S60  there  were  no  less 
than  twenty-five  refineries  in  that. State  alone,  six  in  Kentucky,  one 
in  St.  Louis,  eight  or  ten  in  Virginia,  ten  in  Pennsylvania,  five  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  New- York  City,  and  seven  in  New  Kngiand. 

Coincident  with  the  distillation  of  an  illuminating-oil  from  coal  were  experi- 
ments to  perfect  a  lamp  that  would  bum  it.     Used  as  our  old  sperm-oil  01 


Early  exper 
iments  in 
refining  oil. 


OF    THE    UNITF.l)    STATES. 


775 


>,.< 


—  improved  mining 
of  cars,  pipe-lines, 
ihip-buililing,  co-oi)- 
11(1  exporters  —  were 
lie  petroleum-trat'tie. 
iila'ge  their  facilities, 
lacle  to  pulsate  with 
was  (iiii(  kened  into 
extended,  petroleum 
en  years. 

,'d  production  mined 
It  high  ])riccs  wlii(  i\ 
ts  and  boring-imi)ie- 
le  single  cent ;  and, 
il  disaster  sometimes 
:cesses,  and  little  of 
iterest's   progress  are 

pcrinicnts  which  lia<l 
can  fully  understand 
md  also  how  the  way 
-discovered  products, 
overed  in  Kngland, 
ts  connected  with  its 
md   French  cheiniNts 

Halligate,  Scotland, 
later  got  one  out  in 
)f  the  first  distillation 

before  using.  <  >ur 
cularly  to  the  natunil 

)oratory  by  the  iuiui- 
l;  coal  is  known  as 
much  the  same  in 

CIS. 

and  refinery  in  this 
S54.  They  utilized 
ended,  especially  in 
3  there  were  no  less 
,ix  in  Kentucky,  one 
ive  in  the  immediate 

)m  coal  were  experi- 
)ur  old  sperm-oil  01 


r\ 


,i  i-i 


1 


...:■:■' .■•^^mt^m 


776 


/XDi'S TKIA I.    ms TOR Y 


SH 


BUieir* 
experiment! 


spirit-gas  was,  kerosene  had  a  dee])  red  (lame,  and  ),'ave  off  smoke  an<l  an 
KaroMita-  ulfensive  odor.  'I'lie  invention  of  tlie  modern  Imrner  and  rinnnu-y 
lamp.  (,,  inaki.  (In;  consuniption  ( omplete,  clarity  the  (lame,  and  avoid  tiif 

smoke  and  sten«h.  was  larj,'ely  the  work  of  Americans,  thonj;h  the  Austrians 
assisted  greatly.     'I'he  kerosene-lam])  was  ])racti(  ally  jjcrfeded  helore  1X60. 

'Thus  it  will  be  seen,  that,  while  kerosene  wai  not  jirodiiccd  in  large  endiigh 
<juantities  to  bring  it  into  very  common  use,  it  was  widely  known,  ami  all  tlu 
Eveieth  ft  (acilities  for  its  use  were  devised.  It  only  remained  to  (ind  the 
natural  oil  in  large  ipiantities,  therefore,  tt)  make  it  chea]).  and  its 
use  universal.  I'or  this  latter  ( onsununation  the  worl<l  is  indebted 
to  Cleorge  H.  Missell,  formerly  of  the  firm  of  I'Aeleth  &  Uissell.  In  the  sum 
mer  of  1853,  while  visiting  friends  at  Dartmouth  College,  where  he  had  gradii 
ated,  and  whither  he  had  now  come  from  New  Orle.ms  in  |>ursuit  of  healtli, 
he  was  shown  a  bottle  of  crude  i)etroleum  taken  Irom  the  neighborhood  of 
Titusville,  Fenn.  .About  this  time  he  met  a  former  New-Orleans  friend,  Mr. 
Eveieth,  and  broached  this  subject  to  him.  They  went  next  year  to  Venango 
(-ounty,  and  leased  the  ])rin(  ijial  oil-rtgion  for  ninetv  nine  years,  free  of  roy.ilty, 
paying  only  five  thousand  dollars  outright.  'I'lie  lands  were  trenched,  and  the 
accumulating  surAu:c-water  and  oil  were  |>iuni)ed  into  vats  by  one  hired  man 
and  the  a])])ar;itus  of  a  saw-mill.  'I'hree  barrels  of  oil  were  taken  then(  e  to 
New  Ilavtn  in  1855  to  be  analyzed  by  Professor  Henjamin  Silliman,  jun.,  the 
exjK'nse  being  borne  intirely  by  Kveleth  iV  Ihssell. 

Elaborate  and  thorough  tests  were  made,  which  showed  that  the  petroleum 
on  distillation  would  yield  a  nmnber  of  distinct  |)ro(hicts ;  among  them 
Productidis-  "''M''^''''*'  "''  ^'i*-'  hghtest  and  most  colorless  of  illuminating-oils,  a 
covered  from  fine  lul)ricating-oil,  -Iirk  and  heavy,  ben/.ine,  and  i)araffine.  The 
analysis.  ^j|^  \siix\i.  found  to  p(..  ».>s  certain  advantages  over  other  oils,  su(  h 
as  less  tendency  to  thicken  from  cold.  I'he  gas  manufactured  from  the  ])etro- 
leum  could  not  be  used  with  an  ordinary  burner,  but  gave  a  good  (lame  with 
an  argand. 

This  re|)ort   excited   great   interest  in  New  Haven,  and  cajjitalists  there 
wanted  to  buy  a  share  in  Kveleth  &  IJissell's  interest.     They  obtained  a  third 
thereof,  the  original  i)roi)rietors  retaining  two-thirds  ;  and  then  they 
over  all  united  in  forming  a  corporation  known  as  "The   Pennsylvania 

Rock-Oil  Com])any,"  whose  aim  should  be  the  collection  and  sale 
of  oil  from  their  lands.  The  work  of  trenching  was  continued  ; 
l)ut  in  1857  it  was  i)ro])osed  to  sink  an  artesian  well.  This  was  not  done, 
however,  until  1859,  as  stated  heretofore.  The  work  was  done  under  the 
direction  of  one  of  the  stockholders,  ("ol.  K.  I-.  Drake,  formerly  a  conductor 
on  the  New- York  and  New- Haven  Railroad.  The  result  of  his  experiments 
we  have  already  stated. 

The  transi)ortation  of  oil  is  one  of  the  most  imjiortant  of  its  dejiendent 
JQterests.     Next  after  knowing  how  to  utilize  a  natural  pro(hict,  and  how  to 


Silliman's 
report. 


OF    THE    VNlTF.n   STATF.S. 


777 


,L'  off  smoke  and  an 
1  burner  and  chinnuy 
•  tlanu',  and  avoid  llu' 
thotiuli  the  Austrian-, 
-(ted  liefore  iS6o. 
hired  in  lar^e  enough 
ly  known,  and  all  the 
remained  to  lind  tlie 
lake  it  (  hea)).  and  its 

the  world  is  iniKlilcil 

Itissell.  In  the  siiui 
•,  where  he  had  gradu 
s  in  pursuit  of  healili. 

the  nclKhhorhood  ol 
L-w-()rleans  friend,  Mr. 

next  year  to  Venan^;i» 
10  years,  free  of  royalty, 
rere  trenehcd,  and  the 
vats  hy  one  hired  man 

were  taken  thence  to 
unin  Silliman,  jun.,  tlie 


ivei 


1  that  the  petroleutti 

odiuts  ;    amon^;    them 

of  illuminatinji-oils,  a 

■,  and  parart'ine.      The 

over  other  oils,  sue  h 

•lured  from  the  jietro- 

ive  a  good  flame  witii 

and  rajiitalists  there 
They  obtained  a  third 
i-thirds  ;  and  then  they 
as  "The  Pennsylvania 
le  collection  and  sale 
ichin^  was  continued  ; 
riiis  was  not  done, 
was  done  under  the 
formerly  a  conductor 
lilt  of  his  experiments 

•tant  of  its  dependent 
product,  and  how  to 


derive  it,  the  work  of  carryinj;  it  from  the  point  of  production  to  the  places  of 
•  onsiimption,  or  at  least  to  the  ^reat  centres  of  <listril)ution,  is  the  most  essen- 
tial fe.iture  t)f  the  interest  ;  and  tiiis  is  pet  uliarly  true  of  petroleum.  'The  two 
modes  of  i onveyaiu  e  utilized  at  first  in  the  oil-region  of  i'eiinsylvania  were 
horse-power  and  barges. 

A  barrel  of  oil  weighs  about  three  hundred  and  sixty  poumls.  and  .seven  or 
.  iglit  of  these  made  a  load  for  a  team.  Sik  h  was  tiie  immense  amount  of 
uaming  to  be  done,  and  so  reniimerative  were  the  rates  at  first.  Transport- 
ihat  small  fortunes  were  made  by  the  projirietors  of  single  estab-  '"«o"- 
lishments.  A  thousand  teams  would  often  go  over  the  roads  from  the  wells  to 
■,(iiiie  large  town  the  >ame  div  ;  and  the  mu<l  formed  by  the  rain,  tlie  le.ikage 
III  oil,  and  the  travel,  was  soinetiiing  fearful.  Wagons  and  teams  would  often 
he  ruined  in  a  few  days  by  this  severe  usage  ;  but  the  profits  would  enable  a 
111. in  to  buy  anew  viry  fretpiently  without  loss.  Hut  teams  were  not  relied 
ii|i(pn,  wiiere,  ,is  was  ot'ten  the  ( ,ise,  w.iter-transportation  could  be  had. 

I'he  oil-region  lies  along  the  valleys  of  Oil  Creek  and  the  Alleghany  River; 
and  the  wells  were  never  very  many  miles  away  from  these  two  streams,  and  often 
(lose  to  them.  .\t  first  barges  were  used  to  carry  barrels :  after-  u»e  of 
wirds  the  oil  would  be  dist  barged  right  into  liarges  made  especiallv  ''»'K'=»- 
for  the  puri)ose.  .\t  first  liiese  recept  icles.  holding  anywhere  from  twenty-five 
barrels  to  twelve  hundred,  would  be  without  decks  or  jiartitions,  and  thus  were 
e.isily  upset  and  emjitied  :  afterwards  bulkheads  were  put  in  to  keep  the  oil 
i'.din  being  shaken  aliout.  and  to  prevent  the  craft's  balance  being  easily  dis- 
tiiri)ed.  A  vast  amount  of  tiinl)er  was  used  in  maki'ig  them,  and  the  yards 
wliere  they  were  built  and  kejit  would  show  many  s(|uare  acres  of  closely- 
arranged  boats. 

The  "  pond -freshet."  a  deluge  of  stored  water  in  Oil  Creek,  had  for  many 
years  been  resorted  to  by  the  lumbermen  of  that  region  in  order  to  carry  their 
numerous  and  immense  rafts  down  the  shallow  stream  to  the  "Pond- 
.Mleghany.  These  rafts,  of  course,  were  swept  down  simultane-  ''"het." 
ously ;  and  the  great  jierils  and  catastrophes  made  the  occasions  highly  excit- 
ing and  dangerous.  The  adoption  of  this  expedient  to  carry  down  the  oil- 
liarges,  in  fleets  of  about  two  hundred  at  a  time,  led  to  even  greater  casualties 
and  adventure  than  ever.  'I'he  price  which  the  shippers  paid  the  owners  of  the 
(lain  for  a  pond-freshet  varied  from  a  hundred  dollars  to  two  hundred  and  fifty, 
although  as  high  as  four  hundretl  dollars  has  been  ])aid.  This  was  raised  by 
assessment,  the  cost  being  but  a  few  cents  a  barrel,  the  oil  brought  down  by 
one  freshet  otten  amounting  to  fifteen  thousand  or  twenty  thousand  l)arrels; 
but  there  is  record  of  fortv  thousand  barrels  coming  down  at  one  time.  Pitts- 
Imrgh,  at  the  junction  of  the  .Mleghany  and  Monongahela  Rivers,  was  long  the 
great  centre  where  the  oil-shipments  accumulated  and  were  distributed  ;  and  a 
fleet  of  a  thousand  barges  and  tow-boats  was  used  on  the  Alleghany  and  Ohio 
Rivers. 


778 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


'     ! 


J 


Pipes. 


But  the  railroad  companies  were  soon  alive  to  the  imperfection  of  horse 
and  boat  transportation.     All  the  existing  lines  in  Western  Pennsylvania  rap- 
idly made  extensions,  and  numerous  local  roads  were  built  by  new 

Railroads.  to^i.i-i^  . 

corporations.  By  1807  the  whole  oil-region  was  covered  witli  ,1 
network  of  railroads  ;  and  from  this  circumscribed  area  many  threads  of  com- 
munication reached  out  toward  Ohio,  Lake  Erie,  Buffalo,  Olean,  Philadclpliin, 
Baltimore,  and  Pittsburgh.  The  many  new  towns  and  villages  built  up  by  the 
oil-interest  had  the  most  perfect  railroad-connection  with  the  outside  world. 
The  oil,  whether  pumped  or  spouting,  was  discharged  into  elevated  sheet-iron 
tanks  of  enormous  capacity ;  from  these  were  extended  pipes  of  greater  or 
less  length  to  the  branch  railroad-tracks ;  and  platform-cars  bearing  tanks  of 
from  forty  to  fifty  barrels'  capacity  were  thus  very  easily  freighted.  The  refin- 
ing-interest  was  then  developed  rapidly  at  great  distances  from  the  prochu  int; 
region ;  but  it  was  confined  principally  to  a  few  cities  either  on  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  or  on  Lake  Erie. 

A  still  greater  step  in  oil-transportation  was  taken  when  the  constniction 
of  long  pipe-lines  from  the  oil-region  to  large  cities  was  undertaken.  Iron 
pipes  of  two  inches  diameter,  closely  jointed,  are  laid  in  shallow 
trenches,  generally  along  the  railroad-lines.  As  the  cold  cannot 
affect  them,  they  work  as  well  in  winter  as  in  summer.  Oravitalion  usually 
causes  the  oil  to  flow  through  them  with  sufficient  rapidity,  althougii  pumping- 
engines  are  sometimes  employed.  The  pipe  companies  receipt  for  the  amount 
taken  into  their  pipes  from  the  tanks,  as  shown  by  the  gauges,  and  agree  to 
deliver  the  registered  quantity  at  the  termiiuis  of  their  line,  often  hundreds  of 
miles  away.  This  being  the  cheapest  method  of  transportation,  producers  are 
forced  to  utilize  it,  or  lose  money.  .As  the  pipe-lines  have  been  bought  up 
and  concentrated  by  a  few  persons,  the  transportation  of  crude  petroleum 
from  the  place  where  it  is  produced  to  the  place  where  it  is  refineil  and 
marketed  is  in  the  hands  of  a  monopoly,  who  are  thus  able  to  control  the 
markets  of  tiie  world ;  and,  as  the  refining  and  exporting  have  likewise  been 
centralized  and  allied  with  the  pipe-line  interest,  the  production  and  price  of 
oil  are  com])letely  controlled  by  the  "  ring." 

Before  proceeding  briefly  to  state  the  development  the  oil-interest  lias 
attained,  and  to  consider  the  probable  future  of  the  production,  it  may  be 
Loss  of  oil  by  remarked,  that  few  industries  of  the  country  have  been  and  are 
fire  and  affected  by  catastroplie  so  easily  and  suddenly  as  the  pclroleui... 

°°  '  Fire  and  flood  have   done  dam."ge  at  one   time  or  another  to 

petroleum  in  large  quantities,  and  not  only  wrought  the  ruin  of  proprietors  and 
speculators,  but  have  decidedly  affected  the  general  market.  A  crush  of  oil- 
boats  in  an  ice-gorge  in  December,  1862,  at  Oil  City,  robbed  the  owners  of  over 
fifty  thousand  barrels  of  oil,  and  involved  a  loss,  real  and  contingent,  of  fne 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  Before  the  event,  the  ice-blockade  in  the  river  and 
the  scarcity  of  oil  at  Pittsburgh  put  the  price  up  to  thirty-ono  and  thirty-two 


¥m 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


779 


imperfection  of  horse 
em  Pennsylvania  rap- 
aads  were  built  by  new 
)n  was  covered  with  .■> 
many  threads  of  com- 
o,  Olean,  Philadclphi;i, 
•illages  built  up  by  tin- 
vith  the  outside  world. 
nto  elevated  sheel-irdn 
ed  pipes  of  greater  or 
i-cars  bearing  tanks  of 
'  freighted.    The  refin- 
es from  the  producini,' 
,  either  on  the  Atlantic 

when  the  construction 
was  undertaken.     Iron 
ited,  are  laid  in  shallow 
;.     As  the  cold  cannot 
er.     Gravitation  usually 
dity,  although  puniping- 
ps  receipt  for  the  amount 
ic  gauges,  and  agree  to 
line,  often  hundreds  of 
portation,  producers  are 
s  have  been  bought  \\\> 
on   of  crude  pctrolenni 
vhere  it  is  refined  ami 
lus  able  to  control  the 
ing  have  likewise  been 
roiluction  and  price  of 

ent  the  oil-interest  lias 
production,  it  may  be 
ntry  have  been  and  are 
cnly  as  the  petrolem... 
nc  time  or  another  to 
ruin  of  proprietors  m-'A 
arket.  A  crush  of  oil- 
bbed  the  owners  of  over 
and  contingent,  of  five 
)lockade  in  the  river  ami 
thirty-one  and  thirty-two 


Production. 


cents  a  gallon  :  a  few  days  after  the  disaster,  when  the  channel  was  open,  the 
price  was  only  nine  cents,  and  it  kept  receding  the  rest  of  the  winter.  The 
next  year  forty  large  oil-boats  were  burned  on  the  creek ;  and  one  of  them 
burned  up  a  fine  suspension-bridge  ac  franklin,  the  total  loss  amounting  to  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The  drifting  masses  of  rose-colored  flame 
afforded  at  night  a  magnificent  scene.  The  breakage  of  bulk  in  immense 
quantities,  and  the  catching  fire  of  oil  on  the  water,  have  also  wrought 
devastation  to  wharves  and  shipping  for  miles.  Spouting-wells  have  taken  fire 
from  adjacent  engines,  and  bursting  tanks  that  held  thousands  of  barrels  — 
first  flooding  a  wide  area,  including  buildings,  wells,  and  machinery,  and  then 
becoming  ignited  —  have  also  figured  prominently  in  the  many  disasters  that 
are  recorded  in  petroleum's  history. 

There  are  no  statistics  to  show  the  amount  of  oil  produced  in  1859  ;  but 
the  owners  of  the  Drake  well  at  first  controlled  the  supply,  and  kept  the  price 
at  twenty  dollars  per  barrel  the  last  four  months  of  the  year. 
During  i860  the  price  ranged  from  two  dollars  to  twenty  dollars, 
the  average  being  nine  dollars  and  sixty  cents.  The  production  rapidly 
increased  the  latter  part  of  that  year  and  through  1861.  While  the  home-trade 
was  hardly  developed,  still  less  was  the  export  trade.  The  overstocking  of 
the  market  without  sufficient  outlet  ran  the  price  down  to  ten  cents  a  barrel 
during  a  good  part  of  1861,  the  average  for  the  year  being  forty-nine  cents. 
In  1862  our  foreign  trade  had  become  immensely  developed,  amounting  to 
10,387,701  gallons,  or  250,000  barrels.  In  1863  we  nearly  trebled  this,  and  in 
1864  had  quite  done  so.  Our  total  product  in  1864  was  over  1,000,000  bar- 
rels, of  which  we  exported  three-quarters.  Ten  years  later,  our  export  was 
nearly  6,000,000  barrels,  —  an  increase  of  eightfold;  and,  as  the  exports  bore 
about  the  same  relation  to  our  home-consumption,  the  total  production  had 
risen  to  between  7,000,000  and  8,000,000  barrels.  This  increase  was  not  at 
an  even  rate;  yet  it  was  steady.  In  1864  the  price  advanced  to  an  average 
of  seven  dollars  and  sixty-two  cents  a  barrel,  a  slight  check  in  the  production 
having  been  experienced,  and  the  outlet  having  been  enlarged.  During  the 
next  six  years  it  fluctuated  between  nine  dollars  and  a  half  and  three  dollars. 
From  1872  to  1876  the  average  export  was  over  5,000,000  barrels.  In  the 
last-named  year  the  exact  export  was  6,594,237  barrels  out  of  a  total  product 
of  10,191,452.  The  value  of  the  export  of  1876  was  a  trifle  under  $50,000,000, 
and  of  the  total  product  about  575,000,000.  In  1877  our  product  was  in- 
creased about  one-third ;  but  the  price  fell  off  neariy  one-fifth  on  an  a\erage 
for  the  year,  and  for  all  grades  of  oil  and  residuum.  The  yield  might  be 
said  to  have  been  worth  nearly  $90,000,000. 

This  is  neariy  equal  to  the  amount  invested  in  oil-lands,  tankage,  and 
ir.aclnnery  for  pumping  crude  petroleum.     The  railroads  and  pipe-  capital  in- 
lines  built  especially  for  the   petroleum  interest  represent  $25,-  vested. 
000,000  or  $30,000,000  of  capital,  and  the  refineries  something  less.     Petro- 


i||p«^ 


780 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY   OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


•  1  f 


■!    i 


I 


leum,  therefore,  pays  over  sixty  per  cent  upon  the  capital  invested  annuall} ; 
which  shows  the  advantages  of  a  monopoly  controlling  an  interest. 

It  is  a  very  interesting  question,  how  long  our  petroleum-supply  will  hold 
out.  Thus  far,  while  individual  wells  have  always  proved  short-lived,  our  yitlil 
Future  sup-  has  Steadily  increased  through  a  period  of  eighteen  years.  Wo 
P'y-  have  no  rival  in  the  world  to  fear  at  present,  and  our  increase 

keeps  pace  with  the  increasing  demands  of  the  world.  The  enlargement  of 
our  yield  might  be  more  rapid,  were  that  of  the  demand  likewise;  and  if  (jil 
shall  be  found  in  other  quarters  of  the  globe  in  large  quantities,  and  our  pro- 
duction is  necessarily  reduced  in  order  to  avoid  overstocking  the  market,  wc 
shall  be  more  economical  in  the  exhaustion  of  our  treasure.  But  the  best 
judges  seem  to  think  that  the  supply  is  practically  unlimited,  as  is  that  of 
our  coal.  Though  it  may  have  filtered  hundreds  of  miles  laterally  from 
the  point  of  its  formation,  owing  to  the  porous  character  of  some  of  the  adja- 
cent strata  of  rocks,  the  fractured  condition  of  others,  and  the  upheaval  of  vast 
ranges  of  moimtains  from  the  original  level  of  their  composite  strata,  there 
is  little  question  that  the  oil  has  been  distilled  from  coal  and  from  carbonifer- 
ous shales  that  could  not  be  used  for  fuel.  As  our  enormous  consumption 
of  oil  does  not  equal  the  oil  producing  possibilities  of  the  coal  we  conscnie, 
as  the  shales  have  yielded  oil  beside  that  derived  from  the  coal,  and  as  we  have 
drawn  on  our  coal-account  with  Mother  Earth  much  more  largely  than  on  our 
oil-account,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  she  will  continue  to  honor  o.r 
drafts  unlimitedly  for  many  generations  to  coiiie. 


9 


O    STATES. 


al  invested  annual  h  ; 
1  interest, 
leum-supply  will  hold 

short-lived,  our  yitld 

eighteen  years.  \\e 
ent,  and  our  increase 

The  enlargement  (if 
I  likewise  ;  and  if  ml 
lantities,  and  our  pro- 
icking  the  market,  we 
easure.  But  the  hest 
ilimited,  as  is  that  of 
f   miles   laterally  from 

of  some  of  the  adja- 
id  the  upheaval  of  vast 
:omposite  strata,  there 

and  from  carbon  ifer- 
normous  consumption 
the  coal  we  consume, 
le  coal,  and  as  we  have 
are  largely  than  on  our 
;ontinue  to  honor  o«.r 


BOOK    V. 


BANKING,  INSURANCE,  AND  COMMERCE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


BANKING. 


EARLY   COLONIAL    PERIOD. 


American 
banking. 


NO  country  has  ever  tried  so  many  experiments  in  banking  as  the  United 
States.  This  is  due  to  several  causes.  In  the  first  place,  while  the 
nations  of  the  earth  had  from  a  very  early  day  used  money  of  ^  •  j  , 
various  kinds,  and  individual  money-lenders  had  practised  their  perimenuin 
profession  for  centuries  under  more  or  less  rigid  governmental 
regulation  and  protection,  the  idea  of  joint-stock  corporations  to 
carry  on  the  business,  v/hose  notes,  properly  secured,  should  form  a  popu- 
lar currency,  came  into  notice  in  the  world  only  after  the  foundation  of  the 
American  colonies.  Furthermore,  the  peculiar  forms  of  colonial  and  national 
government  in  this  country,  and  the  spirit  of  the  people,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
lack  of  individual  capitalists  in  early  times,  stimulated  and  gave  free  play  to 
business-enterprise  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  was  possible  under  the  mo- 
nopolistic and  monarchical  institutions  of  Europe. 

As  early  as  1715,  when  the  mystery  of  banking  was  first  attracting  the 
attention  of  F^uropean  financiers,  John  Colman  of  Massachusetts,  and  other 
merchants,  proposed  to  establish  a  bank  which  should  issue  notes,  First  Ameri. 
the  security  therefor  being  land.  A  party  immediately  sprang  up  ""  project, 
which  opposed  this  scheme,  and  which  advocated,  instead,  a  system  of  loaning 
by  the  Provincial  Government  to  the  inhabitant,  on  interest  payable  annually, 
which  should  be  applied  toward  the  public  expenses.  The  governor  and  his 
council  refused  to  sanction  Colman's  project,  and  referred  him  to  the  legisla- 
ture. Nothing  daunted,  he  effected  an  association  which  presented  the  matter 
to  that  body.  The  opposition  there  met  them  with  a  counter-proposal  for  the 
issuance  of  a  provincial  loan  to  the  extent  of  fifty  thousand  pounds  ;  and  this 
was  adopted.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  government  of  the  Bay  State  in  its 
early  days  was,  as  was  eminently  proper  then,  paternal  in  its  helpfulness. 
Inasmuch  as  the  mercantile  portion  of  the  community  regarded  the  above- 
mentioned  loan  insufficient  for  their  needs,  and  clamored  for  more,  the  Col- 

783 


ifrn 


**■• 


"'"ffft.  i    r  f" 


.V 


ii 


( i 


n\\ 


It! 


Ml 


■  11 
if 


i' 


784 


/A'/J  ;  'J  7'AV//  /,    J//S  :  'OK  y 


of  the 
system 


man  party  were  encouraged  to  continue  their  contest  fur  the  establishment  of 
private  banks  of  issue,  but     itiiout  success. 

The  system  of  money-lending  adopted  by  Massachusetts  soon  found  favor 
in  other  colonies,  nearly  all  of  which  had  tried  the  experiment  before  the 
Extension  breakiug-out  of  the  Revolution.  Menjamin  Franklin  heartily  ap 
jiroved  the  i)lan  ;  which,  by  the  way,  proved  decidedly  profitahlr 
to  the  colonies  which  embarked  in  it.  So  long  as  the  security 
taken  was  ample,  of  course  the  taxjjayers  incurred  no  risk  ;  yet  there  was  ( 011- 
stant  danger  of  loans  being  based  upon  insufilicient  security.  This  system,  as 
also  that  devised  by  Cohnan,  was  tried  with  occasional  variation  ;  but  all  of 
these  experiments  proved  somewhat  inefticient  and  siiort-livcd. 

The  first  institution  worthy  of  the  name  of  a  bank,  organized  in  this  coun. 
try,  was  founded,  not  with  any  purpose  of  enriching  those  connected  therewiiii, 
Bank  of  "O""  ^^'  K'cilitatiug  ordinary  trade,  but  of  patriotically  assisting  tli& 

North  infant  republic  of  the  United  States  to  achieve  its  national  inde- 

merica.  pendence.  At  a  meeting  of  citizens  heltl  in  Philadelphia  June  17, 
T780.  it  was  resolved  to  open  a  "security  sul)scription  to  the  amount  of 
three  hundred  thousand  pounds,  Pennsylvania  currency,  real  money,"  the 
same  to  be  used  in  purchasing  necessary  supplies  for  Washington's  army.  At 
this  time  the  soldiers  were  in  extreme  need,  and  on  the  verge  of  mutiny ;  and 
the  Federal  Government  was  unable  to  make  the  requisite  provision  for  the 
emergency,  although  it  was  expected  to  re-imburse  the  subscribers  ultimately. 
Thomas  Paine,  the  distinguished  free-thinker,  and  at  that  time  clerk  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Assembly,  was  active  in  promoting  the  scheme,  and  encloseil 
five  hundred  dollars  toward  making  up  the  fund  to  Blair  McClenaghan,  who, 
as  also  Robert  Morris,  subscribed  two  hur.i'red  pounds  in  hard  money. 

Four  days  later  the  matter  was  brought  up  in  the  Continental  Congress, 
which  then  met  in  Philadelphia,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to 
confer  with  the  inspectors  and  din.ctors  of  the  proposed  institution. 
Subsequently  the  committee  reported  a  series  of  resolutions,  whii  h 
were  unanimously  adopted,  appreciatively  recognizing  the  inten- 
tion of  the  associators,  accepting  their  patriotic  offer,  and  pledging 
repayment. 

The  eminent  financier  and  patriot,  Robert  Morris,  then  superintendent  of 
finance,  devised,  in  the  spring  of  1781,  the  system  on  which  the  bank  should 
ojjcrate ;  and,  on  the  26th  of  Mi'.y,  Congress  approved  it.  In 
riss connec-  December  the  institution  was  by  that  body  formally  chartered  as 
the  Pank  of  North  .America,  with  a  capital  limited  to  10,000,000 
Si)anish  silver-milled  dollars.  The  amount  of  cajjital  paid  in  by 
the  individual  stockholders  did  not,  however,  exceed  $85,000.  The  superin- 
tendent of  finance,  to  encourage  the  undertaking,  subscribed  25250,000  to  the 
stock  on  behalf  of  the  government ;  but  the  national  finances  were  so  far 
exhausted,  that  the  bank  was  subsecjuently  obliged  to  release  $200,000  of  the 


Congres- 
sional pro> 
ceedings 
relative 
thereto. 


tion  there 
with. 


OF    THE    UXITED    STATES. 


785 


the  establishment  oi 

ietts  soon  found  favor 
.'xpcrinicnl  before  llic 
I  Franklin  heartily  aj)- 
;(1  ilecideilly  profitable 
)  long  as  the  security 
sk  ;  yet  there  was  < on- 
urity.  This  system,  a* 
il  variation  ;  but  all  of 
t-lived. 

organized  in  this  coun^ 
se  connected  therewith, 
atriotieally  assisting  tlm 
lieve  its  national  inde- 
n  Philadelphia  June  17, 
tion  to  the  amount  of 
;ncy,  real  money,"  the 
A'ashington's  army.  At 
f  verge  of  mutiny  ;  and 
:iuisite  provision  for  the 
;  subscribers  ultimately. 

that  time  clerk  of  the 

scheme,  and  encloscil 
air  McClenaghan,  who, 
in  hard  money. 

Continental  Congress, 
\mittee  was  appointed  to 

le  proposed  institution, 
ies  of  resolutions,  which 

recognizing  the  inten- 
iotic  offer,  and  pledging 

then  superintendent  of 
which  the  bank  should 
igress  approved  it.  In 
y  formally  chartered  as 
limited  to  10,000,000 
of  cajMtal  paid  in  by 
$85,000.  The  superin- 
cribed  25250,000  to  the 
il  fmances  were  so  far 
elease  $200,000  of  the 


subscription,  a.id  its  remaining  stock  paid  in  was  sokl  to  i)ersons  in  Holland. 
The  bank  was  opened  for  business  on  Jan.  7,  1782.  Hefore  the  month  of 
July  following  it  had  loaned  to  the  government  $400,000,  and  to  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania  $80,000. 


'  \  M 


KOIIRRT    MORRIS. 


The  legislature  of  Pennsylvania  granted  the  company  an  act  of  incorpora- 
tion of  perpetual  duration  on  .Ajjril  i,  1782,  which  was  repealed  in  1785  ;  but 
the  bank  coi..inued  its  business  under  the  act  of  Congress.     A 

1  e  1  1-1.  ,,.,.  Further  his- 

change  of  parties  in  17S7  brought  with  it  a  renewal  of  the  charter  tory  and 
by  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  limited,  however,  to  the  term  of  four-   """ess  of 
teen  years,  with  a  capital  of  $2,000,000.     In  1790  Hamilton,  in 
his  report,  refers  to  the  "  ambiguous  situation  in  which  the  Bank  of  North 
America  has  placed  itself  by  the  acceptance  of  its  last  State  charter,"  and 
concludes,  that  as  this  has  rendered  it  a  l)ank  of  an  individual  State,  with  a 
capital  of  but  $2,000,000,  liable  to  dissolution  at  the  expiration  of  its  charter 
in  fourteen  years,  it  would  not  be  expedient  to  accept  it  as  an  equivalent  for 
a  bank  of  the  United  States.     The  State  charfer  of  the  bank  was  renewed 
from  time  to  time  until  Dec.  3,  1S64,  when  it  became  a  national  bank,  retain- 
ing its  original  name,  with  a  capital  of  $1,000,000,  and  a  surplus  of  nearly 
the  same  amount.     .Although  such  was  not  originally  intended  to  be  the  case, 


^\^      tl      i  I 


^^  i! 


V\  k^s\ 


■  fS 


M     i 


A 


''*>»«»_ 
^^l! 


(frS'  '  '  '  '■' 


786 


/A'D  L'S  TRIA  L    HIS  TOR  Y 


Alexander 
Hamilton 
moves  (or 
a  national 
bank. 


the  institution  has  proved  profitable  to  the  stockholders;  for  the  annual 
dividends  from  1792  to  1875,  a  period  of  eighty-four  years,  averaged  only  a 
small  fraction  less  than  eleven  per  cent. 

FIRST    HANK    OF    THE    UNITF.D    STATES. 

The  experiment  of  the  Hank  of  North  America  had  demonstrated  tlic 
value  of  an  institution  which  should  make  loans  to  the  government  as  well 
as  to  i)rivate  individuals ;  which  should  take  and  i)lace  govern- 
ment bonils  as  our  "  syndicates "  do  now  ;  arid  which  should 
furnish  the  people  a  secure  paper  currency  to  sup[)le"ient  tin 
limited  amount  of  coin  in  circulation.  lUit  Alexander  Hamilton, 
the  great  Federalist,  who  had  been  so  influential  in  securing  the 
adoption  of  the  new  Constitution  in  1787,  and  who  was  Washington's  first 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  held  that  the  Hank  of  North  America  had  then 
become  a  State  institution,  and  that  a  National  bank  should  be  organized. 
Kngland  had  such  a  one,  and  France  also.  With  a  foresight  which  has 
been  singularly  justified  by  the  experience  of  the  country  with  greenbac  ks 
at  a  later  day,  he  objected  to  the  issue  of  paper  money  directly  by  the 
government,  as  of  "  a  nature  so  liable  to  abuse,  and,  it  may  even  be  aftinued, 
so  certain  of  being  abused,  that  the  wisdom  of  the  government  will  be 
shown  in  never  trusting  itself  with  the  use  of  so  seducing  and  dangerous 
an  expedient."  Accordingly,  in  an  elaborate  report  made  Dec.  13,  lyi^o, 
covering  the  above  points,  he  recommended  the  incorjwration  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States ;  and  his  plan,  substantially  unchanged,  was 
adoptetl  by  Congress,  and  approved  by  the  President,  the  25th  of  the  follow- 
ing I'V'bruiiry. 

l"he  capital  of  the  bank  was  fixed  at  $10,000,000.  One-fourth  of  all  the 
private  and  corporate  subscriptions  was  to  be  paid  in  gold  and  silver,  and  three- 
its  basis  fourths  were  to  be  paid  in  United-States  stock  bearing  six  per  cent 
and  govern-  interest.  Two  millions  were  to  be  subscribed  by  the  United  States. 
"*"*■  and  paid  in  ten  equal  annual  instalments  by  loans  from  the  bank, 

or,  as  Mr.  Hamilton  describes  the  operation,  by  "  borrowing  with  one  hand 
what  is  lent  witii  the  o'  <er."  The  board  of  directors  of  the  bank  was 
to  consist  of  twenty-fivt  persons,  not  more  than  three-fourths  of  them 
to  be  eligible  for  re-election  in  the  next  succeeding  ye.ir.  The  bank  had 
authority  to  loan  on  real-estate  security,  but  could  only  hold  such  real 
estate  as  was  requisite  for  the  erection  of  suitable  banking-houses,  or  should 
be  conveyed  to  it  in  satisfaction  of  mortgages  or  judgments.  No  stock- 
holder, unless  a  cit'-en  of  the  United  States,  could  be  a  director ;  and  the 
directors  were  to  g./e  their  services  without  compensation.  The  bills  and 
notes  of  the  bank  were  made  receivable  in  payment  of  all  debts  to  the 
United  States. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


787 


ers;  for  the   annu;v\ 
.•ars,  averaged  only  a 


ES. 

ad  demonstrated  the 
e  government  as  welt 
;e  and  place  govern- 
• ;    arid  whiih   should 
:y  to  supple -lent   tlu 
t  Alexander  Hamilton, 
icntial  in  securing  the 
was  Washington's  first 
rth  America  had  then 

shouUl  be  organized. 
a  foresight  which  ha-^ 
luntry  with  greenbacks 
money  directly  by  tlu- 

may  even  be  aftirmcd. 
,e  government  will  \^^ 
jducing  and  dangerous 

made  Dec.  13,  no"- 

incorporation  of  the 
itially  unchanged,  was 
the  25th  of  the  foUow- 

One-fourth  of  all  the 
Id  and  silver,  and  three- 
pck  bearing  six  per  cent 
|ed  by  the  United  States, 
by  loans  from  the  bank, 
jrrowing  with  one  hanii 
[ctors  of  the  bank  was 
three-fourths  of  thein 
.  year.    The  bank  ha<l 
a   only   hold   such  real 
mking-houses,  or  shoul<l 
Judgments.      No  stock- 
|be  a  director ;  and  the 
isation.    The   bills   ami 
nt  of  all  debts  to  the 


From  the  day  it  was  first  proposeil,  the  IJank  of  the  United  States  was 
a  bone  of  political  contention  ;  the  Nortii  favoring  it,  and  the  South  disap- 
proving. The  line  which  divided  its  friends  and  foes  was  not  only  sectional, 
but  partisan  :  the  Federalists,  and  subseciuently  the  Whigs,  con-  pomicai 
stituting  the  former ;  and  the  Republicans,  or,  as  they  were  also  sentiment 
called,  the  Democrats,  composing  the  latter.  The  original  act  of  "B"'''"e't- 
mcorporation   was    opposed    in    the    House    of    Representatives    by  James 


■\  ::u 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON. 


Madison  (afterwards  President)  and  eighteen  others,  all  but  one  of  whom 
were  from  Virginia,  Maryland,  and  the  Carolinas.  Thomas  Jefferson  (then 
secretary  of  state)  and  Edmund  Randolph  (attorney-general),  in  opinions 
recpiested  by  Washington,  also  disapproved.  The  grounds  taken  by  the 
opponents  of  the  charter  were  a  denial  of  the  general  utility  of  banking 
systems,  and  opposition  to  the  special  provisions  of  the  bill ;   but  the  main 


W^^' 


t' 


■  t 


■M 


''1  ':-U' 


■.-,1 


&1 


*^ 


.'i' 


'Fa" 


'.fh 


788 


IXDUSTRIAL    HlSrORY 


force  of  their  objections  was  directed  against  the  constitutional  authority  of 
Congress  to  pass  an  act  for  tiie  incorporation  of  a  national  bank.  I'he 
supporters  of  the  bill  in  the  House  of  Representatives  numbered  thirty- 
nine, —  a  majority  of  twenty,  —  all  of  them,  except  four,  being  representatives 
of  Northern  States,  among  whom  were  Fisher  Ames,  Flbridge  (ierry,  and 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  of  Massachusetts,  Roger  Sherman  and  Jonathan  i'runi- 
bull  of  Connecticut,  Elias  Houdinot  of  New  Jersey,  and  Peter  Muhlenberg 
of  Pennsylvania.  Hamilton  (secretary  of  the  treasury)  and  Knox  (secretary 
of  war),  in  official  opinions  rendered  to  the  President,  maintained  the  con- 
stitutionality and  the  policy  of  the  act. 

The  average  dividends  of  the  bank  from  its  organization  to  March,  1809, 
were  at  the  rate  of  eight  and  a  half  i)er  centum  per  annum.  The  5,000 
Success  of  shares  of  J?400  each  owned  by  the  United  States  were  disposed 
the  bank.  ^f  j,^  ^^  years  1 796  to  i8o2  at  a  considerable  profit;  2,2:;() 
shares  having  been  sold  in  the  last-mentioned  year  at  a  premitmi  of  forty-five 
per  cent.  .According  to  the  treasury-records,  the  government  subscription, 
with  the  addition  of  the  interest  which  was  paid  by  the  United  States  on  the 
stock  issued  for  it,  amounted  to  {f>2, 636,427. 71  ;  while  there  was  receiveil 
by  the  treasury  in  dividends,  and  from  the  sale  of  the  bank-stock  at  various 
times,  !?3,773,58o,  the  profit  realized  by  the  government  being  J?i, 137,152. 29, 
or  nearly  fifty-seven  per  cent  on  the  original  investment. 

The  twenty-years'  Umit  of  the  bank's  charter  expired  March  4,  181 1  ; 
and  application  was  made  for  its  renewal  in  April,  1808.  Again  the  ([uestion 
became  political,  although  party  lines  were  not  drawn  strictly. 
Congress  investigated  the  matter  in  1810.  Mr.  (lallatin,  then 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  favored  the  renewal,  and  said  of  tiie 
first  bank,  that  its  affairs,  "  considered  as  a  moneyed  institution, 
have  been  wisely  and  skilfully  administered."  The  vote  in  tlic 
Senate,  Feb.  20,  181 1,  resulted  in  a  tie;  and  the  Vice-President,  George 
Clinton,  threw  his  casting  vote  against  the  measure.  Henry  Clay  opposed  it ; 
while  Mr.  Crawford  and  Mr.  Pickering  favored  it,  the  latter  acting  contrary 
to  the  instructions  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature.  The  legislatures  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  Virginia  instructed  their  representatives  to  oppose  it  on  tiic 
ground  of  unconstitutionality.  In  the  House  the  bill  was  defeated  by  a 
minority  of  one. 

Financial  evils  of  a  serious  character  now  ensued,  and  greatly  distressed 
the  country ;   the  trouble  being  greatly  augmented  by  the  paralyzing  e.Tec  t 

'  upon  industry  of  the  embargo  of  1807  and  the  war  of  18 12-14. 

flnandai  In  the  first  place,  the  State  banks,  and  even  unchartered  institu- 
eviu  result-  ^jons,  inflated  the  paper  currency  until  it  sadly  depreciated.  In 
181 1  the  outstanding  State-bank  notes  amounted  to  $28,000,000  ; 
in  18 13,  between  $62,000,000  and  $70,000,000;  in  181 5,  between  $99,000,- 
000  and  $110,000,000;  and  in  1819,  between  $45,000,000  and  $53,000,000. 


Agitation 
for  renewing 
the  charter 
unsuccess- 
Jtul. 


,nw 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


7«9 


tional  authority  of 
tional  bank.    'I'Ih; 

numljcred  thirty - 
.'ing  representatives 
Ibridge  Cerry,  ami 
nl  Jonathan  Tnim 

I'eter  Muhlenberg 
1(1  Knox  (secretary 
laintained  the  roii- 

on  to  March,  iHog. 
innuni.     'I'he  5.000 
ilates  were  disposal 
erable  profit;  2,220 
)remium  of  forty-five 
rnment  subscription. 
United  States  on  the 
;    there  was  receiveil 
bank-stock  at  various 
being  5i,i37.'52-29. 

•ed  March   4.  »^"  • 
Again  the  (piestioii 
;   not  drawn    striilly. 
Mr.  (Gallatin,  then 
wal,  and  said  of  the 
moneyed  institution, 
."     The  vote   in   the 
ice-President,  (leorgc 
enry  Clay  opposed  it ; 
latter  acting  contrary 
legislatures  of  Penn 
[to   oppose    it   on  the 
11  was  defeated  by  a 

and  greaUy  distressed 
the  paralyzing  e.Te<t 
A  the  war  of  1812-14- 
fn  unchartered  institu- 
ladly  depreciated.  I" 
lunted  to  $28,000,000 ; 
I15,  between  $99,000,- 

[000  and  $53,000,000. 


Floods  of  this  currency  were  in  fractions  of  a  dollar,  from  six  cents  upward. 
Much  of  this  being  irredeemal)ie,  it  passed  for  a  great  deal  less  than  its  face. 
Again:  in  September,  1814,  all  of  the  banks  south  of  New  Kngland  suspend- 
eil  specie  payments,  'i'his  also  depreciated  their  notes.  Furthermore,  the 
United  States,  which  had  not  yet  established  treasure-vaults  of  its  own,  had 
some  $9,000,000  on  deposit  with  the  suspended  banks,  which  numbered  about 
a  hundred,  and  from  which  it  could  not  recover  its  money  for  many  years ; 
in  some  cases,  never.  'I'he  government's  own  credit  suffered  in  conse- 
([ucnce.  During  1813  and  1814  it  issued  stocks  to  the  amount  of  $42,269,- 
776,  which  were  to  run  twelve  years  at  six  per  cent,  but  which  hati  to  be 
solil  at  fifteen  i)er  cent  discount.  On  F'eb.  24,  1815,  the  war  being  over,  a 
loan  of  $8,856,960,  ruiming  for  nine  years  at  seven  per  cent,  was  negotiated 
at  par;  and  yet  another  loan  of  $9,745,745  for  only  nine  months,  at  six  per 
cent,  yielded  the  following  year  only  ninety-five  per  cent  of  its  face.  It 
should  be  borne  in  mind,  too,  that,  even  while  selling  these  bonds  below  par, 
the  government  was  obliged  to  receive  paper  money,  which  was  worth  mut^h 
less  than  its  own  face  ;  so  that  its  loss  was  double.  These  were  the  most 
important  results  of  the  State-bank  system  during  the  interval  between  the 
first  and  second  banks  of  the  United  States, — from  March  4,  i8ii,  to  Jan.  7, 
181  7. 

On  Oct.  6,  1 814,  Mr.  Dallas  was  appointed  .secretary  of  the  trea.sury ;  and 
on  the  14th  of  the  same  month,  in  response  to  an  inquiry  from  the  Ways  and 
Means  Committee  of  the  Mouse  of  Representatives,  he  reviewed  Another  vain 
all  the  evils  just  recounted  in  an  elaborate  and  earnest  argument,  attempt  at 
and  strongly  recommended  the  organization  of  a  national  bank.  "^  ^' " 
I'his  and  the  experience  of  the  country  revolutiu..ized  sentiment  in  Congress ; 
r.nd  in  January,  1815,  that  body  granted  a  new  charter  to  the  old  Rank  of  the 
United  States.  But  Mr.  Madison,  who  had  then  been  President  nearly  six 
years,  and  who  had  opposed  the  establishment  of  the  original  bank,  vetoed 
the  bill. 

.sixoNP  HANK  or  Tiir,  umtf-h  states. 

On  the  loth  of  .April,  1816,  a  bill  was  approved  by  President  Madison, 
which  was  the  second  and  last  charter  of  the  bank  granted  by  the  General 
("lovernment.  The  plan  proposed  by  Mr.  Dallas  was  modelled  Re-estab- 
upon  the  charter  of  the  firsi  United-States  Bank,  and  the  act  of  "»hment. 
incorporation  as  finally  passed  did  not  differ  materially  from  the  plan  proposed 
by  him.  The  charter  was  limited  to  twenty  years,  expiring  on  March  3,  1836. 
The  capital  was  fixed  at  $35,000,000,  $7,000,000  of  which  was  to  be  subscribed 
by  the  government,  payable  in  coin,  or  in  stock  of  the  United  States  bearing 
interest  at  five  per  cent,  and  redeemable  at  the  pleasure  of  the  government. 
The  remaining  stock  was  to  be  subscribed  for  by  individuals  and  corporations, 
one-fourth  being  payable  in  coin,  and  three-fourths  in  coin  or  in  the  funded 


^m 


Ms 


79° 


IS'Dl'STRIAI.    ///STONY 


■*    ! 


ir  k 


tieht  of  tlie  United  States.  Five  of  tlie  directors  were  to  l)e  appointed  by  the 
President  ;  and  ail  of  them  were  reciuired  to  be  resident-citizens  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  serve  without  compensation.  The  amount  of  indel)tedness, 
exclusive  of  deposits,  was  not  to  exceed  tiie  capital  of  the  bank.  Tlie 
directors  were  empowered  to  estai>lish  branches;  and  the  notes  of  the  bank, 
payable  on  demand,  were  receivable  in  all  payments  to  the  United  .States, 
The  penalty  for  refusing;  to  pay  its  notes  or  «lei  )sits  in  coin,  on  demaml,  was 
twelve  per  i  ent  i)er  annum  until  fully  paid.  'I'he  bank  was  reciuircd  to  f,'ivi' 
the  necessary  facilities,  without  i  harge,  for  transferring  the  funds  of  the  gov 
ernment  to  different  jiortions  of  the  Union,  and  for  negotiating  public  loans. 
The  moneys  of  the  government  were  to  be  dej-osited  in  the  bank  and  its 
branches,  unless  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  should  otherwise  direct.  Nn 
notes  were  to  be  issued  of  a  less  denomin.'^tion  than  five  dollars,  and  all  notes 
smaller  than  a  hundred  dollars  were  to  be  made  payable  on  demand,  'iiic 
bank  was  not,  directly  nor  indirectly,  to  deal  in  any  thing  except  bills  ol 
exchange,  goKl  or  silver  bullion,  goods  pledged  for  money  lent,  or  in  il.e  sale 
of  goods  really  and  truly  jiledged  for  loans,  or  of  the  pnx  eeds  of  its  lands. 
No  other  bank  was  to  l)e  established  by  authority  of  Congress  during  the 
continuance  of  the  corporation,  except  such  as  mit'lit  be  organized  in  tlu' 
District  of  Columbia  with  an  aggregate  capital  not  exceeding  S6.ooo,ooo  ; 
ami,  in  consideration  of  all  the  grants  of  the  charter,  the  bank  was  to  pay  to 
the  United  States  a  bonus  of  51,500,000  m  three  annual  instalments.  The 
bank  went  into  operation  Jan.  7,  1.S17. 

This  period  was  particularly  critical.  Property  had  depreciated  ;  the  con- 
traction of  State-bank  circ-ulation  w.is  rapidly  going  on,  and  bank-failures  were 
Grave  diffi-  fre(|uent  and  numerous.  Individual  and  corporate  business-enter- 
cuities  sur-  ])rises  Were  still  languisiiing  in  conseiiuence  of  the  war  and  cur- 
mounte  .  j-^ncy  evils.  This  made  up-hill  work  for  the  new  United-States 
Bank.  Its  managers  were  still  further  embarrassed  by  an  attack  on  them  in 
Congress.  In  November,  1818,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  investigate  its 
affairs,  which,  in  December,  reported  that  it  had  violated  its  <  barter  in  four 
instances,  and  in  February,  18 19,  recommended  a  repeal  of  the  same.  This 
assault  failetl,  however,  as  the  resolution  did  not  pass.  In  the  last-nameil 
year,  the  bank,  feeling  the  responsibility  of  its  inlhience  upon  the  business  of 
the  country,  made  an  herculean  effort.  It  imported  seven  millions  of  spec  ie 
from  Kurope  in  order  to  restore  soundness  to  the  currency.  This  enterprise' 
cost  it  half  a  million  ;  and,  owing  to  the  mismanagement  of  the  Haltimorc 
branch,  over  three  millions  were  lost  outright.  Yet  the  bank  and  the  business 
of  the  country  eventually  recovered.  Popular  industry  and  governmental 
finance  prospered  from  1820  to  1835.  In  this  interval  the  national  debt  was 
paid,  and  the  stock  of  the  bank  rose  in  the  market  until  it  commanded  a 
premium  of  twenty  per  cent.  "  I^ng  before  the  election  of  Gen.  Jackson," 
says  Mr.  Parton,  "  the  bank  appeared  to  have  lived  down  all  opposition.     In 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


79' 


)  1)0  ai)i)ointe(l  by  llio 
lili/.cns  of  the  I'nitcd 
unt   of  imlcbtcdncss, 

of  the  bank.  'I'lu- 
ic  notes  o{  the  bank, 
to  the  United  Stales, 
coin,  on  demand,  was 

was  reijiiired  to  nive 
the  funds  of  the  gov 
gotiating  i)\ibhe  loans. 
1  in  the  bank  and  its 
otherwise  direct.  No 
e  dollars,  and  all  notes 
ble  on  deinaml.     'I'he 

thing  except  bills  of 
ney  lent,  or  in  il.e  sale 

jmxeeds  of  its  lands. 
»f  Congress  during  the 
U  be  organized  in  the 
exceeding  S6.ooo,ooo  ; 

the  bank  was  to  pay  to 
nual  instahnents.     The 

deiireciated  ;  the  con- 
,  and  bank-faihires  were 
orjjorate  biisiness-enter- 
e  of  the  war  and  cnr- 
ihe  new  United-States 
an  attack  on  them  in 
ointed  to  investigate  its 
ited  its  charter  in  four 
eal  of  the  same.     This 
ss.     In   the  last-named 
L-  upon  the  business  of 
even  millions  of  specie 
rency.     This  enteri)rise 
;ment  of  the  Baltimore 
e  bank  and  the  business 
stry  and   governmental 
1  the  national  debt  was 
until  it  commanded  a 
tion  of  Gen.  Jackson," 
3wn  all  opposition.     In 


the  presidential  campaign  of  1S-4  it  was  not  so  much  as  mentioned,  nor  was 
it  mentioned  in  that  of  182S.  In  all  the  political  pami)iilets,  volumes,  news- 
papers, campaign-papers,  burlesques,  and  caricatures  of  those  years,  there  is 
not  the  most  distant  allusion  to  the  bank  as  a  political  issue." 

In  1837,  when  the  Federal  charter  expired,  the  bank's  stock  stood  at 
twenty-five  per  cent  premium,  and  the  institution  was  making  money.  The 
profit  realized  by  the  government  hi  the  mean  time  will  be  seen  from  the 
following  statement :  — 

Homis  p.iid  hy  tlio  l).ink  to  the  llniled  St.itcs  ....  $1,500,000  00 

Diviilcmis  paid  hy  the  li.iiik  to  the  United  .States    .        .        .  7,118,41629 
Proceeds  of  stmks  sold  and  other  moneys  paid  l)y  the  bank 

to  tlie  United  States 9,424,750  78 


Total 


Fivc-iier-ceiit  stwk  i.s.sued  by  the  United  States  for 

its  snbscriptioii  to  the  .stock  of  the  l)ank       ,         >7. 000,000 
Interest  paid  on  :hc  same  from  issue  to  redemption,   4,950,000 


Profit 


$18,043,167  07 


11,950,000  00 


$6,093,167  07 


Andrew  Jackson  came  to  the  presidency  March  4,  1829,  and  soon  began 
a  crusade  against  the  bank.  In  i>is  message  to  Congress  the  following  winter 
he  advised  a  consideration  of  the  constitutional  objections  to  re-    .    . 

•*  Andrew 

chartering  the  institution,     .\gitation,  mild  at  first,  gradually  in-  jaci«son 
creased.       In   Julv,    18-12,   Congress   granted    a   renewal   of   the   '"»'<"«" 

J      ■'  J    '  t^  f'  on  tlie  bank. 

charter,  and  {'resident  Jackson  vetoed  the  bill.  A  few  months 
later  an  intention  wxs  manifested  of  removing  from  the  bank  all  the  govern- 
ment deposits.  In  the  winter  of  1832-33  the  House  passed  a  resolution 
declaring  that  these  moneys  were  safe  where  they  were.  But  the  election  of 
the  previous  tall  had  insured  a  Democratic  House  to  succeed  this  one.  After 
his  second  inauguration  in  1833,  therefore,  the  President  ordered  his  new 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  Mr.  Duane,  to  remove  the  deposits,  and  distribute 
them  among  certain  State  banks.  That  gentleman  declined  to  do  so,  and 
was  therefore  displaced  by  the  President,  who  appointed  Attorney-Gen. 
Taney  his  successor.  Mr.  Taney  e.xecuted  the  mandate  of  his  superior,  and 
gave  his  reasons  therefor  to  the  new  Congress  on  its  meeting  in  December. 
The  Senate,  by  a  vote  of  twenty-six  to  twenty,  censured  the  President  for  what 
it  termed  a  usurpation  of  authority,  and  voted,  twenty-eight  to  eighteen,  that 
the  moneys  had  been  sate  where  they  were.  The  House,  on  the  other  hand, 
approved  the  President's  course,  declared  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
ought  not  to  be  rechartered.  resolved  that  the  State  banks  be  continued  as 
depositories,  and  authorized  the  investigation  of  the  bank  and  its  branches. 

Mr.  Taney  announced,  that,  while  the  new  deposits  would  go  to  the  State 
banks  selected  as  ilepositories,  those  already  in  the  United-States  Bank  would 


\H& 


mm 


m 


k  :'|p' 


9  I   )   '^. 


792 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


only  be  removed  gradually.  Its  managers,  however,  although  it  had  specie 
Results  of  enough  in  its  vaults  to  meet  a  demand  from  the  government  in 
removing  the  full,,  made  a  pretence  of  fear  of  a  sudden  attack  from  the  treas- 
epos  ts.  ^j.y  (Jepartment,  and  created  an  artificial  stringency  in  the  coin- 
market.  Meanwhile  the  State  banks  rapidly  increased  their  issues  of  paper,  the 
increase  being  from  $61,000,000  in  1830  to  $149,000,000  in  1837.  Whereas 
in  1830  a  committee  of  the  Senate  had  reported  that  "  the  country  is  in  the 
enjoyment  of  a  uniform  national  currency  (notes  of  the  I3ank  of  the  United 
States),  not  only  sound  and  uniform  in  itself,  but  perfectly  adapted  to  all  the 
purposes  of  the  government  and  the  community,  and  more  sound  and  uni- 
form than  that  possessed  of  any  other  country,"  yet,  but  seven  years  after 
this  (on  the  loth  of  May,  1837),  all  the  banks  then  -  operation,  with  the 
I  mammoth  United-States  Bank  of  Pennsylvania  among  them,  went  into  suspen- 

sion a.s  if  by  common  consent,  or,  as  Col.  Benton  has  it,  "  with  a  concert 
and  punctuality  of  action  which  announced  arrangement  and  determination 
such  as  attend  revolts  and  insurrections  in  other  countries;"  and  he  declares 
that  "  the  prime  mover  and  master  manager  of  the  suspension  was  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States,  then  rotten  to  the  core,  and  tottering  to  its  fall,  but 
strong  enough  to  carry  others  with  it,  and  seeking  to  hide  its  own  downfall  in 
the  crash  of  a  general  catastrophe."  This  allegation  derives  some  supi)ort 
from  the  report  of  the  committee  of  the  stockholders,  made  in  January,  1841, 
after  the  failure  of  the  bank.  They  say,  "  The  origin  of  the  course  of  policy 
which  has  conducted  to  the  present  situation  of  the  affairs  of  the  institution 
dates  beyond  the  period  of  the  recharter  by  tne  State."  Favored  by  the 
importation,  of  $20,000,000  of  specie,  the  New- England  and  New-York  banks 
resumed  in  1S38  ;  but  the  Philadelphia  banks  made  three  unsuccessful  attempts 
before  they  finally  accomplished  resumption  in  February,  1841.  But  between 
1837  and  1843  they  had  contracted  their  circulation  from  $149,000,000  to 
$58,000,000. 

The  managers  of  the  United-States  Bank  did  not  wind  up  its  affairs  when 
the  expiration  of  its  charter  drew  near,  but  secured  a  new  charter  from  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  which  was  issued  Feb.  18,  1836,  only  thir- 
o(  the  ifnu^  ^^^^  ^^^^  before  the  old  one  expired.  Under  this  title  it  pro- 
ed-states  ceeded  to  do  business  as  before.  The  new  charter,  however,  was 
^'"''"  obtained  on  condition  of  assisting  in  State  improvements,  canals, 

railroads,  navigation  companies,  and  turnpike-roads,  to  the  extent  of  about 
$5,000,000.  Col.  Benton  regards  this  pledge  as  a  form  of  bribery,  in  addition 
to  which  he  attributes  the  grant  of  the  charter  to  ])ersonal  corruption  of  tlie 
legislature  by  the  managers  of  the  bank.  The  State  never  received  its  bonus, 
however.  The  bank,  as  has  l)cen  seen,  suspended  specie  payments  as  often  as 
other  State  institutions,  and  finally  succumbed  to  trials  which  other  banks, 
more  prudently  managed,  survived.  It  made  an  assignment  of  certain  securi- 
ties, on  May  i,  1841,  to  secure  5,000,000  of  post-notes  which  other  banks  had 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


793 


Ithough  it  had  specie 
m  the  government  in 
attack  from  the  treas- 
tringcncy  in  the  coin- 
leir  issues  of  paper,  the 
)0  in  1837.     Whereas 
'  the  country  is  in  the 
le  Bank  of  the  United 
;tly  adapted  to  all  the 
more  sound  and  uni- 
but  seven  years  after 
1  ,  ^  operation,  with  tlic 
hem,  went  into  suspen- 
as  it,  "with  a  concert 
lent  and  determination 
ries  ; "  and  he  declares 
spension  was  the  Bank 
loitering  to  its  fall,  but 
de  its  own  downfall  in 
1  derives  some  support 
made  in  January,  1841, 
Df  the  course  of  policy 
iffairs  of  the  institution 
ate."     Favored  by  the 
d  and  New-York  banks 
:e  unsuccessful  attempts 
ry,  1 84 1.     But  between 
from  ;^  1 49,000,000  to 

ind  up  its  affairs  when 
new  charter  from  the 

eb.  18,  1836,  only  thir- 
fnder  this  tide  it  pro- 

|w  charter,  however,  was 
improvements,  canals, 

|to  the  extent  of  about 
of  bribery,  in  addition 

lonal  corruption  of  the 
■er  received  its  bonus, 
ie  payments  as  often  as 
als  which  other  banks, 

Iment  of  certain  securi- 
which  other  banks  had 


taken  in  exchange  for  its  demand-notes.  The  second  assignment  was  made 
June  7,  1 84 1,  to  secure  its  notes  and  deposits,  "  amt,ii^  which  were  notes 
and  deposits  of  the  late  Bank  of  the  United  States,  incorporated  by  Congress ; " 
so  that  it  appears  to  have  been,  up  to  1 841,  using  its  old  issues.  The  third 
and  final  assignment,  made  on  Sept.  4,  1 841,  covered  all  its  remaining  property, 
—  "  to  provide  for  the  payment  of  sundry  persons  and  bodies  corporate  wliich 
the  bank  is  at  present  unable  to  pay." 

Nicholas  Biddle  had  been  the  president  of  the  bank  from  January,  1823, 
to  March,  1839,  when  he  re-^'gned,  leaving  the  institution,  as  he  said,  "pros- 
perous." The  shares,  however,  were  sold  at  that  time  at  iii,  instead  of  125 
as  in  1837,  and  were  quoted  in  April,  1843,  after  iti  failure,  at  i|-. 

The  liquidation  of  tlie  bank  is  briefly  stated  in  a  letter  to  the  national 
comptroller  by  Thomas  Robins,  Esq.,  president  of  the  Philadelphia  National 
Bank,  who  is  believed  to  be  the  only  sur\'ivor  of  its  numerous  assignees.  He 
says,  "  -Vll  the  circulating-notes  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  together 
with  the  dfposits,  were  paid  in  full,  principal  and  interest ;  and  the  accounts  of 
the  assignees  were  finally  settled  in  1856.  There  were  no  funds,  and  no  divi- 
dend was  paid  to  the  stockhoklers  of  the  bank :  the  whole  $28,000,000  was 
a  total  loss  to  them.  The  7,000,000  of  stock  held  by  the  United  States  previ- 
ous to  the  institution  becoming  a  State  bank  was  paid  in  full  to  the  government ; 
so  that  the  United  States  lost  nothing  by  the  bank."  With  this  experience 
in  banking  the  government  was  long  content. 

The  exigency  of  a  civil  war  twenty  years  later  required  a  fiscal  agency 
between  the  United-States  Government  and  the  people  of  the  country  and  of 
the  world,  by  which  the  formerV-  loans  could  be  rapidly  negotiated.  ^^^  present 
In  the  earlier  days,  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  had  performed  national- 
this  work  :  later,  the  syndicate  of  New- York  bankers  have  accom-  '"  system, 
plishcd  it.  But  in  1861  the  old  expedient  was  too  unpopular,  and  the  new  one 
was  not  yet  devised,  if,  indeed,  it  were  practicable.  Accordingly,  Mr.  Salmon 
P.  Chase,  then  secretary  of  the  treasury,  proposed  to  enact  a  general  law  pro- 
viding for  the  conversion  of  State  banks  all  over  the  country  into  "  National  " 
hanks ;  the  transformation  being  fiicilitated  by  taxing  the  old  banks,  and  grant- 
ing special  immunities  and  privileges  to  the  new  ones.  The  object  of  the  law 
was  to  effect  the  sale  of  government  bonds  extensively.  This  was  brought 
about  by  requiring  the  banks  to  in\est  their  capital  in  these  bonds,  and  deposit 
them  at  Washington  as  security  for  their  circulation,  which  was  allowed  to 
equal  only  ninety  per  cent  of  the  bonds  so  deposited.  This  gave  the  govern- 
ment ready  money,  and  at  the  same  time  secured  a  uniform  paper  currency, 
which  was  everywhere  receivable,  and  equal  to  government  notes  or  "  grecn- 
l)acks."  The  proposition  did  not  meet  with  favor  at  first,  however.  A  bill 
was  prepared,  in  accort.ance  with  the  secretary's  wishes,  by  tlie  Ways  and 
Means  Committee,  in  December,  1861  ;  but  such  was  the  objection  to  it,  that 
it  was  laid  aside  for  a  time :  indeed,  it  was  not  resuscitated  until  l'"el)ruary, 


fi 


794 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


1863,  when  the  Finance  Committee  of  the  "Senate  reported  it  to  that  body. 
Ten  days  later  it  passed  by  a  vote  of  twenty-three  to  twenty-one ;  and  eiglit 
days  afterward  the  House  concurred,  seventy-eight  to  sixty-four.  Witiiin  a 
week  the  President  iiad  approved  the  measure,  and  it  went  into  immediate 
operation.  This  system  has  continued  ever  since,  with  no  material  modifica- 
tion, and  is  .as  nearly  perfect  as  a  banking-system  can  be.     The  security  of  the 


SALMON  P.  CHASE. 


•,Jf    ' 


notes  already  referred  to,  their  uniformity  throughout  the  whole  country,  and 
the  rigid  system  of  (juarterly  statements,  of  reserves  to  meet  a  demand,  and  of 
governmental  inspection,  account  for  the  popularity  with  which  the  national 
banks  have  been  reganleil. 


STATF,    HANKS. — MASSACIU'SF.TTS. 

We  turn  now  to  survey  briefly  banking  under  State  auspices.  Without 
The  second  examining  in  detail  the  history  of  each  jtarticular  State,  it  will  sufti(  c 
local  bank  in  to  note  the  <ourse  of  events  in  some  of  the  rci)resentative  sections 
the  United      ^f  jj^g  couiitrv.     We  have  already  noted  the  failure  of  Colman's 

States.  '  •' 

efforts  early  in  the  eighteenth  century.     But  Massachusetts  kept 
the  subject  in  mind,  and  was,  therefore,  peculiarly  susceptible  to  the  influ 


lllfl''^ 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


795 


State  auspices,  wiinoui 
Kticvilar  State,  it  will  sufti(  c 

the  representative  sections 
jd  the  failure  of  Colman's 
But  Massachusetts  kept 
y  susceptible  to  the  infln 


ence  of  Pennsylvania's  example.  Already  mention  has  been  made  of  the  Bank 
of  North  America,  which  was  opened  in  Philadelphia  in  March,  1782.  The 
success  of  this  institution  led,  two  years  later,  to  the  organization  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bank,  which  received  its  charter  from  the  legislature  on  Feb.  7,  1 784. 
This  was  the  first  local  bank  established  in  that  State,  and  the  second  in  the 
United  States.  Its  capital  was  limited  to  $300,000,  of  which  $253,500  had 
been  paid  in  when  it  commenced  business  on  July  5  of  that  year. 

During  the  ninety-two  years  which  have  elapsed  since  this  bank  was  estab- 
lished, it  has  passed  but  two  dividends  ;  the  first  instance  occurring  at  the  close 
of  the  war  of  1S12,  and  the  second  during  the  financial  crisis  of  successor 
1836.     But,  when  the  bank  was  converted  into  a  national  associa-  theexperi- 
tion,  it  compensated  for  these  omissions  by  declaring  an  extra  divi-   ""'"*' 
(lend  of  ten  per  cent.     Up  to  June  i,  1874,  a  period  of  ninety  years,  the  ratio 
of  its  losses  to  the  total  amount  loaned  was  but  four-hundredths  of  one  per 
cent.     In  the  eighty  years  of  its  existence  as  a  State  bank,  from  1784  to  1864, 
tlie  whole  amount  of  circulating  notes  issued  by  it  was  $4,674,177,  of  which 
the  amount  lost,  or  not  presented  for  redemption,  was  $22,111,  or  not  quite 
half  of  one  per  cent. 

No  further  bank-charter  was  granted  by  this  State  until  1792,  in  which  year 
the  Union  Bank  was  organized,  with  a  specie  capital  of  $1,200,000,  of  which 
$400,000  was  subscribed  by  the  State.     During  this  interval  the 
currency  was  in  bad  condition.      Small  bills  had  nearly  driven  tjon^'"'" 
specie  out  of  circulation,  when,  in  1792,  the  legislature  prohibited  ordered, and 
any  further  issue  of  notes  of  a  less  denomination  than  five  dollars,   s""^" J^'"* 

^  prohibited. 

Provision  was  made  for  legislative  examinations  of  the  Union 
Bank,  and  it  was  made  the  depository  of  the  funds  of  the  commonwealth.  It 
was  also  required  to  loan  not  ex(x*eding  $100,000  to  the  State  at  five-per-cent 
interest,  and  provisions  of  a  similar  nature  api)eared  in  most  of  the  charters 
subsequently  granted.  In  1795  Massachusetts  incorporated  her  third  bank, 
the  Nantucket,  with  a  capital  of  $40,000  ;  and  in  the  same  year  the  Merrimack, 
at  Newburyport,  was  established.  The  prohibition  against  the  issue  of  small 
hills  was  waived  in  the  case  of  these  banks,  each  of  them  being  allowed  to 
issue  notes  as  small  as  two  dollars. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  tiiat  the  science  of  banking  was,  at  this  period 
•  if  our  history,  in  its  infancy  ;  not  only  infancy  of  proi)ortion,  but  of  idea.     It 
'.vas  not  yet  understood  exactly  what  tlic  true  province  of  a  bank   u^ygiop. 
was.  nor  yet  what  was  the  best  way  to  make  such  an  institution   mentof 
secure.     Then,  too.  as  an  inheritance  from  the  mother-country  and  scientific 

'  '^  tjankingt 

past  ages,  the  grant  of  the  privilege  of  banking  was  a  special,  not  a 
.uoneral  one  ;  and,  in  return  tiierefor,  the  grantees  were  expected  to  make  some 
particular  return  to  the  government.      vVe  have  noticed  this  in  the  lionuses 
exacted  for  the  United-States  bank-ch.arters  both  by  the  Federal  (Government 
anil  that  of  Pennsylvania.     We  notice,  in  the  case  of  Massachusetts,  tiiat  she 


4:\  ■)  ''kM' 


796 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


exacted  a  loan  from  the  Union  Bank,  the  second  she  ever  chartered.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  government  took  the  institution  under  its  special  protection, 
and  insured  success  by  subscribing  a  third  or  so  of  the  capital  of  the  proposed 

bank.  In  nearly 
all  the  charters 
granted  subse- 
quent to  the  year 
1 793  provision  was 
made  for  a  State 
subscription,  usu- 
ally    about     one- 

^'*°^^)'^**-=^t^y  ^'''Cii^F'^C^^^        third  of  the  c^\^\- 

Znmmjy  ^^H^imM^         tal.     under  thL 

provisions  tlie 
State  became 
largely  interested  in  the  banking-business,  holding  in  1812  about  $1,000,000 
of  bank-stock,  the  total  bank  capital  in  the  State  being  t'/^n  about  $8,000,000. 
Colman's  idea  was  to  secure  a  bank's  notes  by  mortgages  on  land.  The 
Colonies  and  States  seem  to  have  trusted  largely  to  the  character  of  the  bankers 
Govern-  ^°'"  ^onesty  and  good  management  to  whom  ch^irters  were  given. 
mental  But,  by  degrees,  the  necessity  for  some  sort  of  surveillance  began 

nspection.  ^^  |^^  ^-^j^  Provision  haf'  been  made  in  1792  for  a  legislative 
examination,  which,  no  doubt,  was  a  pretty  thorough  and  methodical  tiiin.t; 
in  those  days ;  but  this  inspection  was  probably  ordered,  in  a  great  measure. 
on  account  of  the  Union  Bank  being  a  depository  of  State  funds,  and  less 
out  of  regard  for  the  business-community.  In  1799  ^  '^^^  '^^'^  passed 
prohibiting  the  issuing  of  notes  by  unauthorized  associations ;  so  that  govern- 
mental inspection  had  a  greater  value.  This  enactment  was  modelled  after 
one  of  the  British  Parliament  in  1741  ;  but  its  enforcement  in  New  I^nglaml 
almost  produced  a  rebellion.  In  1803  the  examination  was  made  an  execu- 
tive function  ;  and  the  banks  were  required  to  make  out  returns,  like  tiie 
railroads  and  insurance  companies  in  certain  Sta:es  now  :  these  returns  were 
to  be  semi-annual,  and  to  be  sent  to  the  governor  and  council.  In  1805 
another  enactment  required  that  they  be  sworn  to. 

But  all  this  legislation  was  insufficient  to  make  the  bank-notes  sound 
money.  The  law  prohibiting  the  issue  of  bills  in  smaller  denominations  than 
Evils  arising  ^^^  dollars  was  violated,  and  notes  as  small  as  twenty-five  cents 
became  very  plenty.  This  drove  specie  out  of  circulation.  The 
banks  issued  larger  notes,  too,  beyond  reason  ;  and  in  1809,  when 
the  embargo  had  paralyzed  cotumerce  and  trade,  and  business  was  depressed, 
bank-notes  were  often  at  fifty-per-cent  discount.  The  crisis  was  so  great,  that 
several  banks  failed  altogether.  In  18 10  the  legislature  passed  a  law  fixing  a 
penalty  of  two  per  cent  a  month  for  failure  to  redeem  notes  on  presentation  ; 
which  somewhat  helped  matters. 


notwith- 
standing. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


797 


;ver  chartered.     On  the 
T  its  special  protection, 
capital  of  the  proposed 
bank.      In  nearly 
all     the     charters 
granted  subse- 
quent to  the  year 
1 793  provision  was 
made  for  a  State 
subscription,  usu- 
ally    about     one- 
third  of  the  cai)i- 
tal.     Under  these 
provisions  the 
State    became 
1  1812  about  $1,000,000 
1 1!-  ^n  about  $8,000,000. 
mortgages  on  land.    The 
s  character  of  the  bankers 
horn  chijirters  were  given. 
ort  of  surveillance  began 
in  1792  for  a  legislative 
gli  and  methodical  tiling 
:red,  in  a  great  measure, 
of  State  funds,  and  less 
799    a   law   was   passed 
iations ;  so  that  govern- 
ment was  modelled  after 
cement  in  New  England 
ion  was  made  an  exccu- 
kc  out  returns,  like  the 
now  :  these  returns  were 
and  council.     In  1805 

the  bank-notes  sound 
aller  denominations  than 
mall  as  twenty-five  cents 
out  of  circulation.  The 
ison;  and  in  1809,  when 
1  business  was  depresseil, 
e  crisis  was  so  great,  tliat 
ire  passed  a  law  fixing  a 

notes  on  presentation ; 


In  1799  Massachusetts  had  five  State  banks.  The  returns  made  in  1805 
showed  sixteen  in  operation,  with  a  capital  of  $5,760,000,  of  which  $5,460,000 
had  been  paid  in.     Only  one  more  was  chauered  before  181 1;  for  „ 

...  •  ..      ,  History  for 

the  interval  was  a  very  trying  one  for  banks.     In  that  year  two  more  the  nrst 
were  chartered,  and  nearly  all  the  old  ones  were  re-chartered,  the  i"_"f*<=r »' 
new  grants  reducing  the  circulation  from  twice  the  capital  to  only      '*'"  "'^' 
fifty  per  cent  in  excess.     In  1812  the  State  began  taxing  the  banks  one-half  of 
one  per  cent  on  their  capital. 

The  Massaciuisetts  banks  did  not  suspend  in  1C14,  as  did  so  many  others 
all  over  the  country ;  which  was  attributable,  in  a  great  measure,  to  the  fact  that 
the  laws  of  the  State  imposed  a  heavy  penalty  for  non-payment  of  their  notes. 
The  whole  number  of  banks  chartered  previous  to  Jan.  i,  1825,  was  forty-nine, 
with  an  authorized  capital  of  $20,800,000.  Of  this  number,  however,  nine 
had  either  failed,  discontinued,  or  had  nevei  gone  into  operation.  Reductions 
in  capital  of  many  of  tiie  remaining  banks  had  also  taken  place,  leaving  at 
the  date  named  forty  banks  in  operation,  with  $14,305,000  of  authorized  capi- 
tal, of  which  $13,300,000  had  been  paid  in  ;  so  that,  at  tiie  close  of  the  first 
forty-one  years  of  banking  in  Massachusetts,  not  less  than  eighty-two  per  cent 
of  the  whole  number  chartered,  together  with  seventy  per  cent  of  the  capital 
authorizeil,  still  remained  in  existence.  In  this  year  the  limit  of  circulation 
was  still  further  reduced  to  the  amount  of  the  capital  paid  in. 

Two  measures  combined  to  raise  the  value  of  bank-notes :  one  was 
forcing  the  banks  to  redeem  on  presentation  at  their  own  counter,  and  the 
other  was  the  initiation  of  a  system  by  which  other  banks  co-  The  Suffolk- 
operated  to  secure  such  redenijjtion.  In  the  present  day,  when  Bank 
government-notes  and  national-bank  notes  are  current  everywhere  *y^*""- 
at  par,  it  is  hard  to  realize  how  quickly  a  note  depreciated  at  any  distance 
from  the  bank  which  issued  it.  This  was  especially  the  case  with  notes  from 
the  banks  of  other  States.  There  were  no  facilities  for  the  holder  visiting  the 
l)ank  to  demand  payment,  and  there  was  a  doubt  whether  he  would  get 
the  money  if  he  did  so  visit  it.  In  1813  a  movement  toward  a  reform  in  the 
hank-currency  began.  Bills  of  banks  in  other  States  were  then  at  a  discount 
in  Boston  from  three  to  five  per  cent,  and  the  notes  of  Boston  banks  had 
nearly  disappeared.  The  New-England  Bank,  organized  in  that  year  with  a 
capital  of  $1,000,000,  instituted  the  system  of  sending  foreign  bills  for  redemp- 
tion to  the  banks  whicli  issued  them,  and  charging  the  bill-holders  only  the 
actual  expense  of  transmitting  the  notes  and  returning  the  proceeds.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  system  of  redemption  afterward  known  as  the  Suffolk- 
Hank  system.  This  system  was  more  fully  developed  at  a  later  period  (1825), 
when  five  of  the  Boston  banks  —  the  Suffolk,  Eagle,  Manufacturers'  and  Me- 
chanics' (now  the  Tremont),  the  (llobe,  and  State  —  undertook  its  manage- 
ment. For  a  long  time  the  system  was  bitterly  opposed  by  those  banks 
interested  in  preventing  a  return  of  their  circulation ;   but  it  was  eventually 


V0 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


successful.  Its  exclusive  management  was  finally  assumed  by  the  Suffolk. 
Bank ;  which  bank  compelled  the  redemption  at  par  in  Boston  of  the  notes, 
of  the  New-England  banks  by  a  system  of  assorting  and  returning  the  notes 
to  the  place  of  issue,  and  its  operations  were  continued  down  to  the  estali- 
lishment  of  the  national-bank  svstem.  The  amount  of  New-England  bank- 
notes redeemed  at  the  Suffolk  Bank  from  1841  to  1857  was  as  follows,  in 
millions  of  dollars  :  — 


'■ '  I 


DATE.  MILLIONS. 

I84I 109 

1842 105 

1844 I-() 

184s '37 

1S46 141 

1847 165 

1848 178 

1849 '99 

1850 210 

i8S' 243 

1852 245 

'853 288 

1854 23' 

'85s 341 

i8s<> 397 

•857 376 


The  first  really  comprehensive  banking  law  of  Massachusetts  was  passed  in 
1829,  under  which  new  banks  were  required  to  have  fifty  per  cent  of  their 
Newieeisia-  capital  bona  fide  paid  in  specie  before  commencing  business.  It 
tion  for  also  prohibited  loans  to  shareholders  until  their  subscriptions  were 

•ecurity.  entirely  paid  in,  and  limited  the  amount  of  loans  on  pledges  of 
its  own  stock  to  fifty  per  cent  of  the  capital.  Th^  limit  of  circulating-notes 
was  increased  to  twenty-five  per  cent  in  excess  of  the  paid-in  capital ;  and 
debts  due  to  or  from  any  bank,  exclusive  of  deposits,  were  restricted  to  twice 
the  amount  of  such  capital,  the  directors  being  held  personally  liable  for  any 
excess.  On  Jan.  i,  1837,  there  had  been  organized  in  all  a  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  banks,  with  an  authorized  capital  of  $40,830,000.  Of  this  num- 
ber, four  had  never  gone  into  operation  ;  while,  of  the  remaining  hundred  and 
thirty-four,  no  less  than  thirty-two  had  either  failed,  or  had  forfeited  or  sur- 
rendered their  charters,  in  consequence  of  the  financial  panic  of  that  year. 
The  nominal  capital  of  the  banks  that  failed  was  $5,500,000 :  their  liabilities 
were  $11,283,960,  of  which  $3,133,129  was  for  circulation,  and  $1,577,738  for 
deposits.  The  loss  to  their  shareholders  was  estimated  at  $2,500,000,  and  to 
the  public  at  $750,000  more ;  making  a  total  loss  of  about  $3,250,000.  or 
nearly  thirty  per  cent  of  their  entire  indebtedness.  During  the  fifty-two  years 
from  1784  to  1836  ten  banks  only  had  failed  or  discontinued,  the  total  losses  to 


OJ'-    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


799 


ssumed  by  the  Suffolk 
in  Boston  of  the  notes 
ind  returning  the  notes 
jed  down  to  the  estab- 
of  New-England  bank- 
1857  was  as  follows,  in 


MILLIONS. 
.       109 
.       105 
.       126 

•  '37 
.  I4< 
.  165 

.   .  1-8 

•  199 

,    .  220 

.  243 

•  245 

.  28S 

•  231 
■  34« 

•  397 

•  376 

ssachusetts  was  passed  in 
k-e  fifty  per  cent  of  their 
lonimencing  business.     It 
il  their  subscriptions  were 
of  loans  on  pledges  tif 
limit  of  circulating-notes 
the  paid-in  capital ;  and 
,  were  restricted  to  twice 
1  personally  liable  for  any 
d  in  all  a  hundred  and 
),830,ooo.     Of  this  num- 
le  remaining  hundred  and 
,  or  had  forfeited  or  sur- 
ncial  panic  of  that  year. 
,500,000  :  their  liabilities 
ation,  and  ;?i,577,738  '<"■ 
ted  at  $2,500,000,  and  to 

of  about  $3.250'Ooo-  "■■ 
During  the  fifty-two  years 
itinued,  the  total  losses  to 


their  shareholders  and  the  public  probably  not  exceeding  a  third  of  a  million  of 
dollars.  One  of  the  results  of  this  crisis  was  the  atloption  by  Massachusetts 
of  a  system  of  official  examinations  of  the  banks  through  the  agency  of  a  board 
of  bank-commissioners,  who  were  required  to  make  annual  examinations  of 
every  bank,  and  special  ones  whenever  requested  by  the  governor  of  the 
State. 

A  free  banking  law  was  passed  in  1851,  very  similar  in  its  provisions  to 
that  of  the  State  of  New  York  (to  which  we  shall  presently  refer) ;  but  not 
more  than  seven  banks  were  ever  organized  under  it,  the  system  of  chartered 
banks,  which  had  so  long  prevailed,  mainly  occupying  the  field  down  to  the 
time  of  the  national  banking  system.     Upon  the  establishment  of  ^^^^  ^^„^_ 
the  latter  system,  the  State  diil  much  to  facilitate  the  conversion  ing  law  of 
of  State  into  National  banks ;  and  the  first  institution  to  avail  itself  ''^'" 
of  this  privilege  was  the  Safety  Fund  Bank  of  Jio^,;on  in  1863,  under  the  title  of 
"  The  First  National  Hank  of  Boston."    The  conversions  progressed  so  rapidly, 
that  in  October,   1865,  but  a  single  bank  remained  doing  business  under  a 
State   charter.     At   the   latter  date,  of  the   hundred   and   eighty-three   State 
banks  which  existed  in  1863,  four  had  been  discontinued,  and  a  hundred  ;  .id 
seventy-eight  had  become  national  banks. 

A  writer  in  "Hunt's  Merchants'  Magazine"  for  1840  has  compiled  the 
statistics  of  the  dividends  paitl  by  the  Massachusetts  banks  in  the  last  half  of 
each  of  the  thirty-two  years  from  1808  to  1839  inclusive.  As  the  profits  of 
State  in  18 13  imposed  an  annual  tax  of  one  percent  on  bank  Massachu- 
capital,  the  writer  mentioned  separates  the  whoJe  time  into  two  ""»''■"''=• 
l)eriods,  and  finds,  that,  for  the  five  years  eniling  with  181 2,  the  average  semi- 
annual dividends  paitl  by  all  the  banks  was  three  dollars  and  seventy-two  cents 
upon  each  hundred  dollars  of  capital ;  while,  for  the  twenty-seven  years  which 
followed  the  imposition  of  the  bank-tax,  the  average  semi-annual  rate  was  two 
dollars  and  ninety-six  cents  per  hundred.  Taking  the  whole  period  of  thirty- 
two  years  together,  the  semi-annual  average  was  about  three  and  one-tenth 
per  cent.  Assuming  that  the  dividends  paid  in  the  first  half  of  these  years  did 
not  differ  materially  from  those  paid  in  the  last  half,  the  average  annual  divi- 
dends on  capital  were,  for  the  first  fi>e  years,  seven  and  forty-five  hundredths 
jier  cent ;  for  the  succeeding  twenty-seven  years,  five  and  ninety-three  hun- 
dredths per  cent;  and,  for  the  whole  period,  six  and  seventeen  hundredths. 
per  cent ;  or  at  the  rate  of  about  six  and  one-sixth  per  cent  per  annum  for  the 
whole  period.  The  average  annual  ratio  of  dividends  to  capital  of  the  national 
i)anks  of  Massachusetts  from  1870  to  1876  was  nine  and  six-tenths  per  cent, 
and  the  ratio  of  dividends  to  capital  and  surplus  for  the  same  period  was  seven 
and  six-tenths  per  cent. 

NEW   YORK. 

The  Bank  of  New  York  began  business  in  1 784  under  articles  of  associa- 


ia 


■:^m 


8oo 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


I 


tion  drawn  by  Alexander  Hamilton,  who  was  a  member  of  its  first  board  of 
Bank  of  directors.     Thi?  bank  was  ciiartcrcd  by  the  legislature  on  March 

New  York,  ji,  1791,  and  was  the  first  bank  in  tiie  State  organized  under  Icgis 
lative  sanction,  and  the  third  bank  in  tiie  United  States.  It  was  organi/cd 
with  a  capital  of  ;^90o,ooo,  in  shares  of  $500  each.  The  State  subsciiuentiy 
subscribed  for  a  hundred  shares,  making  the  capital  ;i?95o,ooo ;  and  the  bank 
commenced  business  on  Mov  2,  1791.  In  1832  the  capital  was  increased  tn 
$1,000,000  by  a  State  subscriptior  of  1^50,000,  $15,000  of  which  was  for  tin 
use  of  common  scho>^!s.  $20,000  for  tnion  College,  and  $15,000  for  Haniiitdii 
College.  On  May  i,  1852,  it  was  re-organized  as  a  free  bank  under  the  gen- 
eral laws  of  the  State,  with  a  capital  of  $2,000,000.  On  Jan.  6,  1865,  ii 
became  a  national  bank,  the  capital  having  previously  been  increased  to 
$3,000,000.  During  its  seventy-four  years  of  existence  as  a  State  bank  it  paid 
a  hundred  and  sixty-two  dividends,  varying  in  amount  from  three  to  five  pur 
cent  semi-annually,  averaj';ing  a  little  more  than  eight  per  cent  jjcr  annum,  and 
amounting  in  all  to  over  six  times  its  capital.  Since  it  became  a  national 
bank,  dividends  have  been  declared  at  the  rate  of  ten  per  cent  per  annum. 
The  gross  losses  during  the  history  of  the  bank  amount  to  about  $750,000 ; 
having  never  exceeded  one-cjuarter  to  one-half  of  one  per  cent  of  capital 
during  any  single  year,  except  during  the  intervals  from  1837  to  1842,  and 
from  1873  to  1875.  The  bank  was  a  favorite  of  the  Federal  party  at  the  time 
of  its  organization. 

The  two  great  features  of  State-banking  in  New  York  are  the  vast  influenc  e 
politics  have  had  thereon,  and  the  great  security  devised  by  her  laws.  Tlu' 
Partisan-  ^""^^  charter  granted  was  to  Federalists ;  and  for  several  years  nun 
ship  and  belonging  to  the  opposite  party  could  secure  charters  only  with  the 
'"  "*'  utmost  difficulty,  —  a  denial  the  more  oppressive  because  they  were 
not  treated  at  existing  banks  with  the  same  accommodation  as  were  Federalists. 
The  Republicans  in  New- York  City  having  met  with  this  latter  experience,  and 
anticipating  the  former  trouble,  applied  to  the  legislature  for  a  charter  for  a 
water  company ;  but  a  provision  was  artfully  introduced  which  gave  the  corpo- 
ration banking-privileges.  The  phraseology  was  not  understood  fully,  and  tiie 
ruse  succeeded.  Thus  was  established  the  Manhattan  Company  in  1799 
largely  through  the  efforts  of  Aaron  Burr,  Hamilton's  great  rival.  In  1792  tiu' 
Bank  of  Albany  had  been  chartered;  but  it  was  controlled  by  Fede^ -"lists. 
Accordingly,  there  was  soon  a  plea  for  a  new  bank  to  be  run  by  Republicans.  • 
In  1803  some  persons  appealed  to  the  legislature  to  charter  the  New- York 
State  Bank  at  Albany,  and  alleged  that  the  other  institution  in  that  city  was 
very  oppressive.  The  other  twc  neighboring  banks  —  the  Farmers'  near 
Troy,  and  the  Columbia  at  Hudson — were  also  controlled  by  Federalists. 
By  admitting  the  Clinton  and  Livingston  interest  to  the  privilege  of  hold- 
ing some  of  the  stock  (a  privilege  that  was  very  valuable),  the  charter 
was  finally  obtained  from  what  would  now  be  regarded  as  a   Republicaii- 


f. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


80 1 


of  its  first  board  of 
legislature  on   March 
organizetl  vmder  legis- 
:s.     It  was  organi/x'd 
lie  State  subseciuciUly 
0,000 ;  and  the  bank 
pital  was  increased  tn 
of  which  was  for  the 
$15,000  for  Ilaniilton 
bank  under  the  gcn- 
On  Jan.  6,  1865,  ii 
aly  been    increased   to 
as  a  State  bank  it  paid 
from  three  to  five  per 
L>r  cent  per  annum,  and 
;  it  became  a  national 
n  per  cent  per  annum, 
unt  to  about  $750,000  ; 
nc  per  cent  of  capital 
om   1837  to   1842,  and 
ederal  party  at  the  time 

rk  are  the  vast  influent  e 
ised  by  her  laws.    'I'hc 
d  for  several  years  nun 
■e  charters  only  with  tlic 
:ssive  because  they  were 
Ltion  as  were  Federalists, 
s  latter  experience,  and 
ture  for  a  charter  for  a 
.  which  gave  the  corpo- 
ulerstood  fully,  and  ilie 
:an   Company  in    1799 
reat  rival.     In  1792  t'^' 
ntroUed  by  Federalists, 
le  run  by  Republican^, 
charter  the  New-Voik 
jitution  in  that  city  was 
—  the    Farmers'  near 
itroUed  by  Federalists. 
the  privilege  of  hold- 
valuable),  the   charter 
[ded  as   a   Republican- 


Democratic  legislature.  A  clause  was  contained  in  Uic  original  bill,  granting 
the  corporation  tlie  exclusive  right  to  the  Syracuse  salt-springs  on  condition  of 
$3,000  a  year  being  paid  the  State  for  tlie  first  ten  years,  §3,500  the  next  ten, 
and  $4,000  annually  for  the  next  ten  ;  but  tliis  was  stricken  out  before  enact- 
ment. Tlie  same  year  (1803)  the  Federalist  interest  sought  a  charter  for  the 
Merchants'  Bank  of  New-York  City,  but  was  refiised.  A  fresh  application  for 
a  charter  was  then  made  in  1S04,  business  having 
been  started  and  contiiuied  unilcr  articles  of  asso- 
ciation ;  but  not  only  was  this  denied,  but  a  re- 
.straining  act  was  passed,  especially  designed  to 
stop  llieir  furtiicr  i)rocecdings.  Indeed,  not  only 
were  tlie  Democrats  connected  with  Aaron  Burr's 
institution  desirous  of  maintaining  that  and  tlic 
Maniiattan  Bank  as  monopolies,  but  they  thought 
it  very  presuming  in  the  Federalists  to  ask  a 
Democratic  legislature   to  give   them  anv  favors. 

'  WASHINGTON   HALI'-DpLI.AR. 

However,  tlie   petition  was  renewed ;    and   after 

very  hot  debates  and  a  violent  altercation,  in  which  two  senators,  both  having 
the  title  of  judge,  came  to  actual  fisticuffs  within  the  senatorial  precincts,  the 
bill  of  incorporation  i)assed  the  Senate  by  a  majority  of  three  votes. 

This  unnatural  obstruction  which  partisanship  placed  upon  legislation  led, 
very  naturally,  to  the  use  of  corrupt  means  to  secure  charters.  There  was  no 
particular  contest  after  the  one  just  mentioned  until  1812,  when  Bribery  in 
ajjplication  was  niaile  for  a  ciiarter  for  the  Bank  of  .\merica  with  a  bank  legisia- 
capital  of  $6,000,000.  We  have  already  stated  how  the  Bank  of  *'°"" 
the  United  States  paid  both  the  Federal  Government  and  the  State  of  Pennsyl- 
vania l)onuses  for  a  charter.  It  was  proposed  to  give  New- York  State  $600,- 
000  for  this  Bank-of-Anierica  charter ;  but  it  was  demanded  that  no  other 
bank  be  chartered  for  twenty  years.  To  catch  votes,  it  was  also  provided  that 
immense  loans  were  to  be  made  tlie  State  to  builil  canals,  and  to  the  farmers. 
Hut  it  was  flirt lierniore  evident  that  actual  bribery  was  resorted  to  in  both 
houses  of  the  legislature  ;  and  when  tlie  Assembly  had  voted,  fifty-eight  to  thir- 
ty-nine, to  give  tiie  ciiarter,  and  it  was  api)arent  that  the  Senate  would  concur, 
Cov.  Tompkins  prorogued  the  legislature.  Later,  a  greatly  modified  charter 
was  granted  instead.  A  clause  was  inserted  in  the  Constitution  of  182 1,  wliich 
rctjuired  the  assent  of  two-thirds  of  both  brandies  of  the  legislature  in  order 
to  incorporate  a  moneyed  institution.  Tlic  only  effect  of  the  restrictive  clause 
was  to  increase  the  evil  by  rendering  necessary  a  more  extended  system  of 
corruption. 

Already  reference  has  been  made  to  the  restraining  law  of  1S04.    This  \as 
nominally  to  secure  the  public  interest  by  preventing  the  circu-  Therestrain- 
lation  of  an  unsound  currency;  but  it  is  believed  that  it  was  en-  '"eiaw. 
acted  in  the  interest  of  existing  monopolies.     It  prohibited  any  person,  under 


i^-^U: 


/         I 


'^    A', 


'    -<.*■■    /Ill 


i'M 


8o3 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


FIRST   UNITKU-STATKS    UOLI.AK. 


a  penalty  of  i  thcisand  dollars,  from  subscribing  to  or  becoming  a  member 
of  nr,y  association  for  the  purpost  of  receiving  deposits,  or  of  transacting  any 
other  business  which  incorporated  banks  may  or  do  transact  by  virtue  of  their 
acts  of  incorporation.  This  law  prohibited  associations  ci  persons  from  doing 
a  banking-business  ;  but  'ndiviiluals  and  incorporated  institutions  subsequently 
issued  bills  in  denominations   as   low   as  six,  twelve,  twenty-flve,  fifty,  md 

seventy-five  cints.  'Jo  prevent  the  Airtl^r 
issue  by  irresponsible  persons  of  currem  y  in 
the  similitude  of  bank-notes,  which  had  become 
a  great  evil  at  the  close  of  the  war  of  iSu, 
the  Restraining  Act  of  1 8 1 8  was  passed  ;  which 
.  ])rovi(.led  that  no  person,  association  of  persons, 
or  body  corporate,  except  such  bodies  corporate 
as  were  expressly  authorized  by  law,  should  keep 
any  office  for  the  puqiose  of  receiving  deposits, 
or  discounting  notes  or  bills,  or  for  issuing  any 
evidence  of  debt  to  be  loaned  or  put  in  circu- 
lation as  money.  This  law  remained  upon  the 
statute-books  for  thirty-two  years,  and,  after 
various  unsuccessful  attempts,  was  finally  repealed  in  1837,  —  one  year  before 
the  passage  of  thi;  free  banking  law. 

From  1 79 1,  when  the  Bank  of  New  York  was  incorporated,  until  the 
d>;claration  of  var  with  CJ-eat  Britain  in  181 2,  nineteen  banks  were  char- 
PtogresBin  tered,  with  an  aggregate  capital  of  $18,215,000.  Ten  ot  them 
banking;.  g-^jn  exist,  and  are  institutions  of  high  rank.  Between  181 2  and 
1829  tventy-four  more  were  chartered,  with  a  capital  of  $25,105,000,  of  which 
$13,770,000  was  for  banks  in  New- York  City. 

As  yet  there  had  been  no  legislation  looking  to  the  security  of  bank  circu- 
lation, so  little  had  the  science  of  banking  developed.  But  in  1829,  when  the 
Safety-fund  charters  of  some  forty  banks  were  about  to  expire,  (lov.  Van 
banks.  Buren  recommended  the  passage  of  a  law,  which  was  enacted  in 

April  of  that  year,  pro\'iding  a  system  of  insurance  of  bank-notes  'n'.ecl 
upon  a  custom  prevalent  among  Chinese  merchants.  The  law  provide  '  ihat 
all  new  or  rechartcred  banks  should  pay  an  annual  tax  of  one-half  c 
per  cent  on  their  capital  stock  until  three  per  cent  had  been  paic' 
the  fund  should  be  used  by  the  State  treasurer  to  redeem  the  nou 
pay  the  debts  of  insolvent  banks.  If  the  fuud  became  impaired  at 
time,  new  contributions  were  to  be  made  to  bring  it  up  to  a  normal  si/e. 
The  law  a'lowed  the  issue  of  notes  to  twice  the  amount  of  the  capital,  and 
loans  to  two  and  a  half  times  the  amount  of  capital.  This  safety-fund  law  did 
not  accomplish  ?cs  purpose.  In  1841-42  eleven  banks  failed,  whose  cai)itnl 
was  $3,150,000:  their  liabilities,  which  the  .State  had  to  meet,  amounted  to 
$2,558,933.     These  eleven  banks  had  contributed  but  $86,274  to  the  safety 


one 
and 
ind 
any 


-,.  '  V' 


VF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


803 


)r  becoming  a  member 
5,  or  of  transacting  any 
nsact  by  virtue  of  their 
i  oi  persons  from  doing 
nstitutions  subsequently 
,  twenty-<ive,  fifty,  ind 
lo   prevent    the   further 
persons  of  currtMK  y  in 
-.otes,  which  had  l)ei()iue 
)se  of  tlie  war  of  1812, 
1818  was  passed;  whi<  h 
m,  association  of  persons, 
ept  such  bo(Ucs  corporate 
irized  by  law,  shouUl  keej) 
ose  of  receiving  deposits, 
)r  bills,  or  for  issuing  any 
e  loaned  or  put  .n  circu- 
is  law  remained  upon  the 
rty-two   years,  and,  after 
,827,  —  one  year  before 

t  incorporated,  until  the 
leteen  banks  were  char- 
,215,000.  Ten  ol  them 
ink.  Between  181 2  ami 
of  $25,105,000,  of  which 

lie  security  of  bank  circn- 

But  in  1829,  when  the 
jut  to  expire,  dov.  Van 
aw,  which  was  enacted  in 
ice    of  bank-notes  '^n^ed 

The  law  provide  '  diat 
il  tax  of  one-half  c  one 
It  had  been  paic'      .  and 

redeem  the  noic    md 
)ecame   impaired   at  any 
it  up  to  a  normal  size. 
pount  of  the  capital,  and 

This  safety-fund  law  did 
lanks  failed,  whose  capital 
lad  to  meet,  amounted  td 
nit  $86,274  to  the  safety 


fund;  and  even  down  to  Sept.  30,  1848,  all  of  tie-  safcty-lund  banks  had 
contrilnited  hut  51,876,063.  The  State  issued  six-pi.T-cent  stock  to  make 
up  the  <len<iency,  and  was  partly  re-imbursed  l>y  new  contributions  from  the 
banks.  I'he  law  was  amended,  liowever,  in  1842,  so  that  the  safety-fund 
became  a  security  for  (■ir(nilatinj,'-notes  only,  and  no  other  debts. 

Tlie  law  of  1829  also  provided  that  there  should  he  three  commissioners 
to  examine  the  hanks,  and  report  annually  to  the  legislature  on  the  condition 
of  those  instittilions.  I  He  law  provided  that  one  commissioner  Bank  com- 
should  be  appointed  by  the  (lovernor  and  Senate,  one  by  the  missioncrg. 
banks  of  the  south(  n\  part  of  tlie  State,  and  one  by  the  remaining  banks, 
lint  in  1837  the  (lovernor  and  Senate  were  authorized  10  select  them  all; 
and,  this  power  being  abused  for  political  ends,  the  work  of  examination 
was  in  1843  taken  from  the  commissioners,  whose  office  was  abolished,  and 
given  to  the  comptroller.  Jn  1851  the  present  office  of  bank  superintendent 
was  created  instead. 

Already  we  have  mentioned  how  politics  affected  the  procurement  of 
charters  in  the  early  days  ;  the  privilege  of  banking  being  a  rich  one,  and 
hence  regarded  as  part  of  the  si)oils  cf  office.  This  was  also  More  poiiti- 
the  case  with  the  safety-fund  banks,  whose  stock  was  sold  mostly  =''  "bu.es. 
to  political  friends  and  favorites  of  the  agents  selected  for  that  business.  This 
produced  an  immense  deal  of  diseonl  and  animosity  in  business,  social,  and 
political  circles,  and  much  corruption.  'I'he  office  of  bank  commissioner  was 
also  made  a  political  prize,  and  was  sought  for  by  men  utterly  incapable  of 
performing  its  delicate  judicial  duties.  It  was  the  re-action  in  public  senti- 
ment against  this  state  of  affairs,  but  more  particularly  against  the  grant  of 
special  privileges,  which  led  to  the  enactment  of  the  general  banking  law. 

The  free  banking  system  of  New  York  was  authorized  in  1838.  Its  two 
great  features  were,  that  it  openetl  the  privileges  of  banking,  on  certain  con- 
ditions, to  all  persons  alike  ;  and  it  provided  much  better  security  Free  bank- 
for  the  redemption  of  notes  than  had  yet  been  provided.  The  '"« system, 
system  of  deposits  with  the  comptroller  for  security  was  the  one  on  which 
tlie  national  banks  of  a  later  date  were  based.  It  was  originally  that  all 
banking  associations,  on  depositing  stock  of  the  State  of  New  York  or  of 
the  United  States,  or  any  State  stock  which  should  be,  or  be  made,  equal 
to  a  five-per-cent  stock,  or  bonds  and  mortgages  on  improved  and  produc- 
tive real  esta^".  worth,  exclusive  of  the  buildings  thereon,  double  the  amount 
secured  by  the  mortgage,  and  bearing  interest  at  not  less  than  six  per  cent 
per  annum,  sliould  receive  from  the  comptroller  of  the  State  an  equal  amount 
of  circulating-notes.  Previous  to  the  year  1843  twenty-nine  of  these  banks, 
with  an  aggregate  circulation  of  $1,233,374,  had  failed;  and  their  securities, 
consisting  of  stocks  and  bunds  and  mortgages  amounting  to  $1,555,338, 
were  sold  for  $953,371,  entailing  a  loss  of  $601,966.  The  avails  of  the 
securities  were  sufficient  to  pay  but  seventy-four  per  cent  of  the  circulation 


m^i% 


1 

m 

mm 

I 


l\ 


804 


INDUSTRIAL    H r STORY 


uluiic.  The  losses  to  the  bill-holilors  occurred  only  in  the  case  of  tliose  buiik^, 
which  had  (le[)osiled  State  stoclvS  other  tlian  those  of  New  York.  'I'iie  law 
was  thi.Ti'iipoM  so  aincndcil  as  to  cxi  hide  all  slocks,  except  those  issued  hy 
the  Slate  of  New  York,  and  to  require  tiiose  to  be  made  etjual  to  a  fivi 
l)er-cent  stock.  An  amendment  in  1848  recjuired  that  the  stocks  de|)osiii.tl 
shouUl  bear  six  per  cent  interest  instead  of  Ive ;  and  that  the  bonds  and 
mortgages  should  bear  interest  at  seven  per  cent,  and  should  be  on  ino- 
duclive  property,  and  for  an  amount  not  exceeding  two-fiflhs  of  the  value  ol' 
the  land  covered  by  them.  Subseiiuently,  on  April  10,  1849,  the  law  was 
again  so  amended  as  to  reijuire  that  at  least  one-half  of  the  securities  so 
<leposited  should  consist  of  New-York-State  stocks,  and  that  not  more  thin 
one-half  should  be  in  the  stocks  of  the  United  States ;  the  securities  in  all 
cases  to  be,  or  to  be  made,  ecjual  to  a  st(jck  producing  an  interest  of  six  pir 
cent  per  annum,  and  to  be  taken  at  a  rate  not  above  their  par  value,  and  at 
not  more  than  'heir  market-value. 

Two  other  interesting  features  of  the  later  Slate-bank  legislation  in  New 
York  were  the  reciuirement  that  the  banks  reileem  their  notes  at  some  agenc  y 
Redemption  in  New  York,  Albany,  or  Troy,  and  that  stockholders  shoulil  he 
and  liability,  individually  liable  for  the  obligations  of  the  bank  to  the  cMciit 
of  their  shares.  The  latter  provision  was  incorporated  into  the  Consliliiliun 
of  1846.  The  former  was  a  law  of  1840,  which  allowed  a  discount  of  one- 
half  of  one  percent  on  redemption:  in  1S51  the  discount  was  reduced  to 
one-fourth  of  one  per  cent.  The  New-York  (!ity  banks.  ho\v(;ver,  soon 
inaugurated  the  Suffolk- Hank  system  already  described,  rnd  divided  the  dis 
count  between  themselves  and  the  redemption  agency.  Such  banks  as  did 
not  provide  for  redemiHion  were  forced  to  close  up. 


OHIO. 

Ohio's  first  banking  institution,  incorporated  in  1803,  five  months  after  the 
State's  admission  to  the  Union,  was  called  "Tiie  Miami  lOxporting  Company. " 
First  Its  purpose  was  to  build  up  trade  in  that  new  section  of  country. 

ventures.  jj^  capital  was  $500,000,  in  shares  of  a  hundred  dollars  each,  to 
l)e  paid  for  with  five  dollars  cash,  and  the  rest  in  produce  and  manufactures, 
subject  to  the  a])])roval  of  the  president  and  directors.  It  subseiiuently  issucil 
bills,  redeeming  them  with  bank-notes;  but  it  was  obliged  to  clo.se  up  al'kra 
few  years.  'I'he  first  bank  in  the  State  was  that  at  Marietta,  with  a  capital  of 
JS 1 00,000,  chartered  in  1S08.  Another  was  (bartered  at  (."hillicothe  the  same 
year,  and  four  more  between  that  time  and  1S16;  in  which  year  six  chartiis 
were  granted  new  banks,  and  the  old  ones  were  rechartered.  I'^leven  more 
had  been  chartered  by  1S32  ;  but,  with  two  or  three  exceptions  of  double 
that  amount,  $100,000  was  the  nominal  capital  of  all  these  banks.  The 
interest  on  loans  was  restricted  to  six  per  cent  by  law. 


Ol'    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


805 


he  case  of  those  biuik . 

•  New  York.  '\\\^  l-^w 
cxiept  those  issiieil  liy 
nuule  c(iual  to  a  live 
It  tlie  slocks  ileposiu.! 
kI  that  the  boiuls  and 
iml  shoiiUl  be  on  I'l..- 
vo-fifihs  of  the  valiu'  ul 

10,  1849,  ll^^-  >-^^v  ^^'^ 
alf  of  the  sciiirilics  so 
luiil  that  not  more  than 
cs ;  the  securities  in  all 
,ig  an  interest  of  six  per 
c  their  par  vahie,  anil  at 

-l)ank  legislation  in  New 
icir  notes  at  some  a^eiK  y 
L  stockhoKlers  should  he 

•  the  bank  to  the  cxUnt 
.Ueil  into  the  Constiuilion 
lowed  a  discount  of  one 

discount  was  reduced  to 
ly   banks,   howc^ver,   soon 
bod,  rncl  divided  the  dis 
■n.  y.     Such  banks  as  ilul 
.ip. 


S03,  five  months  after  the 
lami  lAporting  Conip^i"). " 
lit  new  section  of  counlry. 
1  hundred  dollars  each,  to 
[roduce  and  uianufactures. 
Irs.     It  subsetiuently  issned 
V.li-cd  to  close  up  after  a 
ilarielta,  with  a  capital  ut 
led  at  c;hillicolhe  the  same 
Im  which  year  six  charters 

Jrcchartered.  l^cvcn  .tiove 
Ihrce  exceptions  of  dom  e 
■of  all  these  banks,  iw 
law. 


In  1833  tlie  Franklin  Bank  of  Cinrinnati  was  rh.irtered  with  a  capital  of 
51,000,000;  and  the  Oliio  l,ife  and  Trust  (Company,  incorporated  the  next 
year,  iuul  the  s?mc.    'I'he  latter  institution  failed  in  1857,  with  Thre«i«rg« 
estimated   liabilities  of  ,^7,000,000.      In   1845  a  State  bank  was  baniii. 
authori/.e<l,  with  a  capital  of  j!6, 150,000,  and  with  sixty-three  branches.     Not 
more  than  thirty-six  brandies  were  ever  established,  however. 

A  particular  feature  of  bank-legislation  in  Ohio  was  the  comparatively 
heavy  taxation,  based,  doubtless,  upon  the  theory  that  it  was  a  valuable  privi- 
lege to  engage  in  banking,  and  upon  the  feeling  against  capital  Bank- 
that  has  (jften  characterized  the  laboring-classes.  As  early  as  t*""'""- 
1816,  when  the  Hank  of  Cincinnati,  with  a  capital  of  :86og,ooo,  was  incorpo- 
rated, a  law  was  passed  reipiiring  all  banks  to  pay  to  the  State  such  a  sum  as 
would,  at  the  expiration  of  their  charters,  amount  to  a  twenty-fifth  part  of  their 
whole  stock.  Vn.  1825  this  was  changed,  so  that  the  tax  was  upon  dividends, 
—  two  per  cent  on  all  previously  made,  and  four  per  cent  thereafter.  The  tax 
was  raised  to  six  per  cent  in  183 1.  In  1852  another  tax-law  was  passed, 
which,  by  a  forced  construction,  imposed  upon  banks  twice,  and  sometimes 
thrice,  the  burden  i)ut  upon  other  property ;  but  such  was  the  pressure,  that 
nnich  of  the  capital  was  sent  into  adjoining  States. 

An  attemi)t  was  even  made  to  tax  the  two  branches  of  the  United-States 
Hank  at  Cincinn.ati  and  Cihillicothe  in  1819.     The  State  imposed  a  tax  of 
^50,000  on  each,  should  they  continue  to  do  business  after  Sept. 
15  of  that  year.      'I'he  bank  applied  for  an  injunction  against  u'^t"'.' 
the  auditor,  and  secured  it  from  the  United-States  Circuit  Court ;  states 
hut  that  officer,  on  the  pretence  that  he  had  not  been  properly  ^^^ 
served  with  the  notice,  seized  S9<S,ooo  at  the  Chillicothc  banking- 
house,  and  turned  it  over  to  the  State  treasurer.    The  Circuit  Court  ordered 
its  return,  however;   and  in  1824  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
confirmed  this  decision. 

The  Act  of  1.S45,  establishing  the  State  Bank,  required,  that,  in  order  to 
( rcate  a  safety-fund,  an  amount  eijual  to  ten  per  centum  of  the  circulation  of 
each  of  the  branches  should  be  paid  to  the  Boaril  of  Control,  The  safety- 
which  was  authorized  to  invest  the  same  either  in  stocks  of  the  '""•*  tyBtem. 
State  or  of  the  I'nited  States,  or  in  bonds  secured  by  mortgages  on  imen- 
cumbered  real  estate  of  at  least  twice  the  value  of  the  amount  secured 
thereby,  which  should  be  payable  on  demand  to  the  State  Bank  of  Ohio ;  and 
each  branch  was  entitled  to  receive  the  interest  accruing  on  the  stocks  and 
bonds  in  which  its  portion  of  the  safety-fund  was  invested.  In  case  of  failure, 
the  stocks  and  bonds  of  the  insolvent  bank  were  first  to  be  applied  to  the 
redemption  of  its  outstanding  notes  before  any  part  of  the  safety-fund  belong- 
ing to  the  other  branches  should  be  so  applied.  The  State  was  divided  into 
twelve  districts,  and  a  portion  of  the  capital  of  the  State  Bank  was  allotted  to 
each.     Sixty-three  branches  in  all  were  authorized,  with  charters  to  continue 


/ 


8o6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


ed  of  otl.^'r 
banks. 


until  1866.  Five  banks  previously  chartered  were  authorized,  upon  certain 
conditions,  to  avail  themselves  of  the  privileges  of  the  act.  The  branches 
were  under  the  supervision  of  a  Board  of  C-ontrol,  consisting  of  one  repre- 
sentative from  each  branch,  which  was  to  furnish  all  the  circulating-notes. 
These  weri  limited  by  the  charter  to  "double  the  amount  of  capital  on  the 
first  $100  000 ;  150  per  cent  on  the  second  $100,000  or  part  thereof,  and  125 
per  cent  on  the  third  $100,000  or  part  thereof."  There  were  thirty-six  of 
these  branches  in  operation  in  1856,  with  a  capital  of  $4,034,524,  and  circu- 
lation of  $7,112,320.  At  that  date  the  Ohio  Life  and  Trust  Company  was 
the  only  bank  created  prior  to  1845  ^''"  '"  existence. 

The  law  of  1845  also  authorized  the  establishment  of  other  banks  than 
„     ^  the  State  Bank  and  branches  :   but  such  independent  institutions 

Further  se-  '  ' 

curity  exact-  were  recjuired  to  deposit  with  the  State  as  security,  not  simply  one- 
tenth  of  the  amount  of  issue,  but  an  equal  amount.  In  1856 
there  were  nine  of  such  independent  banks,  with  a  combined 
capital  of  $587,500,  and  a  circulation  of  $893,839. 

Thus  far  the  banks  had  been  especially  chartered.  A  general  law  was 
passed  in  1851,  allowing  any  association  to  engage  in  the  business  of  banking 
Free  on  substantially  the  same  conditions  as  the  independent  banks 

banking.  jugf;  mentioned,  —  the  deposit  of  State  and  United-States  stocks  to 
the  full  amount  of  the  issue.  Most  '^f  the  batiks  so  organized  were  forced  by 
taxation  to  go  into  liquidation. 

In  April,  1856,  an  act  was  passed  incorporating  the  State  Bank  of  Ohio 
and  other  banks,  similar  in  its  general  provisions  to  the  Act  of  1S45,  t'^*^ 
Charter  charters  to   continue  until  May,  1877.    The  act,  however,  con- 

renewed,  tained  a  personal-liability  clause,  and  it  also  prohibited  tiie  Ciencral 
Assembly  "  from  imposing  any  greater  tax  upon  property  employed  in  banking 
under  this  act  than  is  or  may  be  imi)osed  upon  the  property  of  individuals." 

In  1835  there  were,  in  all,  thirty-four  banks  in  operation  in  Ohio,  having 
a  capital  of  $5,819,000;  in  1837  there  were  thirty-three  banks,  with  a  capital 
Summary  of  of  $9,247,000;  and  in  1840  there  were  thirty-seven  banks,  with  a 
history.  jq^^I  capital  of  $10,000,000.     Oii  ihe  ist  of  January,  1845,  but 

eight  banks  were  in  operation,  with  an  aggregate  capital  of  $2,171,807.  In 
1855  there  were  fifty-one  banks,  whose  capital  amounted  to  a  little  more  tiian 
$6,000,000.  In  1856  thirty-six  of  the  banks  which  had  been  organized  in 
the  State  had  failed,  their  notes  being  entirely  worthless  ;  while  eighteen  others 
were  in  process  of  liquidation,  their  notes  being  (pioted  at  fifty  to  seventy-five 
cents  on  the  dollar.  There  were  fifty-six  banks  in  existence  in  the  State  in 
1863,  with  ail  aggregate  capital  of  $5,674,000,  of  which  number  seven  were 
independent  banks,  with  a  capital  of  $350,000,  and  thirteen  were  free  banks, 
with  a  capital  of  $1,270,000.  The  State  Bank  of  Ohio,  with  thirty-six  branches, 
had  a  capital  of  $4,054,000;  loans,  $8,653,000;  deposits,  $5,631,000;  cin  il- 
lation, $7,246,000;  and  specie,  $2,217,000;  together  with  a  safety-fund  of 
;$8i4,8oo  invested  in  bonds  and  mortgages. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


807 


lorized,  upon  certain 
act.  The  branches 
sisting  of  one  repre- 
the  circulating-notes, 
mt  of  capital  on  the 
part  thereof,  ami  125 
ire  were  thirty-six  of 
54,034,524,  and  circu- 
1  Trust  Company  was 

;  of  other  banks  than 
dependent  institutions 
curity,  not  simply  one- 
lal  amount.  In  1856 
nks,  with  a  combined 

1.  A  general  law  was 
le  business  of  banking 
the  independent  banks 
United-States  stocks  to 
^anized  were  forced  by 

™e  State  Bank  of  Ohio 
the  Act  of  1845,  the 
he  act,  however,  con- 
prohibited  the  C.eneral 
y  employed  in  banking 
lerty  of  individuals." 
eration  in  Ohio,  having 
;e  banks,  with  a  capital 
irty-seven  banks,  with  a 
of  January,  1845,  but 
lital  of  ^2,171,807.     In 
;d  to  a  little  more  than 
had  been  organized  in 
;  while  eighteen  others 
d  at  fifty  to  seventy-five 
;istence  in  the  State  in 
ich  number  seven  were 
;hirteen  were  free  banks, 
with  thirty-six  branches, 

isits,  5^5,63 1, oo'^;  '^''■''"' 
r  with  a  safety-fund  of 


PINE-TREE  SHILLING. 


INDIANA. 

Banking  in  Indiana  under  State  laws  has  been  chiefly  conducted  by  the  State 
Bank  and  its  branches.    In  1820  the  State  had  but  two  banks.    The  State  Bank 
was  incorporated  in   1834  with  ten  branches,  afterwards  increased   ^^ 
to  thirteen  :  these  were  made  mutually  liable  for  each  other's  debts,   bank  the 
The  only  tax  laid  was  twelve  and  a  half  cents  on  each  share  for  *^'^''''  """ 

&ncc 

educational  purposes.  The  parent  bank  kept  the  plates  and 
unsigned  notes  of  the  branches,  issuing  the  latter  only  at  the  rate  of  twice  the 
capital  stock  paid  up.  Most  of  the  capi- 
tal came  from  out  of  the  State  ;  although 
the  State  (lovernment  subscribed  to  a 
million,  and  also  lent  its  credit  to  other 
shareholders  to  the  extent  of  lialf  of  their 
subscription,  taking  mortgages  on  real 
estate  for  security. 

The   State   Bank    of  Indiana  and   its 
branches  were  managed  witii  rare  ability. 

They  began  business  at  a  trying  period,  just  before  the  cris  ^  of  1837,  which 
bankrupted   so  many  institutions  in  the  West  and  South.     The   ExceUent 
Bank  of  Indiana  suspended  specie  payments  from  1838  to  1841;   manage- 
in  which  latter  year  it  held  $1,127,518  in  specie,  had  a  circulation   ""'"'' 
of  $2,960,414,  and  deposits  amounting  to  $317,890.    So  well  was  the  institution 
managed,  that  the  stockholders  received  dividends  averaging  from  tsvelve  to 
fourteen  per  cent  annually  for  twenty  years.     In  1854  the  charter  expired ;  but 
it  was  renewed,  with  a  capital  of  $6,000,000,  and  fifteen  or  twenty  branches. 
During  the  crisis  of  1857  it  did  not  suspend,  though  it  contracted  its  issues 
prudently.     In  1861  it  called  in  most  of  its  notes,  but  re-issued  them  the  next 
year  to  buy  coin. 

The  new  Constitution  of  1851  forbade  the  organization  of  any  more  banks 
except  under  a  general  law.  Such  a  one  was  enacted  in  1852,  which  pro- 
vided that  United-States  stocks,  or  stocks  of  the  several  States,  General 
including  those  of  Indiana  (then  wortli  about  ninety-five  per  banking  law. 
cent),  should  be  deposited  with  the  auditor  as  security  for  circulating-notes, 
the  stocks  to  be  made  eijual  to  one  bearing  six-per-cent  interest.  The  law  did 
not  require  a  board  of  directors,  nor  that  the  stockholders  should  be  citizens 
of  the  State.  In  October,  1854,  there  were  eighty-four  of  these  banks;  and 
the  returns  of  sixty-seven  of  them  at  that  date  exhibit  $7,425,000  of  circula- 
tion, with  a  total  authorized  capital  of  $32,900,000.  The  oppressive  tax-law 
of  Ohio  having  driven  capital  from  that  State,  it  was  to  a  considerable  extent 
invested  in  the  free  banks  of  Indiana.  In  1856,  of  ninety-four  free  banks, 
fifty-one  had  suspended,  and  their  notes  were  selling  at  from  twenty-five  to 
seventy-five  per  cent  discount  in  Cincinnati. 


h«-''M^f 


1^i>,s 


Mm 


{    ).i^i 


8o8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


ILLINOIS. 


The  record  of  State  banking  in  Illinois  is  not  quite  so  bright  as  that  of 
Indiana  in  the  eailier  history  of  the  two  States.  The  first  bank  was  started  in 
Disastrous  Illinois  in  1813,  five  years  before  it  was  emancipated  from  Territo- 
beginnings.  j-ja]  govemmen.  to  the  dignity'  of  a  State.  It  was  located  at  Shaw- 
neetown,  and  the  whole  Territory  then  had  but  fifteen  hundred  inhabitants. 
A  regular  charter  was  not  given  it  until  18 16,  when  it  was  incorporated  for 
twenty  years,  with  a  nominal  capital  of  $300,000,  T,aige  government  deposits 
were  given  it,  and  it  greatly  extended  its  credits;  but  in  1821  it  suspended 
specie  payments,  and  did  little  business  until  1835.  The  legislature  tlien 
revived  it  by  granting  a  new  charter  which  should  run  until  1857,  increasing 
the  capital  to  $1,400,000,  and  subscribing  for  the  increase  on  behalf  of  the 
State,  authorizing  the  issue  of  stocks  therefor. 

The  second  venture  was  a  State  bank,  the  Constitution  of  1818  ordering 
that  only  such  a  one  should  be  chartered.  The  act  of  incorporation  created 
Anunsuc-  *  Bank  of  Illinois  in  1821,  with  a  capital  of  $500,000,  to  run  ten 
cessfui  State  years,  to  be  owned  by  the  State,  and  managed  by  the  legislature. 
*""''■  $3,000,000  were  directed  to  be  issued  and  loaned  on  mortgages, 

with  notes  for  one  year  at  six-per-cent  interest,  and  in  sums  not  exceeding 
1,000  dollars  to  each  individual ;  the  notes  to  be  renewed  on  payment  of  ten 
per  cent  of  the  principal  annually.  The  circulating-notes  of  the  bank  were 
receivable  for  taxes,  and  for  all  debts  due  to  the  State  or  the  bank.  Tiiese 
notes  were  soon  thereafter  quoted  at  seventy-five  cents  on  the  dollar,  then  at 
fifty  rents,  and  finally  at  twenty-five  cents ;  when  they  ceased  to  circulate  alto- 
gether. Members  of  the  legislature  received  their  compensation  in  depre- 
ciated currency  at  its  market-value,  which  the  State  was  compelled  to  redeem 
at  par ;  and  a  loan  of  $  1 00,000  received  in  these  notes  at  par  was  paid  out 
at  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  revival  of  the  Shawneetown  Bank  in  1835. 
Simultaneously  a  new  State  bank  was  charterea.  Its  capital  was  at  first  fixed 
Worse  luck  at  $1,500,000,  but  was  increased  to  $2,000,000,  and  subscribed  for 
next  time.  jjy  t^g  State.  It  was  required  to  take  up  the  $100,000  loan  above 
mentioned,  but  was  allowed  fifty  days  for  the  redemption  of  its  own  bills.  But 
this  institution  was  shortly  compelled  to  suspend  payment,  and  in  1841  it  went 
into  liquidation.  In  the  same  year  an  act  was  passed  to  preserve  its  charter, 
which  had  been  forfeited,  provided  it  would  pay  $200,000  of  tiie  State  debt ; 
but  in  1843  two  acts  were  passed,  —  one  to  diminish  the  State  debt  and  put  the 
State  Bank  in  liquidation,  and  the  other  to  reduce  the  public  debt  by  a  million 
of  dollars  and  to  put  the  Bank  of  Illinois  at  Shawneetown  in  liquidation.  The 
stock  of  these  banks  subscribed  for  by  individuals  was  lost,  and  about  $90,000 
belonging  to  depositors  and  bill-holders  remained  unpaid,  as  well  as  $46,909 
belonging  to  the  government.    The  State  took  possession  of  its  bonds  held 


OF    THE  UNITED    STATES. 


809 


by  them,  amounting  to  $3,050,000 ;  and,  by  direction  of  the  governor,  they 
were  cancelled,  and  burned,  in  the  presence  of  the  legislature,  in  the  capital 
square  of  Springfield. 

During  the  year  1843  a  general  banking  law,  similar  in  its  provisions  to  the 
free  banking  law  of  the  State  of  Indiana,  was  passed.  The  report  of  the  bank 
commissioners  for  i86i  states,  that,  in  1857,  the  bank  circulation  a  general 
of  the  State  amounted  to  $5,500,000,  wh'ch  was  secured  by  $6,500-  banking  law. 
000  of  the  bonds  of  various  States,  of  which  amount  $4,500,000  were  Missouri 
sixes.  In  1861  the  amount  of  Missouri  bonds  had  been  reduced  to  $3,026,- 
000,  and  the  circulation  increased  from  $5,500,000  to  $12,300,000.  About 
three-fourths  of  the  securities  then  held  by  the  auditor  were  the  bonds  of  the 
Southern  States. 

KENTUCKY. 

The  Bank  of  Kentucky  was  incorporated  in  1 804,  twelve  years  after  the 
admission  of  the  State,  with  a  capital  of  $  i  ,000,000.     Forty  new  ^^ ^  ^^^^ 
banks  were  incorporated  in  181 7,  with  an  aggregate  capital  of  fewbankK 
|io,ooo,ooo;  but  no  provision  was    made   for  the    redemption     °P°°'y- 
of  their  notes  in  specie.    They  issued  large  amounts  of  notes,  and  many  of 
them  failed  within  a  year  of  their  establishment. 

For  relief,  the  legislature,  in  1820,  rhartered  the  Bank  of  the  Common- 
wealth of  Kentuck/,  with  a  capital  of  $3,000,000,  pledging  the  public  faith  for 
the  redemption  of  its  circulation,  and  setting  aside  certain  lands  a  stay-law 
south  of  the  Tennessee  River  for  a  guaranty  fund.  If  a  creditor  '^  ""''• 
refused  to  take  these  notes  in  payment  of  a  debt,  the  debtor  was  allowed  by 
law  two  years  in  which  to  pay  it.  This  feature  of  the  law  was  at  first  declared 
to  be  unconstitutional ;  but  a  new  court  was  appointed,  which  reversed  the 
decision.  As  a  consequence,  the  notes  of  the  bank  soon  became  worth  but 
fifty  cents  on  a  dollar.  A  very  bitter  contest  ensued  between  the  new  court 
and  old  court  parties,  lasting  five  years,  and  ending  in  the  repeal  of  the  stay- 
law  or  replevin  act.  The  bank's  circulation  was  suppressed  and  finally 
destroyed  by  authority  of  the  legislature. 

This  bank  was  conducted  under  State  auspices,  the  legislature  selecting  its 
president  and  directors,  its  dividends  accruing  to  the  State,  and  notes  being 
issued  to  the  extent  of  $3,000,000.  On  the  plea  that  these  were  ether consti- 
bills  of  credit,  and  that  the  State  had  no  right  to  issue  such  tutionai 
under  the  Constitution,  a  debtor  of  the  bank  who  had  obtained  a  i^'^"""*- 
loan  in  this  currency  refused  to  pay ;  but  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  held  that  the  notes  of  the  bank  were  not  bills  of  credit  in  the  meaning 
of  the  Constitution. 

In  1834  there  were  established  the  Bank  of  Kentucky,  with  a  capital  of 
^5,000,000,  the  Northern  Bank  of  Kentucky,  capital  $3,000,000,  and  the  Bank 
of  Louisville,  with  a  capital  of  $5,000,000 ;  all  of  which  were  in  existence  in 


8io 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


successful 
ventures. 


1856,  with  an  aggregate  capital  of  $7,030,000.  All  of  these  banks  suspend- 
Remaining  cd  payment  in  1837,  and  resumed  in  1842,  with  an  aggregate 
history.  circulation,  at  the  latter  date,  of  $2,800,000.     This  amount  was 

increased  by  subsequent  issues,  until  in  1850  it  had  reached  $6,683,000.  The 
Southern  Baniv  of  Kentucky  went  into  operation  in  1852  with  a  capital  of 
$1,300,000,  and  charters  were  also  subsequently  granted  to  four  other  banks 
with  large  capitals.  Twenty-seven  Kentucky  banks  failed  in  1854;  but  in 
1856  there  were  thirty-four  banks  and  branches  still  in  operation  in  the  State, 
with  an  aggregate  capital  of  $11,730,000,  and  with  a  circulation  of  about 
1^13,300,000. 

TENNESSEE. 

The  Nashville  Bank  was  incorporated  by  the  Tennessee  legislature  in 
Several  un-  1807,  with  a  capital  at  first  limited  to  $200,000,  and  afterwards 
raised  to  $400,000.  Several  branches  were  authorized  ;  but  tlicy 
soon  closed  with  loss  to  all  parties.  Another  bank,  the  Farmers' 
and  Mechanics',  was  started  in  Nashville  in  i8i9with  $400,000;  but  it  became 
insolvent  within  a  year. 

In  1 81 1  the  Bank  of  the  State  of  Tennessee  was  chartered  and  started  at 
Knoxville.  Its  capital  was  $400,000,  and  nine  branches  were  authorized. 
Two  State  But  in  1820  the  State  Bank  of  Tennessee  was  incorporated  at 
banks.  Nashville,  with  a  capital  of  $1,000,000.     The  State  funds  were  to 

be  deposited  at  the  bank,  which  was  authorized  to  sell  $250,000  of  six-per- 
cent State  stocks  to  be  used  as  capital.  It  created  agencies  to  loan  money  in 
every  county,  according  to  its  wealth  and  population,  in  sums  not  exceeding 
^500  to  any  one  person.  The  loans  were  to  be  made  on  a  credit  of  twelve 
months,  and  be  secured  by  mortgage  on  real  or  personal  i)roi)erty  worth 
double  their  amount.  The  proceeds  of  Hiawassee  lands  and  other  funds  were 
pledged  for  the  redemption  of  the  circulation,  which  was  guaranteed  by  tlie 
State,  and  which  was  issued  to  the  amount  of  $1,000,000  ;  but  it  was  soon  at 
a  discount  of  ten  per  cent  below  the  value  of  United-States  bank-notes.  The 
bank  was  under  the  supervisory  control  of  directors  elected  by  the  legislature. 
Six  years  after  it  commenced  operations,  it  had  an  available  capital  of  about 
1500,000,  chiefly  derived  from  thi  sales  of  lands.  The  bank  was  finally  closed 
in  1832,  with  considerable  loss  to  the  State.  Previous  to  the  passage  of  tiie 
act  under  which  it  was  established.  Gen.  Jackson  addressed  to  the  legislature 
a  memorial  denouncing  its  provisions,  and  declaring  the  proposed  act  to  be  in 
violation  of  the  Constitution  oi'  the  United  States.  Judge  White  of  Tennessee, 
in  a  speech  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  on  March  24,  1838,  stated,  that, 
"in  1820,  there  were  two  State  banks  in  operation  in  Tennessee  having  the 
same  name,  and  that  laws  were  passe-i  to  force  into  circulation  paper  money, 
and  to  prevent  levies  of  execution,  Luilcsij  creditors  would  agree  to  receive 
irredeemable  bank-paper.  ,• 


OF    THE    UxVITED    STATES. 


8u 


o  ;  but  it  became 


Nearly  all  tlie  other  banks  started  for  some  years  were  large  ones  with 
branches.  The  Union  Hank,  at  Nashville  was  incorporated  in  1832,  with  five 
branches,  and  a  capital  of  Ji3,ooo,ooo,  one-third  of  which  belonged  The  other 
to  the  State.  The  Planters'  Bank  in  the  same  city,  with  six  banks, 
branches  and  $2,000,000  capital,  of  which  the  State  subscribed  a  part,  was 
incorporated  the  following  year.  The  next  institution  was  the  Farmers'  and 
Merchants'  Bank  of  Memphis,  chartered  in  1835,  with  a  capital  of  $600,000. 
It  failed  in  1847,  greatly  to  the  loss  of  its  bill-holders. 

The  place  of  the  old  State  Bank,  unpopular  and  unsuccessful,  was  taken 
in  1838  by  the  incorporation  of  a  new  Bank  of  Tennessee  at  Nashville,  with 
an  actual  capital  of  $3,226,000,  the  nominal  capital  being  $5,000,-  one  more 
000.  The  capital  was  made  up  from  the  assets  of  the  old  SiTte  ^***"  ''""''• 
Bank,  and  by  the  sale  of  $1,000,000  of  State  bonds.  It  had  several  branches, 
which  were  under  the  direction  of  the  parent  institution.  In  1849  its  capital 
was  reduced  to  $2,250,000.  Three  other  ))anks  were  incorporated,  with  an 
aggrecate  capital  of  $1,100,000,  within  the  next  three  years.  A  free  banking 
law  was  passed  in  1852,  authorizing  the  organization  of  banks  upon  a  deposit 
of  uonds  of  the  State  ecjual  to  the  amount  of  their  capital. 

MISSISSIPPI. 

When  Mississippi  came  into  the  Union  in  181 7  she  had  but  one  bank,  and 
no   more  were   chartered  until    1830.     Meantime,  however,  the  one  bank 
capital  of  this  one  was  raised  from  $100,000  to  $950,600.  1817-30- 

In  the  last-named  year  the  Planters'  Bank  of  Mississippi  was  started  with 
a  capital  of  $3,000,000.     Two-thirds  of  this  was  subscribed  by  the  State,  which 
issued  six-per-cent  bonds  therefor,  on  which  a  premium  of  $250,-   ^^  ,g      ^„j 
000  was  realized.     This  was  made  a  sinking-fund,  and  the  State's   prosperous 
dividends  were  devoted  to  paying  the  interest  on  its  bonds.     The 
bank  paid  ten  per  cent  annually  ;  and  the  State  sinking-fund  steadily  grew  until 
September,  1839,  when  it  amounted  to  $800,000.     The  State  then  transferred 
its  stock  to  the   Mississippi   Railroad   Company ;   but  the   sinking-fund  was 
subsequently  lost  almost  entirely. 

In  1837  the  number  of  banks  in  the  State  had  increased  to  eighteen,  with 
an  aggregate  capital   of  $13,000,000,  more  than  $5,000,000  of  increase  of 
circulation,  and  more  than  $24,000,000  of  loans.  business. 

In  1838  the  Mississippi  Union  Bank  was  chartered,  with  a  capital  of  $15,- 
500,000,  to  be  "  raised  by  means  of  loans  to  be  obtained  by  the  directors  of 
the  institution."    The  State  authorized  the  issue  of  $15,000,000  of  a  huge 
guaranteed  bonds  which  were  to  be  loaned  to  the  bank.    $5  000,000  institution. 
were  issued  in  1838,  and  were  sold  to  the  United-States  Bank  of  Pennsylvania. 
The  next  lot  of  $5,000,000  were  issued  in  1839. 

The   following  year,  however,  the   first  steps  were   taken  by  the   State 


'^1 


8ia 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Repudiation. 


authorities  towafd  repudiating  tliis  obligation.  The  governor  issued  a  warning 
proclamation  against  any  further  negotiation  of  these  bonds  ;  and 
in  1 841  he  addressed  the  legislature,  claiming  that  his  proclamation 

had  defeated  the  illegal  sale  of  the  second  issue  of  bonds.     His  message  to 

the  legislature  showed  that 
the  Union  Bank  had  J!i3,- 
491,000  of  suspended  dcl)t 
and  unavailable  assets,  ^3,- 
034,000  of  circulation,  and 
;^4,349,ooo  of  specie.  Short- 
ly after,  he  proposed  that  tiie 
is:,,!e  of  ;S5, 000,000  made  in 
1838  be  repudiated  outright. 
The  legislature  declared  in 
reply,  that  '"Mississippi  will 
pay  her  bonds,  and  preserve 
her  credit  inviolate."  But 
they  were  repudiated,  and 
have  never  been  paid.  The 
bonds  issued  to  the  Planters' 
Bank  were  not  officially  re- 
pudiated :  but  the  people  re- 
BA^K  OF  MOBILE.  f^scd  In  1 85  2,  by  a  majority 

of  4,400  votes,  to  authorize 

a  tax  to  redeem  them ;  nor  is  a  reversal  of  that  decision  now  probable. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


813 


CHAPTER  II. 


INSURANCE. 


THERE  is  some  dispute  about  the  anticjuity  of  the  insurance-business, 
several  countries  claiming  the  honor  of  originating  it.  There  are  traces 
of  it  as  far  back  as  the  Punic  wars  between  Rome  and  Carthage.  Antiquity  of 
The  government  of  Rome  guaranteed  to  contractors  who  were  insurance, 
carrying  provisions  and  arms  to  Si)ain,  that  they  should  be  held  free  from 
loss  if  their  boats  were  destroyed  by  storm  or  the  enemy  en  route  to  the 
province.  In  tiie  time  of  the  Emperor  Claudius,  there  was  a  period  of  great 
scarcity  at  Rome ;  and,  in  order  to  encourage  importations  of  corn,  the 
emperor  took  upon  himself  whatever  loss  or  damage  mariners  might  suffer 
from  shipwreck  or  tempest  while  bringing  the  grain  to  Rome.  Marine- 
Tiiis  was  certainly  a  species  of  insurance.  It  was  not  resorted  insurance, 
to  as  a  regular  business,  but  was  a  resource  for  an  extraordinary  occasion. 
It  is  relateil  that  the  generous  offer  of  Ciauilius  was  taken  advantage  of  in 
a  way  which  shows  that  the  human  heart  is  the  ^auic  in  all  ages  of  the 
world,  and  that  it  makes  very  little  difference  under  what  clime  the  race 
lives,  or  what  language  it  speaks,  in  regard  to  the  passions  and  impulses 
which  move  it.  Humanity  is  tlie  same  everywhere  and  under  all  circum- 
stances. Sliipwrecks  were  pretended  to  have  occ-urred  which  never  took 
place :  old,  shattered  galleys  were  purposely  sunk  at  sea,  and  the  crew 
ostentatiously  saved  in  small  boats.  Large  sums  were  demanded  and  ob- 
tained for  tiiese  alleged  losses.  Severr'  years  afterward  the  fraud  was  discov- 
ered, and  some  of  the  contractors  were  seized  and  punished.  Spain  and 
Portugal  dispute  the  real  credit  of  having  invented  insurance  as  a  practical 
business-pursuit.  Portugal  in  1367  liad  a  king  by  the  name  of  Fernando, 
who  dill  more  for  his  realm  tlian  had  ever  been  done  for  it  before,  or  has 
been  since,  except  by  Jean  II.  Fernando  strove  to  build  up  commerce  ;  and, 
in  order  to  give  security  to  it,  he  invented  and  put  into  operation  some 
sort  of  marine-insurance.  Barcelona,  in  Spam,  in  1431,  made  an  ordinance 
on  the  same  sul)jcct,  and  made  marine-insurance  thoroughly  practical  and 
successful.     This  was  before  the  days  of  the  magnetic   needle,  and  it  was 


I'l 


m 


\i\ 


8i4 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


in  an  age  when  the  Saracens  swarmed  on  the  Mediterranean  as  pirates. 
Navigation  was  an  extremely  perilous  affair,  and  something  hke  insurance 
was  necessary  to  give  security  and  exi)ansion  to  commerce.  Tlie  Harce- 
loni;i:  s  nude  their  port  the  greatest  on  the  Mediterranean  in  c:ourse  of  time 
\  ;  ii  .-ir  irsurance  and  other  re«rulations.  Marine-insurance  thus  long  pre- 
^•  .;>  all  other  forms  of  the  bu:  .'ss.  It  was  soon  adopted  by  all  commercial 
Mil  ■;■, . 

The  vt  branch  of  it  to  je  introduced  was  life-insurance.  This  part 
of  the  busuKss  grew  out  of  tl.s  very  matter  of  commerce.  Mariners  of  the 
Life-  early  ages  were  so  exposed  to  capture,  that  they  came,  in  time,  to 

insurance.  stipulate  with  the  freighters  in  whose  behalf  they  undertook  a 
voyage,  that,  if  cai)tured,  they  should  be  ransomed.  There  are  traces  of  thw 
in  records  at  Rouen  of  1361,  and  the  practice  became  (piite  general  in  aftei- 
years  in  Spain.  Pilgrims  to  the  Holy  I^and  made  the  same  arrangement. 
Out  of  this  practice  grew  life-insurance  proper.  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
that  there  was  against  life-insurance  a  most  violent  prejudice  from  the  very 
beginning  in  Continental  P^urope.  It  seemed  to  be  setting  a  premium 
upon  murder  to  insure  a  man's  life,  and  society  was  in  altogether  too  lawless 
a  condition  in  that  age  to  make  it  judicious  to  create  extra  inducements 
for  killing.  Genoa  in  1588  enacted  that  "securities,  bonds,  or  wagers,  may 
not  be  made,  without  the  license  of  the  senate,  upon  the  life  of  the  pope, 
nor  upon  the  life  of  the  emperor,  nor  upon  the  life  of  kings,  cardinals, 
dukes,  princes,  bishops,  nor  upon  the  life  of  other  lords  or  persons  in  con- 
stituted dignities  ecclesiastical  or  secular."  Decrees  were  made  forbidding 
life-insurance  positively  in  Amsterdam  in  1598,  in  Rotterdam  in  1604  and 
1635,  and  in  France  in  1681.  The  opposition  to  it  in  France  is  only  relax- 
ing at  this  day.  The  business  was  not  established  in  England  until  1 706, 
when  the  Amicable  Society  was  started.  After  that,  however,  the  idea  became 
popular.  The  Royal  Exchange  and  the  London  Assurance  Companies  were 
started  in  the  time  of  George  I.  to  insure  lives ;  the  Equitable  was  started  in 
1 762  ;  and  the  business  soon  gained  a  more  vigorous  foothold  in  that  king- 
dom than  in  any  other  part  of  the  world,  this  being  due  to  the  greater 
security  to  life  in  that  free  and  wisely-governed  country.  The  only  other 
country  in  the  world  in  which  life-insurance  has  since  that  age  attained  any 
great  stature  is  the  United  States.  The  facts  will  be  more  particularly  set 
forth  hereafter. 

Fire-insurance  came  upon  the  scene  next,  and  accident-insurance  last 
of  all.  Somewhat  the  same  feeling  was  entertained  in  regard  to  fire-insuranci' 
Fire-  at  first  as  with  respect  to  life.     In  1609,  it  is  related,  an  ingen 

insurance.  JQ,,g  person  suggested  to  Count  Anthony  (Junther  von  Oldenburg. 
that,  as  a  new  species  of  finance,  he  might  guarantee  his  subjects  against 
the  loss  of  their  houses  by  fire  on  condition  that  they  would  pay  to  him  a 
specified  sum  annually,  according  to  the  value  of  their  houses.    The  count 


OF    THE    r XI TED    STATES. 


8^5 


jrranean  as  pirates, 
hing  like  insurance 
ucrcc.  The  Harcc- 
\\\  in  course  of  time 
mce  thus  long  pre- 
ed  by  all  commercial 

isurance.    This   part 
::e.     Mariners  of  the 
licy  came,  in  time,  to 
ilf  they  undertook   a 
ere  are  traces  of  tli's 
l\iitc  general  in  aftei- 
2  same  arrangement, 
interesting  to  obser\o 
;juvlice  from  the  very 
setting   a   i)remium 
altogether  too  lawless 
te  extra  inducements 
londs,  or  wagers,  may 
the  life  of  the  pojjc, 
p   of  kings,  cardinals, 
Is  or  persons  in  con- 
vere  made  forbidding 
tterdam   in   1604  ami 
France  is  only  relax- 
Kngland  until   1706, 
ever,  the  idea  became 
ance  Companies  were 
uitable  was  started  in 
bothold  in  that  king- 
due  to  the   greater 
itry.    The  only  other 
that  age  attained  any 
more  particularly  set 

ccident-insurance  last 

;gard  to  fire-insurance 
is  related,  an  ingen 

mther  von  Oldenburg, 
his  subjects  against 
would  pay  to  him  a 

r  houses.     The  count 


did  not  object  to  the  formation  of  a  company  for  doing  a  thing  like  that ; 
but  he  said  fur  himself  tiiat  he  doubted  if  it  could  be  l)y  him  "  honorably, 
justly,  anil   irreproaciifully  instituted  without   tempting    Providence,  without 


KIREMEN  AT  WORK. 


Incurring  the  censure  of  neighbors,  and  without  disgracing  one's  name  and 
dignity."  The  sturdy  count  continued  :  "  God  has,  without  such  means,  pre- 
served and  blessed  for  many  centuries  the  ancient  house  of  Oldenburg ;  and 


'\ 


If 


,i        i  ■ 


■  .  -  .ti.  '■  1 1 


► 


l 


! 


fc 


Si6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


he  will  still  be  present  with  me  tlirouyh  his  mercy,  and  protect  my  subjects 
from  ilestnutivc  fires."  'I'he  plan  does  not  api)e;n-  to  have  been  agitated 
again  in  Europe  until  after  tiie  great  fire  in  London  in  1666,  when  it  was 
immediately  brought  up.  'I'he  agitation  which  the  subject  e.xcitcd  then  was 
remarkable.  We  have  never  IkkI  any  thing  like  it  in  America,  as  far  as 
purely  business-themes  are  concerned,  unless  it  was  tlie  silver-dollar  agita- 
tion of  1S77  ;  and  that  was  comparable  to  the  fire-insurance  fiiroie  in 
England  only  in  intensity,  not  in  tluration.  After  the  fire  of  1666,  there 
ensued  in  England  six  years  of  hot  discussion  and  pamphleteering.  It  was 
proposed  that  the  city  corporation  should  insure  the  houses  of  the  town. 
'I'he  city  did  finally  insure  a  great  many  houses  ;  but  in  16S2  the  Common 
Council  became  frightened,  and  backeil  out,  anil  cancelled  the  contracts. 
In  1696  the  Iland-in-lland  Eire  Ofiice,  a  private  company,  was  started  to 
do  what  the  cor])oralion  did  not  want  to  do  ;  and  in  1706  the  Sim  Eire  Office 
wa.i  started.  The  business  then  became  systematized  and  practical,  and 
rapidly  attained  very  large  projjortions.  The  London  Assurance  \\w,  incor- 
porated in  1720,  ami  is  still  in  existence,  ami  doing  a  gigantic  business. 
The  Hand-in-Hand  Company  is  tiie  only  Oi.e  of  the  earlier  period  now 
surviving. 

Accident-insurance  has  all  grown  up  within  the  present  century,  and  is 
Accident-  merely  a  once  minor  detail  of  the  business,  which  has  now  grown 
insurance.       jq  'a\\{i\\  proportions  as  to  be  able  to  stand  alone. 

Before  proceeding  to  depict  the  origin,  adventures,  and  development  of 
the  insurance-business  in  America,  a  few  words  will  be  proper  in  regard  to 
Principles  of  the  principles  \\\^o\\  which  this  extraordinary  variety  of  commercial 
insurance.  speculation  is  founded.  The  general  princijjles  are  the  same  in 
all  branches  of  insurance.  A  large  proportion  of  the  losses  and  deaths  which 
take  place  in  the  world  are  the  result  of  the  crime  or  misconduct  of  indi 
viduals.  This  was  more  true  of  the  middle  ages,  when  the  governments  were 
feeble  ;  but  it  i?  also  true  to  a  certain  extent  now.  In  order  to  reduce  losses 
and  deaths  from  crime  and  negligence  to  the  lowest  possible  point,  govern- 
ments have  been  instituted,  whose  duty  it  is  to  assist  by  every  means  in  their 
power  the  efforts  of  individuals  to  protect  themselves  and  their  property,  to 
support  a  police  for  the  purposes  of  prevention,  and  to  maintain  courts  and 
prisons  for  tiie  purposes  of  punishment.  A  good  government  imparts  vast  secu- 
rity to  property  and  life  ;  but,  in  spite  of  all  tliat  governments  can  do,  losses 
and  deaths  still  occur,  dales  blow  in  from  the  sea  which  the  signal-service 
flags  did  not  predict  in  time,  and  the  coast  is  strewn  wilii  wre(  ked  ships ; 
conflagrations  break  out  in  cities,  and  on  steamboats  and  railroad-trains ; 
collisions,  explosions,  the  foil  of  buildings  and  bridges,  and  other  unforeseen 
events,  occur ;  and  sickness  carries  away  jirematurely  those  in  the  soundest 
health.  Few  men  are  so  rich  tiiat  they  will  not  feel  heavily  the  weiglit  of  tiie 
loss  of  a  mill  or  a  house  by  fire,  or  a  ship  by  wreck.     The  majority  of  families 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


8.7 


protect  my  subjects 
have  been  agitated 
I  1666,  when  it  was 
cl  ex(  iled  then  was 

America,  as  liir  as 
L>  siher-doUar  agita- 
nsurancc   fuioie   in 

fire  of  1666,  there 
iphleteering.  It  was 
louses  of  tlic  town. 
I  1CS2  tlic  Common 
x-Ued  the  contracts, 
pany,  was  started  to 
6  tlio  Sun  Fire  Offue 
I  and  practical,  and 
Assunnce  wir.  incor- 

a  gigantic  business. 
J    earlier  period  now 

escnt  century,  and  is 
which  has  now  grown 

t)ne. 
and  development  of 
proper  in  regard  to 
variety  of  commercial 
iples  are  the  same  in 
;ses  and  deaths  which 
r  misconduct  of  indi 
the  governments  were 
jrder  to  reduce  losses 
lossible  point,  govern- 
cvery  means  in  their 
and  their  property,  to 
maintain  courts  and 
nent  imparts  vast  secu- 
nmenls  can  do,  losses 
lich  the  signal-service 
with  wrc(  ked  ships  ; 
and   railroad-trains  ; 
ind  other  unforeseen 
those   in  the  soundest 
ivily  the  weiglit  of  the 
ic  majority  of  families 


in  the  world  are  not  so  well  provided  with  funds  that  they  can  endure  without 
financial  suffering  the  loss  of  the  life  of  the  men  who  are  their  main  stay  and 
support,  and  the  consetiuent  termination  of  their  main  income.  Before  the 
days  of  insurance,  most  men  would  have  been  impoverished  by  the  loss  of  their 
buildings  by  fire ;  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  families  of  lawyers,  military 
and  naval  officers,  professional  men,  artists,  and  mechanics,  would  have  been 
doomed  to  suffering  by  the  death  of  the  head  of  the  family,  whose  income, 
of  course,  would  terminate  with  his  life.  In  early  times,  in  New- York  City,  a 
man  who  was  burnt  out  was  generally  forced  to  make  an  ajjpeal  to  the  public 
for  contributions  of  money  to  set  him  on  his  feet  again.  Insuraiice  obviates 
this  distress  by  death,  and  loss  of  property  by  fire  anil  accident,  which  is  sure 
to  fall  on  a  large  number  of  individuals  every  year,  by  distributing  the  loss  in 
each  case  among  a  great  many  people,  instead  of  allowing  it  in  each  case  to 
fall  with  all  its  weight  upon  one.  It  is  found  that  losses  by  fire,  wreck,  acci- 
dent, and  death,  obey  certain  laws.  Take  ten  thousand  houses  in  a  special 
part  of  the  country,  for  instance,  and  watch  how  many  of  them  burn  up,  year 
by  year,  for  a  period  of  twenty  years.  If  an  average  of  ten  houses  burn  up 
every  year,  it  can  pretty  safely  be  taken  for  granted  that  ten  houses  will  con- 
tinue to  burn  up  every  year  regularly,  circumstances  remaining  the  same. 
Now,  a  company  will  be  found  which  will  aim  to  insure  ten  thousand  houses  a 
year.  As  it  will  hp-'  \.o  pay  on  an  average  for  ten  houses  consumed  by  fire 
annually,  it  assesses  upon  the  ten  thousand  the  value  of  ten  houses  a  year ;  and 
each  owner  of  a  house  pays  in  to  the  company  ins  ten-thousandth  part  thp'°of 
annually :  so  that  the  loss  of  the  ten  burned  houses  does  not  fall  on  the  ten 
men  who  own  them,  but  on  the  whole  ten  thousand.  Every  man  is  willing  to 
pay  his  insignificant  rontribution  every  year  for  the  protection  and  security  it 
gives  him ;  and,  when  his  turn  comes  to  be  visited  with  calamity,  his  burden  is 
taken  up  by  the  other  ten  thousand  men  upon  whom  it  is  distributed,  and 
lifted  from  his  shoulders.  That,  in  substance,  is  the  principle  of  fire-insurance. 
It  is  expressed  the  most  perfectly  in  the  so-called  mutual-insurance  companies. 
But  it  is  upon  this  same  principle  that  the  joint-stock  companies  are  founded 
also.  It  is  the  same  with  life,  marine,  and  accident  as  with  fire  insurance. 
The  a\crage  number  of  deaths  and  casualties  every  year  is  ascertained  by 
observation  and  experience,  and  the  business  then  organized  on  the  same 
theory  as  before. 

Now  for  the  story  of  the  progress  of  insurance  in  the  United  States.  It  is 
an  instructive  one  in  many  respects,  and  a  melancholy  one  in  others.  It 
certainly  is  an  important  one,  as  will  be  seen  when  one  reflects  proeress  of 
that  the  people  of  the  United  States  are  now  paying  annually  the  'n«urance. 
sum  of  $150,000,000  at  least  for  the  protection  and  security  which  insurance 
gives  them;  and  that,  in  return  for  this  large  payment,  the  companies  are 
guaranteeing  to  the  people  indemnity  against  loss  to  the  amount  of  1 10,000,- 
000,000. 


^W\ 


^'•^* 


' 


\  ym^ 


8i8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


MARINE. 


Marine-insurance  appears  to  have  been  the  first  branch  of  the  business 
which  engaged  attention  in  America,  just  as  it  had  been  the  first  in  practice  in 
Marine-  *'^*-*  *^'''  ^Vorld.     The  colonies  were  pre-eminently  commercial,  and 

inturincein  felt  the  need  of  marine-assurance  from  the  beginning  of  their 
the  colonies.  j„jj,in^.^j.  activity.  At  first  they  took  out  their  policies  in  I'lnglanil ; 
but,  even  before  the  Revolutionary  war,  there  was  talk  about  the  l)usiness 
among  the  colonies  themselves.  In  lyai  an  advertisement  appeared  in  ;i 
newspaper  in  Philadelphia,  as  follows  :  — 

".Assurances  from  losses  hajjpening  at  sea, &c.,  being  found  to  be  very  iinicli 
for  the  ease  and  benefit  of  the  merchants  and  traders  in  general ;  and  whereas 
Colonial  ad-  the  merchants  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia  and  other  parts  have 
vertitement.  Ijj.^^  ()i)iigcd  to  send  to  London  for  such  assurance,  which  has  not 
only  been  tedious  and  troublesome,  but  even  very  precarious,  for  the  remedying 
of  which  an  office  of  public  insurance  on  vessels,  goods,  and  merchaiulise, 
will,  on  Monday  next,  be  opened  by  John  Kopson,  at  his  house  in  the  High 
Street,  where  all  persons  inclining  to  be  insured  may  apply  ;  and  care  shall  be 
taken  by  the  saiil  J.  Copson  that  the  assurers  or  underwriters  shall  be  |)ersons 
of  undoubted  worth  and  reputation,  and  of  considerable  integrity  in  this  city 
and  province." 

In  1725  Francis  Rawle  of  Philadelphia  suggested  that  there  should  be  a 
marine-insurance  office  under  the  sanction  of  the  colonial  legislature.  His 
Frandi  pamphlet  on  the  subject  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  work  whicli 

Rawle.  ^jjs  issucd  from   Franklin's  press.     Neither  Kopson   nor  Rawlc 

accomplished  any  thing,  however ;  and  Mr.  Fowler,  a  writer  on  insurance,  says, 
that,  for  seventy  years  afterward,  the  traders  of  Philadelphia  continued  to  seek 
their  insurance  abroad.  In  New-York  City  a  marine-insurance  office  was 
opened  at  last  in  the  year  1759,  Kefeltas  and  Sharpe  being  the  clerks.  A  rival 
office  was  opened  the  same  year,  with  Anthony  van  Dam  for  clerk ;  and  in 
1778  the  New  Insurance  Office  was  opened.  These  were  all  for  marine-insur- 
ance. The  underwriters  were  simply  wealthy  men  of  the  city.  P^ich  man 
subscribed  his  name  for  the  sum  he  agreed  to  pay  in  case  of  loss  of  the  ship 
or  cargo.  Insurance  was  thus  carried  on  by  individual  underwriters  in  the 
commercial  cities  for  a  few  years,  until,  very  near  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century,  the  business  assumed  a  more  organized  character. 

Several  companies  were  being  formed  for  fire  and  life  insurance,  and  the 
idea  was  applied  to  the  marine  branch  of  the  business  also.  In 
1 794  the  first  two  marine  companies  in  the  United  States  were 
formed  in  Philadelphia,  the  city  which  was  really  the  birthplace  of 
the  whole  insurance  system  of  this  country.  These  were  chartered 
companies,  and  were  called  "The  President  and  Directors  of  the  Insurance 
Company  of  North  America,"  and  "The  Insurance  Company  of  the  State 


Formation  of 
flret  marina 
companies  at 
Philadelphia. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


819 


of  Pennsylvania."  'I'hesf  two  companies,  founded  in  a  city  which  has  been 
by  no  means  the  {greatest  of  the  seaiuirts  of  the  country,  have  made  the 
proudest  record  of  any  Auicrican  maritime  companies.  'I'iiey  have  weathered 
every  gale  of  llie  century,  and  are  still  doing  business  to-ilay  on  an  enormous 
scale.  Boston  was  second  in  the  field.  The  Massachusetts  Fire  and  Marine 
Company  was  formed  in  that  <ity  in  1795,  and  did  a  large  business  for  many 
years.  It  remained  in  existence  until  184S,  when  its  (barter  was  revoked, 
.'v'th  the  return  of  i  omparatively  peaceful  times  after  the  Revolution,  com- 
me/ce  increased  very  fast,  anil  compani-.'s  spranj:  up  in  several  places.  Thirty- 
two  insurance  companies  were  formed  before  1800,  and  ten  of  them  were 
exclusively,  or  in  part,  for  the  taking  of  maritime  risks.  They  were  as 
follows :  — 


1794.  Insu..inc«:  C"()mp.iny  of  North  Amcric.i,  I'hiladulphia. 

1794.  Insurance  Conipaiiy  i)f  the  State  of  I'eniisylvania,  i'hiladdphiai 

1795.  .Massachusetts  Fire  anil  Marine,  Huston. 

1796.  ('harifal)le  Marine  Society,  Maltimore. 

1797.  .Ncw-Ilaven  Insurance  Company,  New  Haven. 

1797.  Charleston  Insurance  Company,  Charleston,  S.C. 

1798.  New-Vork  Insurance  Cimipany,  New  York. 
179S.  United  Insurance  C'(m>pany,  New  York. 

•  '799-  Newliiuyport  Marine,  Newburyport,  Mass. 

1799.  Hoston  Marine,  Iloston. 

The  Union  Mutual  was  started  in  Philadelphia  in  1804.  All  of  these 
companies  had  all  the  business  they  wanted  to  do,  and  prospered  finely,  until 
that  troubled  period  of  four  or  five  years  just  before  the  war  of  181 2  ;  when 
the  interferences  of  Kngland  with  our  commerce  made  the  busi-  Effect  of  w«r 
ness  extremely  precarious,  and  subjecteil  the  companies  to  great  with  Great 
and  unexpected  losses.  Frightened  by  the  interferences  of  F>ng-  ^'■'*''"' 
land,  merchants  abandoned  their  vessels  hastily  to  the  companies  which  had 
insured  them  ;  and  one  of  the  Philadelphia  concerns  lost  half  of  its  capital  in 
consequence  of  this  i)ractice.  The  companies  met  this  new  state  of  things  by 
issuing  regulations  against  improper  abandonment  of  vessels  ;  but,  in  spite  of 
1  precautions  they  could  enforce,  they  were  frecjuent  and  heavy  losers  by  the 
operations  of  those  years  of  uncertainty  and  war.  After  the  war  the  corn- 
pan  i'"s  again  became  prosperous,  losses  diminished  to  a  low  average,  and  the 
companies  made  money.  The  usual  result  followed,  —  the  formiUon  of  new 
companies. 

About  the  year  1828  the  marine  companies  were  subjected  to  new  losses, 
aiising  from  a  circumstance  which  brings  back  forcibly  to  rni.nd  the  example  'A 
the  Roman  navigators  in  the  time  of  Claudius,  and  which  re  ealed  Loiieiiio 
again  the  one  weak  point  of  insurance  ;  namely,  the  temiU  aion  it  '^*^- 
presents  to  the  commission  of  fraud.    The  companies  began  about  1828  to  be 
called  on  to  pay  for  a  large  number  of  vessels  wrecked  on  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf 


^%1 


820 


INDUSTRIAL    jriSTOPY 


% 


:" 


•»  ■; 


coasts  and  in  the  West  indies  by  intention.  Vessels  were  deliberately  scuttled 
at  sea,  or  run  ashore  in  collusion  with  wreckers,  in  order  to  secure  the  insurance 
on  them.  Others  were  run  into  some  port  in  the  West  Indies,  and  condemned  ; 
ships  of  the  most  worthless  description  being  abandoned  to  the  comi)anies  at 
enormous  prices.  The  wreckers  added  to  the  evil  by  decoying  honest  ships 
ashore  with  false  lights.  This  state  of  things  continued  for  seven  or  eight 
years.  The  frauds  were  finally  discovered,  and  many  a  merchant  of  reputa- 
tion was  ruined  by  the  exposure ;  but  the  practice  was  not  stopped  until  IIh' 
companies  had  been  subjected  to  a  fearful  strain. 

Marine  companies  were  established  in  the  following  States  in  the  years 
named,  the  companies  being  the  first  of  any  kind  in  tiiose  States,  and  generally 
doing  a  fire  as  well  as  a  marine  business  :  — 


Alabama 

Illinois. 

Indiana 

Mississippi 

Missouri 
Texas   . 


Montgomery-County  Insurance  Company 
Alton  Marine  and  Kire      ..... 
Lawrencehurgh  Insurance  C<jni|)any         .         .     ! 
(  Mississippi  Insurance  Company  (at  Vicksburg)  ) 
I  Protection  Insurance  Company  (at  Natchez)  .  i  | 
Missouri  Mutual  Fire  and  Marine  and  others .     | 
lirazonia  Insurance  Company  ...        .     i 


1836 

1832 
1833 

"837 
•837 


Although  the  number  of  coni])anics  increased  during  this  decade  between 
1830  and  1840  in  conseciuencc  of  the  wonderful  growth  of  commerce,  the  year 
From  1830  to  1 840  found  the  companies  in  a  state  of  very  uncertain  pros- 
'**°-  perity.     Several  of  tlie  more  recently-organized  companies  'vcre 

compelled  to  wind  up  their  affairs.  All  the  other  concerns  were  losing  money  ; 
and  this  department  of  the  business  seemed  to  be  in  danger,  for  a  second 
time,  of  being  blotted  out.  The  losses  of  ships  by  wreck  had  become  so 
numerous  once  more  as  to  set  at  defiance  all  previous  calculations  of  the  law 
of  averages  ;  and  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  in  view  for  the  companies,  except 
to  re-adjust  the  whole  system  of  marine  underwriting,  or  to  go  out  of  business. 
That  which  brought  about  this  condition  of  things,  however,  was  not  the 
action  of  the  elements  ;  but  it  was  once  more  the  avarice  and  misconduct  of 
man,  against  which  the  law  of  average  is  of  no  avail.  The  wreckers  at 
different  T)oints  on  the  coast,  particularly  at  Key  West,  were  again  at  work  ; 
and  they  followed  up  their  trade  with  such  hardihood  as  to  enter  the  principal 
l)orts  of  the  United  States,  and  attempt  deliberately  to  liribe  shi[)-captains  to 
cast  away  their  vessels.  In  too  many  cases  they  succeeded.  Merchants  were 
either  actively  or  passively  engaged  in  the  commission  of  these  frauds.  There 
was  little  popular  sympathy  with  the  companies.  Tiie  consequence  of  it  ail 
was,  that  one-third  of  all  the  losses  of  ihe  companies  from  1820  to  1840  is 
estimated  to  have  been  the  result  of  the  corruption  and  ungrateful  malice  of 
those  whom  marine-insurance  was  establisiied  to  benefit  and  protect.     The 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


521 


deliberately  scuttled 
secure  the  insurance 
lies,  and  condemned ; 
to  the  companies  at 
iecoying  honest  ships 
d  for  seven  or  eight 
.  merchant  of  rcputa- 
not  stopped  until  the 

,g  States  in  the  years 
ie  States,  and  generally 


ipany 


Natchez)  . 
nd  others . 


1S36 
1S3S 
1832 

1833 

1837 
•837 


jg  this  decade  between 
li  of  commerce,  the  year 
)f  very  uncertain    pros- 
;anized  companies  ^vere 
jrns  were  losing  money  ; 
|in  danger,  for  a  second 
wreck  had  beconie  so 
calculations  of  the  law 
jr  the  companies,  except 
lor  to  go  out  of  business, 
however,  was  not  the 
Irice  and  misconduct  of 
A-ail.     'I'he  wreckers  at 
St,  were  again  at  work ; 
las  to  enter  the  principal 
[o  bribe  ship-captains  to 
[ceded.     Merchants  were 
,  of  these  frauds.     There 
|ie  consequence  of  it  all 
s  from  1820  to  1840  i^ 
and  ungrateful  malice  ot 

nefit  and  protect.    The 


companies  now  began  to  withdraw  from  the  marine-business,  and  to  extend 
their  fire-risks ;   and  in  a  few  years  the  former  branch  of  the  business  would 


-h'-i 


have  become  extinct,  had  it  not  l)cen  for  the  cxjiosure  of  the  frauds  and  the 
prosecution  of  offenders.     In   1844  •^'^'-'   l^hilailelphia  companies  organizeil  a 


ik-j 


822 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


m 


^f'  1 


board  of  marine  underwriters  for  their  own  protection ;  zvA,  by  its  action, 
stability  and  confidence  were  once  more  finally  imparted  to  the  business. 

The  marine  concerns  which  were  opened  in  the  West  after  1832  were  for 
the  taking  of  risks  upon  vessels  engaged  in  lake  and  river  transportation, 
j^^^.^  That  business  became  very  large  after  1850.     There  were  ten  or 

insurarce        twelve  hundred  vessels  on  the  Northern  lakes,  mostly  sailing-craft, 
companies      ^^^  about  as  many  more  on  the  Western  rivers,  which,  in  turn, 

in  the  West.  •'  >  >  . 

were  mostly  steam- vessels.  The  insuring  of  these  vessels  called 
for  the  existence  of  numerous  companies,  which  were  duly  formed,  an<l  did 
business  on  a  large  scale.  There  was  a  fault,  however,  in  the  system  ui)un 
which  these  companies  went  to  work.  Competition  led  them  to  take  risks 
without  much  regard  to  the  goodness  of  the  vessels.  Ship-builders,  finding 
that  slightly-built  vessels  secured  as  large  a  policy  at  as  low  a  risk  as  stout  ones, 
put  less  and  less  timber  and  iron  into  their  work  ;  and  a  class  of  weak  vessels 
was  thereupon  created  in  the  tnide  of  the  lakes,  which  could  not  buffet  tin; 
storms,  and  which  in  a  lilow  were  almost  sure  to  be  wrecked,  unless  they  hap- 
pened to  be  safe  in  harbor  at  the  time  the  storm  broke  out.  The  grand  jury 
of  Northern  Ohio  made  a  report  in  1855,  Mr.  C.  C.  Hine  says,  in  which  they 
stated,  that,  while  there  were  only  1,190  vessels  afloat  on  the  lakes  at  the  end 
of  1854,  tlio  wrecks  of  that  and  the  six  previous  years  had  amounted  to 
1,560  in  number.  The  state  of  things  was  so  serious  as  to  require  public 
attention.  The  evil  was  finally  remedied  in  1855  by  the  formation  of  the  Lake 
Under\vriters'  Association,  which  prescribed  rules  as  to  how  vessels  should  Ijg 
built,  and  whicli  agreed  to  take  no  risks  except  upon  vessels  which  came  up 
to  their  requirements.  This  gave  a  new  life  to  the  business ;  and,  while  the 
companies  began  now  to  make  money  under  the  new  order  of  things,  the 
public  also  came  to  be  benefited  by  it  through  the  greater  security  tc  life  and 
property. 

'I'he  war  of  1861  formed  another  era  in  the  marine-insurance  buiiness  ol 
the  country.  For  the  first  two  years  of  the  war,  the  companies  on  tlic 
Effect  of  Northern  seaboard  made  a  great  deal  of  money.  They  all  raised 
late  war.  |]^^>  rates  of  insurance  :  and  one  New-Vork  conii)any,  whose  receipt 
of  premiums  was  only  $6,ooo,<;oo  in  i860,  took  in  ;>io, 000,000  in  1863,  with 
American  navigation  all  the  wiiile  declining.  If  the  first  two  years  were  pros- 
perous, however,  the  following  two  were  not.  The  cniisers  which  slipped  out 
of  the  iK)rts  of  England  to  prey  u])on  the  American  ships  changed  the  face  of 
things  materially.  During  the  last  two  years  -jf  the  war,  the  companies  nearly 
d'  lo;;l  heavily;  and  one  of  them,  "Tiie  Columbian,"  failed  outright  in  spite  of 
its  gains,  because  of  a  loss  of  ^1,000,000  on  ships  destroyed  by  the  unexpecttil 
cruisers.  The  <nil  of  the  war  found  the  business  very  much  reduced  in 
amount  ;  and  it  has  not  yet  recovered  the  proportions  it  enjoyed  before  thai 
struggle  began,  simply  because  there  are  fewer  shijis  and  cargoes  to  protect. 
The  ocean-tonnage  of  the  United  States  is  even  now  only  aijout  one-half  wli.a 


OF   THE    UN/TED    STATES. 


823 


;  .-;id,  by  its  action, 
to  the  business. 
St  after  1832  were  for 
1  river  transportation. 
.     There  were  ten  or 
es,  mostly  sailing-craft, 
rivers,  which,  in  turn, 
Df  these  vessels  called 
duly  formed,  and  did 
•,  in  the  system  upon 
ed  them  to  take  risks 
Ship-builders,  finding 
ow  a  risk  as  stout  ones, 
a  class  of  weak  vessels 
1  could  not  buffet  tin.- 
jcked,  unless  they  hap- 
out.     The  grand  jury 
ine  says,  in  which  they 
n  the  lakes  at  the  end 
ears  had  amounted   to 
.IS  as  to  require  pul)lir 
c  formation  of  the  Lake 
)  how  vessels  should  lie 
vessels  which  canT^  up 
lusiness  ;  and,  while  the 
}w  order  of  tilings,  the 
ater  security  tc   life  and 

e-insurance  Inuiness  ot 
the  companies  on  tlu' 
noney.     They  all  raised 

company,  whose  receipt 
0,000,000  in  1863,  witli 
rst  two  years  were  pros 
iiisers  which  slipped  out 
lips  changed  the  flice  ot" 
ar,  the  companies  nearls 
failed  outright  in  spite  ol 
.royed  by  the  tmexpectiil 

verv  much    reduced    in 
it  enjoyed  before  tli  .i 

and  cargoes  to  jjroteii. 
■nilv  ai)oul  one-half  wlial 


it  was  before  the  war.  The  single  feature  of  the  situation  which  was  encoura- 
ging was,  that  no  new  marine  companies  had  been  started,  and  that  those  still 
doing  business  were  generally  in  a  sound  condition,  and  could  be  relied  upon 
to  give  a  good  guaranty  of  indemnity  in  case  of  loss  to  such  ships  as  they 
admitted  to  their  books.  Connected  with  the  losses  of  the  war  of  1861  are 
the  facts  concerning  the  Geneva  award.  The  claims  of  the  United  States 
against  Great  Britain  were  presented  in  gross,  and  covered  both  the  losses  of 
private  citizens  and  those  of  the  insurance  companies.  The  award  was 
;? 1 5, 000,000.  Of  this  sum,  however,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has 
permitted  only  a  part  to  be  distributed.  Although  the  losses  of  the  insurance 
companies  forined  a  part  of  the  ground  of  our  claims  against  Great  Britain,  the 
companies  have  been  refused  a  participation  in  the  distribution  of  the  award,  — 
an  injustice  against  which  they  still  protest,  and  which  they  are  trying  to  have 
corrected. 

The  marine-insurance  companies  have  been  beneficial  to  the  United  States 
in  more  wa;,s  than  one.  The  security  they  impart  to  the  commercial  ventures 
of  our  merchants  is  thei**  most  valuable  office  ;  yet  they  do  much  Benefits  of 
more  than  that  for  the  comfort  and  material  well-being  of  our  peo-  companies, 
pie.  They  prescribe  rules  and  a  standard  by  which  ships  must  be  built  in 
order  to  secure  the  most  advantageous  rates  of  insurance  ;  and,  as  it  is  cheaper 
in  the  long-run  for  an  honest  merchant  to  have  his  insurance  as  low  as  possi- 
ble, he  accordingly  finds  himself  obliged  to  build  a  good  ship.  This  of  itself 
is  a  means  of  prevention  against  loss  l>y  wreck  and  accident ;  and,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say,  it  also  renders  voyaging  vastly  more  safe  to  the  people  of  the 
ship,  and  persons  bound  across  the  sea  on  the  pursuits  of  pleasure  or  business. 

There  is  an  absence  of  exact  statistics  in  regard  to  the  development  of  the 
marine-insurance  business,  because  tliere  is  as  yet  no  central  authority  to 
which  all  the  comixinies  report.  Most  of  the  marine  companies 
coml)ine  a  fire -business  with  their  marine  operations,  and  the 
returns  of  the  two  branches  of  the  business  are  not  kept  separate.  It  is  esti- 
mated, however,  that  the  marine  companies  of  the  United  States  now  have 
outstanding  risks  to  the  amount  of  $400,000,000.  Of  this  large  sum,  $186,- 
000,000  are  at  the  port  of  New  York,  and  perhaps  $100,000,000  at  the  port  of 
Boston. 

FIRE. 

It  is  stated  by  the  insurance  authorities  that  not  a   single  building  in 
America  was  covered  by  a  policy  of  fire-insurance  before  the  year  1752.     In 
that  year  the  first  fire-insurance  company  was  organized,  in  imita-   organization 
tion  of  similar  companies  in  London,  by  a  number  of  citizx'us  of  of  first  fire- 
Phila(lel|)hia.     It  was  called  "The  Philadelphia  Contributionship   '"»"""« 

'  '  '      company. 

for  the   Insurance   of   Houses   from   Loss   by  Fire."      Benjamin 

Franklin  was  the  ])resident  of  the  company.     This  concern  was  organized 


i-'i-if 


m 

■■''  ':4\ 


ini 


^'1 


i'  u 


m 


824 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


somewhat  upon  the  principle  of  a  mutual  society.  The  man  who  wished  to 
have  his  house  insured  deposited  a  sum  of  money,  the  interest  upon  whicii 
belonged  to  the  company.  The  man  making  such  a  deposit  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  company.  Losses  and  expenses  were  paid  out  of  the  deposits  ami 
the  interest  arising  therefrom,  and  at  the  end  of  se/en  years  the  account  was 
balanced  with  each  member.  The  policy  ran  for  seven  years ;  and  each  mem- 
ber was  liable  to  the  amount  of  his  deposit,  and  half  as  much  more.  A  good 
deal  of  information  has  been  preserved  in  relation  to  this  pioneer  of  American 
fire-insurance  companies,  possibly  because  so  much  of  it  is  of  a  quaint  char- 
acter. It  seems,  according  to  Mr.  C.  C.  Hine,  the  ecliior  of  "  The  Insurance 
Monitor "  at  New  York,  that,  instead  of  appropriating  the  two-shilling  fines 
laid  on  absentees  at  the  monthly  meetings  of  the  company  to  the  use  of  the 
company,  the  contributors  spent  them  in  putting  ap  milestones  on  the  roads 
leading  into  Philadelphia,  'i'hey  dotted  the  roads  wi'i-  'hese  stones  for  twenty 
miles  around.  In  1 783  the  house  of  one  of  fin  cop,  rilutors  caught  fire  from 
a  burning  shade-tree;  and  the  company  thereupon  reused  to  take  risks  on 
houses  with  shade-trees  around  them,  ex'upt  at  enormous  rates.  Tiiis  led  to 
dissatisfaction  ;  and  the  second  fire-company  in  Vmerica  was  finally  started 
in  consequence  of  it,  called  "The  Mutual  Ajso"-  'ce  Company  for  the  Insur- 
ance of  Houses  from  Loss  by  Fire,"  datinft  its  oi  ,.;:n  from  1784.  This  new 
company  took  for  its  symbol  and  trade  ir.rk  thi'  '  gijen  tree,"  and  accepted 
risks  on  houses  =urrounded  by  shade  tree"';.  The  ".ymbol  of  the  "Contribution- 
ship  "  was  ih;  b,t('ge  of  two  clasped  hands,  -  -  the  same  as  that  adopted  by  the 
pioneer  Hand-in  Hand  Society  of  London.  Like  the  London  company,  the 
pioneer  In  Philadrlp!>.ia  i-i  f\  in  existence,  and  dojig  business. 

The  subject  tJ"  in  .uai  ce  was  agitated  in  New- York  City  in  1770,  1784, 
and  1785;  but  nothing  appean,  to  have  been  do.ie  in  the  way  of  forming 
Insurance  in  Companies,  owing  to  the  bad  financial  condition  of  the  times. 
New  York.  ^\^q  return  of  peace  and  the  establishment  of  a  strong  national 
government  appear  to  have  given  new  life  to  ail  business-enterprises,  and 
then  in  1787  New  York's  first  company  was  started.  The  Mutual  Assurance 
Company  was  immediately  formed  for  the  local  uses  of  the  city.  The  same 
year  the  Baltimore  Fire-Insurance  Company  was  incorporated.  The  new  Na- 
tional Government  having  fairly  got  into  running-order,  charters  were  applied 
for  in  various  States,  and  by  1800  nineteen  fire-insurance  companies  were 
doing  business  in  the  United  States.  Some  had  the  right  to  do  a  marine- 
business,  and  some  had  inland  privileges  also.    They  were  the  following :  — 

1752.     Philadelphia  Contributionship.     (Fire.> 

17S4.     Mutual  Assurance,  Philadeijiliia.     (Fire.) 

1787  and  1795.     Baltimore  F'tc.    (Fire.) 

1787  and  1798.     Nfutual  Assurance,  New  York.     (Fire.) 

1794.     Haltimore  Equital)le.     (Fire.) 

1794.     Norwich  Mutual,  Norwich,  Conn.     (Fire.) 


''mm~ 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES.  825 

1794.  Insurance  Company  of  North  America,  Philadelphia.     (All.) 

1794.  Insurance  Company  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia.    (All.) 

1794.  Mutual  Assurance  Company,  Richmond,  Va.     (Fire.) 

1795.  MaryLind  Insurance,  Baltimore.     (Fire  and  Marine.) 

1795.  Massachusetts  Fire  and  Marine,  Boston.     (Fire  and  Marine.) 

1797.  New-Haven  Insurance  Company,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

1797.  Charleston  Mutual,  Charleston,  South  Carolina.     (Fire.) 

1798.  Georgetown  Mutual,  Georgetown,  Maryland.     (Fire.) 
1798.  Massachusetts  Mutual,  Boston.     (Fire.) 

1798.  New-York  Insurance  Company,  New  York.     (All.) 

1798.  United  Insurance  Company,  New  York.     (All.) 

1799.  New-Hampshire  Insurance  Company,  Portsmoath,  N.H.     (Fire.) 
1799.  Providence  Washington,  Providence,  R.I.     \    ire.) 

Most  of  these  companies  are  still  in  existence,  though  not  all  with  their 
original  names.  The  Mutual  Assurance  of  New  York,  for  instance,  retained 
that  name  only  until  1846,  when  it  was  re-organized  as  the  Knickerborker, 
and  under  that  title  is  still  a  flourishing  concern.  In  addition  to  the  above, 
there  was  a  private  concern  at  Hartford,  Conn.,  as  early  as  1793;  ^^^^  ^ 
record  of  it  has  been  losi  except  a  single  policy,  which  has  beer  found  to 
indicate  that  the  company  once  existed. 

The  Union  Mutual  was  formed  in  Philadelphia  in  1803  ;  the  Eagle  Fire,  ia 
New  York,  in  1806;  and  the  .Albany,  at  .\lbany,  N.Y.,  in  i8ii.  Other  com- 
panies were  also  tiie  outgrowth  of  those  times;  but  liie  three  whicli  iiave  Viecr; 
named  are  the  only  ones  which  have  led  a  connected  existence  to  the  jinjsent 
time,  and  are  still  extant.  The  old  Norwich  Fire  (Norwich,  Conr..)  was 
incorporated  in  1803,  but  was  crushed  in  1871  by  the  Chicago  fire. 

One  of  the  features  of  fire-insurance  at  that  early  ilay  was  the  opening  of 
offices  in  the  principal  cities  of  the  country  by  Lc  a  companies.  Many 
people  preferred  to  insure  with  the  London  officer  .uise  they  Early  ap- 
possessed  so  much  larger  capital.  The  Phoenix  h: 
New  York  as  early  as  1805.  When  the  troubles  w 
war  of  18 1 2  took  place,  howe.er,  the  hostility  felt 
toward  England  caused  the  State  of  New  York  to  pass  a  law  ex 
eluding  the  foreign  companies  from  iloing  bus  —  within  her  territory.  In 
1809,  Pennsyl.-'nia,  Maryland,  and  .South  Carolin  did  the  same  ;  although  the 
latter  State,  which  was  more  friendly  to  Englisii  interests,  repealed  the  pro- 
hibition the  following  year. 

In  1810  fire-insurance  was  established  on  a  small  scale  in  a  little  New- 
I'jigland  city,  which  was  destined  in  a  few  years  to  become  famous  for  its 
insurance-interests,  and  to  have  erected  upon  its  principal  streets   Rigeofin- 
a   mmiber  of  buildings,  devoted  to  the  occupanc;,    'if  insurance   surance 
companies,  finer  than  any  business-structures  in  th--  country,  ex-   ^^f,*"j" '" 
cei)t  those  in  the  great  metropolitan  communities.     It  was  in  that 
year  that  the  liartfortl  Fire-insurance  Company  was  incorporated  at  Hartford, 


office    in    pearanceof 
,     ,  ,        London  com- 

h  led  to   the    pa„iesinthe 
this  country    United 
States. 


•■ --■•'jn-'-siog'^.'  ti 


III 


826 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Conn.,  with  a  capital  of  5150,000.  This  enterprise  was  a  timid  venture,  and 
for  several  years  was  a  plant  so  tender,  that  one  good  fire  would  have  snufft-d 
it  out  of  existence  prematurely.  The  total  income  of  the  company  for  the 
first  year  was  only  $4,498.  Its  expenses  were  five  hundred  and  thirty  dollar- 
only;  three  hundred  dollars  going  to  pay  the  salary  of  the  only  emploje',  tlic 
secretary,  and  thirty  dollars  being  expended  for  rent  and  fire-wood.  By  1820 
the  income  had  only  risen  to  $10,102  a  year;  but  after  that  the  business  of 
the  company  began  to  grow,  and  the  corporation  soon  became  a  great  con- 
cern, with  a  national  reputation,  taking  risks  amounting  to  tens  of  millions 
annually,  and  with  an  income  which  grew  in  time  to  exceed  two  millions. 
This,  like  most  of  the  early  companies,  was  a  joint-stock  concern.  '1  he 
capital  was  small  at  the  start,  —  only  $150,000  ;  and,  though  now  $1,000,000, 
was  increased  to  $300,000  only  in  1854.  On  the  other  hand,  the  risks  were 
large,  amounting  in  1854  to  over  $10,000,000.  But  the  policies  were  well 
placed,  and  in  1854  the  losses  annually  were  only  about  $300,000;  and  the 
premiums,  being  adai)tcd  to  the  losses,  gave  the  com])any  an  income  oi' 
$500,000  a  year,  without  touching  the  capital.  Thus  the  losses  were  all  paid 
from  the  premiums,  and  a  handsome  surplus  left  for  distribution  in  the  form 
of  dividends,  or  for  investment  as  a  surplus  fund.  The  success  of  the  Hart 
ford  Fire,  and  the  sal  •'./  of  this  form  of  business,  led  to  tlie  formation  of  otiu  r 
companies.  The  ^-Etna  came  first,  appearing  in  1819  :  and  then  the  i'rote( - 
tion.  The  Hartford-County  Mutual  came  along  in  1831,  the  Phoenix  in  1854. 
Such  has  been  the  growth  since  tSio,  that,  in  spite  of  the  losses  caused 
by  the  great  fires  of  recent  years  and  other  depressing  causes,  the  city  of 
Hartford  has  in  the  year  18 78  ten  insurance  companies  in  full  operation, 
h-^ving  an  income  of  $11,000,000  annually,  and  insuring  property  to  the 
amount  of  $680,000,000. 

The  growth  of  the  Hartford  companies  was  in  large  part  due  to  a  cause, 
which,  being  taken  advantage  of  afterwartl  by  other  companies,  brought  about 
Causes  of  ^"  expansion  of  the  whole  business  of  insurance.  Until  the  .Mtiia 
their  Started  in  1819,  the  business  of  the  several  com5)anies  had  been 

growt  .  almost  entirely  of  a  local  character.     Kach  concern  was  as  nnu  h 

circumscribed  by  the  limits  of  the   neighborhood  it  was  in  a'^  the  townshiji 
cider-mill  and  the  early  county  flouring-mill.      The   .'litna  appears  to  have 
conceived  the  idea  of  creating  a  network  of  distant  agencies,  and  ohtaininu; 
business  in  all  parts  of  the  country.     Possibly  the  practice  of  New-l  ngland 
manufacturers  in  sending  out  peddlers  suggested  the  idea;  but.  whether  it  did 
or  not,  the  .-Etna  adopted  the  agency-system,  and  soon  built  up  an  enormn 
and  prosperous  business.     The  Hartford  Fire  adopted  the  system  also,  and  \\ 
the  course  of  tweat)'  years  the   tirartice  became  com'^or.  witti  all   large  ant 
aspinn«  compaiiies      The  city  which  invented  it.  of  course,  profited  by  it  the 
first,  and  iiroportionatelv  the  most. 

Ever^   thing  went  swimmmglv  with  the  'ompanies  np  to  the   year  1835. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


827 


s  a  timid  venture,  ami 
fire  would  have  snuffed 
if  the  company  for  the 
dred  and  thirty  dollar^ 
the  only  emplo)e,  the 
id  fire-wood.  By  1820 
er  that  the  business  of 
1  became  a  great  con- 
ing to  tens  of  million-. 

0  exceed  two  millions, 
it-stock  concern.  'I'lu- 
though  now  $1,000,000, 
ler  hand,  the  '•isks  were 

the  policies  were  well 
)Out  $300,000  ;  and  the 
omixmy  an  income  of 
5  the  losses  were  all  paid 

distribution  in  the  form 
he  success  of  the  Hart 
to  the  formation  of  other 

1  ;   and  then  the  I'rotcc- 
^31,  the  rhcjcnix  in  1S54. 

of  the   losses   caused 

ng  causes,  the  city  of 

)anies  in  full   operation. 

nsuring  property  to  the 

ge  part  due  to  a  cause, 
onii)anics,  brought  about 
urance.     Until  the  .Ktna 
ral  companies  had  been 
1  concern  was  as  miu  h 
was  in  as  thv  townHhiji 
.'ICtna  appears  to  ha\e 
agencies,  and  obtaining 
»ractice  of  Newl'ngland 
idea  ;  but,  whether  it  did 
on  built  ij)  an  enornKr: 
the  system  also,  and  n 
•nor,  with  all   large  anc 
rourse.  profited  by  it  the 

-  to  the  year  1835, 


n 


The  computation  of  the  average  number  of  losses  in  the  year  and  the  adjust- 
ment of  premiums  thereto  was  effectively  done,  and  the  companies  Great  fire 
had  themselves  alone   to   blame  if  they  did  not  make  money.  °*  ''ss- 
■ri;ey  did   make   money,  and   new  and   rival   organizations  were  continually 
coming  into  the  field  to  reap  a  part  of  the  golden  harvest  they  were  gathering. 
In  1835  the  first  severe  blow  was  struck  at  the  insurance  interest  by  the  great 
fire  in  the  city  of  Mew  York  on  the  night  of  Dec.  1 6.     By  noon  of  Dec.  1 7,  five 
hunihed  and  twenty-nine  stores  and  forty-one  other  buildings  in  that  city, 
south  of  Wall  .Street,  were  burned  to  the  ground,  and  left  in  smoking  ruins, 
and  $15,000,000  worth  of  property  had  been  consumed.     This  totally  unex- 
pected and  overwhelming  visitation  wiped  out  of  existence  every  one  of  the 
fire-insurance  comj^anies  of  New- York  City  (twenty-six  in  number)  except  the 
Noilh   River,  tlie  Greenuich,  and  tiie  Bowery.     All  of  their  $9,450,000  of 
capital  which   could  be  made  available,  together  witii  $2,000,000  placed  by 
them  in  Boston  and  elsewhere,  was  consumed  in  paying  the  losses.     They 
paid  over  every  cent  of  money  they  could  realize  from  their  assets;  and  twenty- 
three  companies  either  wound  >i[)  their  affair-  -.'ntirely,  or  began  i)usiness  again 
with  capital   freshly  sub- 
scribed,    and    upon    an  -_-^  j.;>    ^,^ 
entirely  new   foundation.               '-::  ;v.-iv'^^'^^  ^ 
'i'his  calamity  produced  a       ';  -     irf 
sensation    in   the   Ui.ited 
States  more  extraordina- 
ry even  than  tiie  greater 
fire  at  Chicago  in    1S71, 
for  the   reason   that   lire- 
insurance  was  new  in  this 
country  ;    and    from    the 
experience    of    the   pre- 
ceding twenty  years,  and 
the  brilli.ant  success  of  a 
few    notable    companies, 
jniblic  confidence  in  the 
companies    had    become 
excited  to  a  degree  which 
has  ne\-er  been  r/.-mlleled 
in     the     history      -f    the 

i.'nited  States.  Insunnce  had  come  to  be  considered  so  safe,  that  the  courts 
had  been  m  the  habit  of  directing  e\pli<-itly  that  trust-funds  and  savings 
should  be  invested  in  the  stock  of  the  companies.  The  best  men  of  the 
(lay  iiad  given  the  wei-ht  of  th^eir  sanction  to  these  investments,  and  widows 
and  orphans  had  put  large  sums  of  their  money  into  the  stocks  of  these 
<-ompanies  m  order  to  deposit  it  where  it  would  certainly  be  -  -cure  and  remu- 


llARTKOKU    HRr-INSlRANCE   COMI'ANY, 


|.' 


:.;«  ■■;  f. 


m 


828 


INDUSTRIAL    IIISTOKY 


Fire  of  :845. 


nerative.  The  re-action  after  the  fire  of  1835  was  consequently  dreadful. 
The  whole  country  stood  aghast.  Public  confidence  in  the  joint-stock  com- 
panies was  profoundly  shaken ;  and  so  much  did  capitalists  distrust  tiicm. 
that  new  companies  could  not  be  formed  fast  enough  to  re-insure  the 
property  which  had  been  deprived  of  protection  by  the  failure  ot  the  New- 
York  societies.  The  danger  of  concentrating  the  risks  of  a  company  in  cities 
was  made  apparent,  and  altogether  a  new  aspect  was  given  to  the  whole 
business. 

What  little  faith  in  the  stock-system  was  left  after  the  fire  of  1835  was 
badly  shattered  by  the  New- York  fire  of  1845,  when  four  hundred 
and  fifty  buildings  in  the  business-centre  of  the  city  were  destroyed, 
and  $6,000,000  of  property  lost,  —  an  incident  which  brought  about  a  fresh  lot 
of  insurance  bankruptcies. 

The  fire  of  1835  (and  incidentally  that  of  1845)  had  two  important  conse- 
Conse-  (juences  ;    one  was  the  improvement  of  the  apparatus  in  use  for 

quences  of       extinguisliing  fires;  the  other  was  the  formation  of  a  vast  nmn- 
these  fires.      ^^^  ^j-  ,^.,m^^|  fire-insurunce  companies  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
With  reference  to  the  first  matter,  it  may  be  said  that  it  was  throuj;li  tlie  inllu 
Fire-  cnce  of  the  companies  that  attention  was  now  drawn  to  the  subjei  i 

apparatus.  Qf  steam  fire-engincs,  to  that  of  paid  fire  departments,  and  to  the 
need  of  city  water-works.  The  insurance  comixinies  of  New  York  gave  an 
Fire-  ordtT  in  1840  to  have  a  steam  fire-engine  i)uilt,  and  one  was  buili 

engines.  |,y   ^\^    Hoilgcs,  and  tested,  in   behalf  of   the   comi)anies  ;   ami 

inventors,  then  being  set  to  work  at  the  subject,  soon  had  i)ractical  steam  fire- 
engines  in  operation  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  The  C'roton  water  was 
introduced  to  New  York  in  1842.  Paid  fire  departments  in  die  principal  cities 
Paid  fire  de-  Were  slowcr  of  introduction  ;  but  they  cume  along  in  a  tew  years, 
partments.  ^.^j  mostly  through  the  efforts  of  the  companies.  Hy  1862  all 
large  cities  had  them  except  New  York,  and  the  system  was  introduced  there 
in  1865.  liesides  using  their  influence  to  secure  these  things,  the  underwriters 
iliil  one  thing  more.  In  1839  the  companies  in  New  York  organized  and 
employed  a  paid  fire  patrol,  which  has  ever  since  been  in  active  and  successful 
operation,  and  has  been  of  incalculable  benefit  for  the  preservation  of  property. 
Boston,  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  and  other  cities,  organized  similar  patrols  in 
imitation  of  New  York.  Their  cost  is  a  mere  fraction  of  the  value  of  tiie 
property  which  would  be  destroyed  without  tiie  agency  of  their  services.  The 
celebrateil  London  Corps  was  organized  by  Capt.  Shaw  of  the  Kire  Brigade  of 
that  metropolis,  after  witnessing  the  performances  of  the  Insurance  Patrol 
of  New  York.  The  underwriters  also  effected  a  salutary  change  in  the 
combustible  character  of  buildings,  by  their  action  in  regard  to  rates  of  insur- 
ance, &c. 

The  second  immediate  effect  of  the  fire  of  1835  ^^^•''  ^'1*-'  formation  of  a 
large  number  of  mutual  insurance  companies.     There  had  been  some  discon- 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


829 


tent  in  tlie  i)ul)lic  mind  at  the  joint-stocii .  system,  because  of  the  imlimiteil 
power  which  it  conferred  on  the  companies  for  making  money  from  Formation 
the  public  without  imi)osing  a  corresponding  liability.  For  instance,  o(  mutual 
a  company  would  be  formed  with,  say,  ;?  150,000  capital,  of  which  ="""?■"'"•• 
ten  per  cent  would  be  paid  in  at  the  start,  and  possibly  the  whole  of  it  within 
the  course  of  a  few  years.  Upon  this  slender  basis  of  capital  the  company 
would  proceed  to  erect  a  colossal  top-heavy  superstructure  of  risks,  frequently 
amounting  from  $5,000,000  to  $10,000,000.  The  company  would  assess  the 
policy-holders  from  $50,000  to  $100,000  a  year,  and  from  that  sum  of  jiremi- 
ums  would  pay  the  occasional  losses  by  fire  occurring  year  by  year,  amounting 
generally  from  $40,000  to  $60,000  a  year.  The  company  would  then  put  a 
portion  of  the  profits  into  a  surplus  guaranty-fimd,  and  divide  the  rest,  thus 
making  an  exceedingly  handsome  thing  of  it.  The  stockholders  of  that  class 
of  companies  used  to  got  their  whole  capital  back  in  diviilends  every  four 
years.  At  the  end  of  twenty  years  a  great  fire  might  occur  which  would  bring 
upon  the  company  a  loss  of  $2,000,000.  'I'he  concern  would  have  its 
$150,000  of  capital,  perhaps  $200,000  of  suri)lus  fund,  and  $100,000  of 
receipts  for  premiums  for  the  then  current  year,  in  ail  $450,000,  with  which  to 
meet  a  two-million-dollar  loss.  The  stockiiolders  would  have  no  liability 
beyond  the  $450,000  ;  antl  though  they  had  epjoyed  the  benefit  of  large 
profits  for  twenty  years,  and  had  got  the  amount  of  their  investment  back 
several  times  over,  the  policy  hosiers  could  not  compel  them,  in  the  hour  of 
their  extremity,  to  restore  one  cent  of  tlic  gains  thus  accjuircd,  and  save  the 
owners  of  the  burned  property  from  loss  beyond  the  amount  of  the  $450,000 
referred  to.  After  the  fire  of  1S35,  when  the  field  was  cleared  so  suddenly  of 
insurance  companies,  the  current  feeling  toward  joint-stock  concerns  found 
expression  immediately  in  a  demand  for  mutual  charters.  Under  this  system 
the  corporation  has  no  capital :  the  losses  are  paid  from  the  premiums,  as  in  the 
original  Philadelphia  C'ontributionship,  and  the  profits  are  divided  among 
the  policy  holders.  No  greater  security  was  gained  than  under  the  other 
system  ;  but  the  policy-hoklers  who  ))aid  the  premiums  secured  their  share  of 
the  profits,  and  thus  got  a  part  of  the  benefits  of  the  system  which  was  sus- 
tained by  their  money,  and  theirs  alone.  The  security  was  as  good,  after  a  few 
years,  as  under  the  joint-stock  plan  ;  for  all  the  surplus  was  transferred  to  a 
guaranty-fund,  anil  a  capital  thus  created.  The  sole  weak  point  of  the  sys- 
tem was  the  danger  that  a  heavy  loss  might  occur  in  the  first  few  years  of  the 
mutual  concern.  This  danger  was  met  by  the  formation  of  mixed  companies, 
with  a  capital  subscribed,  which  could  be  called  on  in  case  of  emergency ;  the 
business  being  conducted  otherwise  upon  the  mutual  plan. 

The  rage  for  mutual  companies  manifested  itself  first  in  New- York  State, 
where  a  large  number  of  buildings  were  left  without  insurance  by  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  the  existing  companies,  and  where  there  was  a  demand  for  new 
corporations  accordingly.     In   1S35  there  were  only  five  applications  to  the 


Mm 


)«    I 


830 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


legislature  for  insurance-charters;  hut  in  1836  there  were  over  fifty,  one-half 
Their  '^^  thcni  being  for  mutual  companies  ;  and,  during  that  and  the  fol- 

growth  In  lowing  year,  forty-four  ch.irters  were  granted  for  the  organization  of 
New  York,  ^j^^^  ^j^^.^  ^^  concerns.  The  applications  came  principally  from  the 
inland  cities  and  towns  of  the  State,  where  the  people  resolved  to  separate  the 
fortunes  of  their  property,  as  far  as  possible,  from  the  special  hazards  and  con- 
centrated risks  of  large  cities.  'I'he  excitement  over  mutual  companies  soon 
Their  ipread  i-'xtendcd  to  Other  States.  During  the  next  ten  years  they  mulii- 
in other  plied  rapidly  throughout  New  Englantl  and  all  the  Middle  States; 

'""*■  and  the  idea  was  adopted  throughout  the  West,  where  a  field  for 

business  was  just  opening.  The  mutual  plan  was  extremely  popular,  because 
in  the  rural  communities,  where  capital  was  scarce,  <.onipanics  could  be  formed 
without  its  aid  ;  and,  in  the  cities,  those  who  paid  heavy  premiums  forinsuranrc 
received,  in  return,  part  of  the  profits  of  the  business.  As  has  already  been 
indicated,  this  rage  for  mutual  companies  received  a  new  impetus  in  1845  from 
the  six-niillion-dollar  fire  of  that  year  in  New  York.  The  failure  of  more  of 
the  Eastern  joint-stock  companies  was  the  result  of  the  fire ;  and,  as  these 
companies  had  had  agencies  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  the  localities 
where  those  agents  had  offices  were  deprived  of  insurance  accordingly.  Local 
companies  upon  the  mutual  plan  were  found  to  fill  the  gap  thus  created.  New 
Orleans,  which  had  theretofore  depended  on  the  agency  system,  was  one  of  the 
sections  which  now  organized  mutuals  for  fire,  marine,  and  life  purposes.  The 
mutuals  of  that  city,  by  the  way,  secured  by  their  promptitude  a  monopoly  of 
the  city  and  river  business  until  1857,  when  local  stock  companies  began  to 
compete  for  the  business. 

The  mutual  system  was  far  more  advantageous  to  the  general  public  than 
the  other.  When  prudently  managed,  the  companies  were  found  to  afford 
Advantages  ^'"P'^  Security,  especially  outside  of  the  large  cities,  and  the 
of  mutual  policy-holders  secured  protection  at  an  extremely  low  minimum  of 
■yitem.  expense.    The  mutual  system  grew  rapidly,  therefore,  especially  in 

the  three  great  insurance  States  of  Massachusetts,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania. 
It  was  stimulated  in  New  York  by  the  celebrated  law  of  1849,  which  was  passed 
by  the  legislature  without  one  dissenting  voice,  and  which  was  simply  designed 
to  be  a  general  law  to  facilitate  the  formation  of  companies  without  the  delays 
consequent  upon  applying  for  a  special  charter.  That  it  did  "  facilitate  "  things 
there  is  no  (juestion  ;  for  forty-two  companies  had  been  formed  under  the  law 
by  1853.  Growth  was  so  rapid,  that,  by  1855,  the  bulk  of  the  farm  and  village 
property  in  the  three  States  above  named  was  covered  by  the  policies  of  the 
mutuals  ;  and  the  same  was  true  of  other  States. 

Unfortunately,  with  this  rapid  extension  of  a  system  which  promised  to 
Defects  in  be  of  such  public  importance,  there  came  demoralization,  specu- 
system.  lation,  and  fraud.     The  profits  of  the  companies  were  large,  and 

speculators  and  wreckers  forced  their  way  into  the  insurance  system  to  carry 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


831 


ere  over  fifty,  one-half 
luring  that  and  the  fol- 
for  the  organization  of 
mo  principally  from  the 
jsolved  to  separate  the 
)eciai  hazards  and  con- 
mtual  companies  soon 
t  ten  years  they  miiUi- 
all  the  Middle  States; 
^Vest,  where  a  field  for 
•emely  popular,  because 
ipanics  could  be  formed 
premiums  for  insurance 
.     As  has  already  been 
:\v  impetus  in  1845  fron> 
rhe  failure  of  more  of 
the  fire  ;   and,  as  these 
e  country,  the  localities 
nee  accordingly.     Loral 
gap  thus  created.    New 
;y  system,  was  one  of  the 
and  life  purposes.     The 
nptitude  a  monopoly  of 
ck  companies  began  to 

the  general  public  than 

s  were  found  to  afford 

large   cities,   and   the 

;remely  low  minimum  of 

■,  therefore,  especially  in 

York,  and  Pennsylvania. 

1849,  which  was  passed 
lich  was  simply  designed 
anies  without  the  delays 

it  did  "facilitate  "things 
n  formed  under  the  law 
k  of  the  farm  and  village 
d  by  the  policies  of  the 

Item  which  promised  to 
e  demoralization,  specu- 
mpanies  were  large,  and 
isurance  system  to  carry 


out  deliberately-planned  schemes  of  oppression  and  wrong.  The  story  is  the 
same,  in  its  general  outline,  in  each  of  the  States  of  Pennsylvania,  New  York, 
and  Massachusetts.  Hut  the  wildest  swindling  was  in  New  York.  In  that  State, 
the  law  of  1849,  which  formed  the  pattern  for  the  insurance  legislation  of  other 
States,  provided  that  mutual  companies  in  New-York  and  Kings  Counties 
must  not  start  without  a  hundred  applicants,  nor  with  less  than  $300,000  in 
marine  premiums,  or  $200,000  in  fire  premiums,  for  which  notes  must  have 
been  already  given.  Klsewhere  in  the  State,  only  $100,000  in  notes  were 
retpiired.  Any  number  of  persons  not  less  than  thirteen  might  incorporate. 
What  followed  in  New- York  State  after  that  law  is  so  well  told  in  the  report 
of  James  M.  Cook,  comjUroller  of  the  State  in  the  year  1854,  that  the 
wonls  of  the  report  are  copieil  herewith  :  — 

"One  of  the  fundamental  errors  of  the  law  of  1849  was  in  the  method 
of  aggregating  the  original  capital,  by  placing  no  reasonable  limit  to  the 
amount  of  each  of  the  notes  forming  it.     Any  mutual  company  „        ,    ,_ 

^  •'  '       ■'     Errors  in  the 

could  be  formed  out  of  the  coimty  of  Kings  or  New  York  by  thir-   law,  evil 
teen  persons  giving  premium  notes  to  the  amount  of  $100,000,   '°"**'" 

I  II  1       ....   .  quences. 

and  actually  commence  the  business  of  insurance  without  a  dollar 
in  money,  even  while  the  property  actually  insured  under  the  bogus  notes  was 
of  less  value  than  the  notes  represented.  These  notes  could  be  withdrawn  by 
the  makers  as  fast  as  they  could  get  bona  fide  premium  notes  from  insurers 
who  actually  desired  insurance  on  their  property.  Thus  the  original  capital,  as 
it  was  termed,  would  disappear  exactly  in  the  ratio  that  agents  could  cajole 
real  risks  to  supply  its  place.  This  defect  is  remedied  by  the  law  of  1853, 
by  the  wholesome  jjrovisions  of  its  sixth  section. 

"  A  greater  and  more  serious  difficulty  grew  out  of  this  apparent  and 
sometimes  real  necessity  of  quickly  obtaining  policies  to  supply  the  place  of 
the  original  notes.  Connected  with  this  process  prevailed  a  prac-  g^^^  , 
tice  at  war  with  all  sound  business-transactions:  I  mean  the  modeo.  ^ 
practice  of  paying  both  officers  and  agents  by  the  policy,  instead  "'  "  ""* 
of  fixed  salaries.  Let  me  describe  the  results  flowing  from  this  method  of 
business.  Competition  reduced  the  amount  for  which  the  note  should  have 
been  taken  ;  and,  for  the  same  reason,  the  cash  percentage  was,  of  course,  too 
small  for  the  risk.  Business  increased  with  the  reduction  of  the  cost  of 
insurance,  both  in  the  amount  received  in  notes  and  in  cash  payments. 
Agents  redoubled  their  activity,  as  the  measure  of  their  pay  depended,  not 
on  the  qualities,  but  on  the  number,  of  the  notes  they  obtained ;  not  on  the 
kind  of  buildings,  or  the  amount  insured  thereon  ;  a  farm  was  as  good  for  their 
purpose  and  for  their  profit  as  a  modern  fire-proof  store.  Salaries  increased 
for  the  officers  with  such  magical  celerity,  that  time  was  flying  almost  too  fast 
to  even  sign  policies.  Soon  losses  came,  as  come  they  will ;  and  the  money 
received  to-day  was  paid  for  the  losses  of  yesterday.  The  happy  Paul  of 
to-day  paid  the  percentage  upon  his  premium  note  which  was  to  insure  his 


fi! 


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IMAGE  EVALUATION 
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33  WIST  MAIN  STREiT 

WEBSTER,  N.Y.  14SS0 

(716)072-4503 


> 


4r 


832 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


property  for  five  years,  without  the  remote  suspicion  that  he  was  to  be  the 
sorrowful  Peter  of  a  comparative  to-morrow.  '  All  went  merry  as  a  marriage- 
bell.'  Soon  everybody  within  their  control  in  the  respective  beats  of  agents 
was  insured  j  new  fields  and  new  agents  were  sought :  but  distance  lent  no 
enchantment  to  the  view  presented  by  the  agents,  or  perhaps  a  new  com- 
petition was  created  by  some  envious  neighbor.  The  number  of  policies 
began  to  fall  off;  the  receipts  of  cash  on  premium  notes  for  the  percentage 
became  '  small  by  degrees,  and  beautifully  less ; '  property  would  burn  up ; 
and  the  managers  began  to  doubt  the  policy  of  taking  any  but  farm-risks. 
The  summit  level  of  folly,  spurred  on  by  avarice,  had  been  reached ;  and, 
as  the  ascent  was  with  the  speed  and  splendor  of  the  rocket,  the  descent, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  was  like  the  stick  that  guided  it  upward.  Tax  upon 
tax  followed  in  quick  succession  upon  their  premium  notes,  amid  the  mut- 
tered curses  of  those  who  were  compelled  to  pay  them.  Credit  or  standing 
as  a  company  only  existed  as  the  snow  of  last  winter,  —  a  matter  of  remem- 
brance. 

"  This  was  sometimes  followed  by  a  spasmodic  effort  to  prolong  existence. 
A  flaming  handbill  in  large  letters  is  posted,  announcing  that  "  this  company 
takes  none  but  farm-risks,"  or  that  it  has  separate  classes  of  risks,  with  a 
grand  sum  total  of  the  amount  of  their  premium  notes,  and  exhibiting  a  large- 
amount  of  moneys  in  the  hands  of  the  agents  and  in  the  course  of  trans- 
mission to  it.  Under  this  state  of  things,  the  agents,  with  the  sagacity  pecul- 
iar to  their  class,  retire  in  rMsgust  from  the  employ  of  the  company;  and 
while  they  sing  paeans  to  some  younger  brother  in  whose  emplby  they  are, 
and  who  is  destined  to  the  same  fooUsh  and  unpitied  fate,  they  fi-eely  com- 
ment upon  and  express  their  doubts  as  to  the  management  and  honesty  of 
the  elder  one.  The  beginning  of  the  end  has  come.  Exeunt  omnes  of 
the  managers  of  the  company.  The  curtain  falls ;  and  a  receiver,  appointed 
by  the  court,  makes  his  bow  before  the  astonished  audience,  and  gives  notice 
that  the  farce  of  folly,  avarice,  and  mischief  has  ended,  and  iliat  the  tragedy 
of  collecting  a  sufficient  percentage  on  the  notes  to  pay  the  liabilities  of  the 
company  will  soon  begin." 

The  picture  is  faithful  to  the  life.  The  companies  in  New  York  adopted 
the  mixed  premium  and  stock-note  plan,  and  pushed  a  reckless  agency  busi 
Number  of  ness  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  In  less  than  ten  years  of 
failures.  jjjg  passage  of  the  law,  five-sixths  of  the  companies  formed  under 
it  went  down,  entailing  a  loss  of  $2,000,000  on  the  community.  Of  the  forty- 
two  organized  from  1849  to  1853,  thirty-three  were  swindles,  and  failed  out- 
rageously. By  1859  there  were  left  in  New-York  State  only  twenty-eigiit  of 
the  sixty-two  mutuals  doing  business  in  1853;  and  of  the  twenty-eight  the 
majority  had  been  organized  under  special  charters  prior  to  1846,  and  Iiad 
adhered  strictly  to  the  mutual  plan.  By  i860  only  seven  of  the  nearly  sixty 
mutuals  formed  under  the  law  of  1849  still  survived  in  New- York  State. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


833 


Twenty-one  mutuals  failed  in  Pennsylvania  from  1853  to  i860,  owing  to  the 
same  causes ;  that  is  to  say,  an  erroneous  plan  of  doing  business,  and  the 
deliberate  swindling  of  speculators  who  organized  the  companies  for  the  sake 
of  large  salaries  and  plunder.  In  Massachusetts  the  mutual  companies  which 
were  formed  from  1844  to  i860  were  nearly  every  one  of  them  closed  by  the 
latter  year  through  the  action  of  the  courts,  or  by  consolidation  with  better 
concerns.  Pennsylvania  was  the  champion  State  of  the  intentionally  bogus 
companies ;  but  scarce  any  State  in  the  North  was  free  from  them. 


STEAM   FIRE-ENGINE. 


It  is  difificult  to  obtain  exact  statistics  concerning  the  fire-insurance  busi- 
ness in  the  United  States,  owing  to  the  absence  of  laws  in  many  of  the 
States  requiring  reports ;  but  the  situation  in  i860  in  the  New-  sj^^.gj.j.3 
England  and  Middle  States,  including  a  hundred  and  forty  com- 
panies in  the  South  and  West,  was  as  follows:  417  companies;  capital,  ^40,- 
000,000  ;  cash  premiums  paid  every  year,  $25,000,000  ;  fire-risks,  $2,300,000,- 
000.  After  i860  the  business  was  conducted  more  prudently  throughout  the 
country,  owing  to  the  enactment  of  judi  ious  laws,  and  the  establishment  of 
State  supervision  of  the  companies  in  New  York  and  Massachusetts.  The 
insurance  department  of  the  latter  was  founded  in  1S54  ;  that  of  New  York,  in 


834 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


1859.  In  imitation  of  those  two  States,  Connecticut  established  a  department 
in  1866 ;  Ohio,  in  1867  ;  Iowa  and  California,  in  1868  ;  Illinois  and  Missouri, 
in  1869;  Wisconsin  and  Kentucky,  in  1870;  and  Michigan,  in  1871.  The 
wild-cat  companies  have  been  nearly  driven  out  of  existence  by  these  succes- 
sive enactments  and  the  action  taken  under  them. 

From  i860  to  the  present  time  the  growth  of  fire-insurance  has  been 
generally  sound,  though  marked  by  extraordinary  features.  The  number  of 
Fire-inmur-  buildings  in  the  country  —  which  was  only  3,362,337  in  1850,  and 
•ncesince  4,969,692  in  i860  —  had  increased  in  1870  to  7,042,833  in  spite 
''*°'  of  the  devastation  of  the  four-years'  war.     Competition  and  the 

mutual  system  had  reduced  the  cost  of  insurance ;  and  the  protection  of  dwell- 
ings, stores,  and  factories,  by  policies  of  insurance,  had  become  universal. 
.  There  were  causes  at  work  which  compelled  the  companies  to  exercise  great 
prudence ;  such  as  the  increasing  use  of  petroleum  for  lamps  and  for  lighting 
fires  in  stoves,  the  lawlessness  engendered  by  the  war,  and  the  temptation  to 
bum  heavily-insured  property  for  the  sake  of  securing  the  insurance.  But 
these  dangers  were,  on  the  whole,  offset  by  the  general  adoption  of  steam  fire- 
engines  and  paid  fire  departments  throughout  the  country,  and  the  general 
erection  of  fire-proof  buildings.  When  the  war  was  approaching  a  close,  the 
prospects  of  the  fire-insurance  business  were  bright,  and  the  companies  were 
hopeful  and  happy.  With  the  b\}^ning  of  Charleston,  S.C.,  and  the  loss  of 
^7,000,000  of  property  thereupon,  and  the  destruction  of  other  Southern  cities 
in  that  last  year  of  the  war,  there  began  a  series  of  losses  by  fire  in  this  country 
such  as  had  never  been  seen  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  During  the  year  ending 
May  I,  1865,  over  ^50,000,000  of  property  was  burned  in  the  United  States, 
mostly  in  the  South  of  course,  only  1^5,000,000  of  it  being  in  the  North.  This 
loss  fell  generally  on  the  English  companies  and  on  a  few  Southern  companies, 
many  of  the  latter  being  crushed  by  their  losses.  On  July  4,  1866,  a  fire 
broke  out  in  the  city  of  Portland,  Me.,  caused  by  a  boy's  fire-cracker,  which 
burned  out  <  10,000,000  worth  of  property  in  the  business  quarter  of  the  city. 
This  was  a  heavy  blow  to  the  New- England  companies ;  but  it  was  an  "  airy 
nothing"  compared  with  the  experience  of  1871, 1872,  and  1873.  From  1866 
the  daily  record  of  losses  became  so  large,  that,  in  the  country  at  large,  the 
companies  were  called  upon  annually  to  make  good  losses  amounting  to 
1 1 0,000,000  or  more.  This  was  sufficiently  serious ;  but  in  1871  came  the 
shock  of  a  great  calamity.  On  Oct.  7  of  that  year  one  of  the  most  destnictive 
fires  which  had  ever  occurred  in  Chicago  had  broken  out  and  been  subdued. 
On  Sunday  evening,  Oct.  8,  a  bam  caught  fire  (owing,  it  was  said  at  tlie 
time,  to  the  kicking  over  of  a  milk-pail  and  a  lamp  by  a  cow)  at  the  junction 
of  De  Koven  and  Jefferson  Streets,  in  an  inflammable  part  of  the  city ;  and,  at 
the  end  of  two  days,  more  property  had  been  consumed  than  in  the  historic 
London  fire  of  1666.  In  London  13,000  buildings  were  burned,  covering 
500  acres ;  and  the  loss  was  1^50,000,000.     In  Chicago  1 7,450  buildings  were 


-  .0.'.t'»«k.,  ..^V~>MlriJ^^Uiitv.> 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


835 


Ttment 
issouri, 
.  The 
succes- 

is  been 
(iber  of 
,50,  and 
in  spite 
and  the 
)f  dwell- 
iniversal. 
ise  great 
•  lighting 
tation  to 
ce.     But 
;eam  fire- 
;  general 
close,  the 
nies  were 
e  loss  of 
»ern  cities 
IS  country 
ar  ending 
»d  States, 
rth.    This 
ompanies, 
66,  a  fire 
ter,  which 

the  city. 

an  "  airy 


burned,  covering  a  tract  about  four  miles  long  by  one  wide,  an  area  of  2,124 
acres,  and  worth  with  their  contents,  at  a  moderate  calculation,  j!!i6o,ooo,ooo'i 
This  was  a  quarter  of  the  total  actual  valuation  of  the  real  and  personal  property 
of  the  city,  which  in  1871  was  only  5620,000,000.  The  fire  rendered  98,500 
people  homeless,  50,000  of  them  leaving  the  city  within  a  few  weeks ;  and  250 
lives  were  lost.  On  the  burned  property  there  was  $98,000,000  of  insurance, 
123,000,000  of  it  being  by  New- York  companies.  The  total  loss  was  dis- 
tributed among  two  hundred  companies,  of  whom  sixty  four  failed  in  conse- 
quence of  their  losses.  Eleven  of  the  companies  were  in  Chicago,  sixteen  in 
New  York,  five  in  Hartford,  five  in  Providence,  four  in  Boston,  three  in  San 
Francisco,  and  the  rest  scattered  all  over  the  country.  Only  about  $49,000,000 
were  realized  by  the  policy-holders.  Chicago's  actual  loss,  including  loss  of 
business  and  depreciation  of  property,  was  estimated  at  fully  $150,000,000. 
Two  fires  in  Boston  followed  this  calamity.  One  began  Nov.  9,  1872,  and  in 
thirty-six  hours  destroyed  776  buildings,  worth,  with  their  contents,  $80,000,000 
(the  wares  in  them  being  valued  at  $60,000,000),  upon  which  there  was  an 
insurance  of  $56,000,000.  Fourteen  lives  were  lost  by  the  fire.  In  Boston 
the  fire  was  remarkable,  because  it  swept  away  a  large  number  of  imposing 
granite  edifices  which  had  been  deemed  absolutely  fire-proof.  A  larger  pro- 
portion of  the  insurance  was  paid  in  the  case  of  this  fire,  and  again  there 
was  a  wiping-out  of  companies.  Another  fire  occurred  in  Boston  in  1873, 
destroying  property  worth  $1,500,000,  insured  for  $1,100,000.  Thirty-two 
companies  closed  their  doors  in  consequence  of  the  Boston  fires,  twenty-six 
being  Massachusetts  companies,  and  twenty-two  of  the  latter  number  being 
joint-stock  concerns,  leaving  only  eleven  joint-stock  companies  in  Massa- 
chusetts. Tliese  great  calamities  have  been  succeeded  ever  since  by  a  num- 
ber of  smaller  ones  in  other  parts  of  the  country.  Two  or  three  million-dollar 
fires  have  taken  place  in  New  York,  and  one  or  two  in  Chicago.  One  in 
Pittsburgh  was  more  disastrous,  and  the  number  of  small  fires  swells  the  yearly 
aggregate  now  to  about  $10,000,000. 

This  is  an  extraordinary  record  ;  and,  should  the  history  of  the  next  twenty 
years  present  a  similar  picture  of  destruction,  it  will  become  a  problem,  whether 
fire-insurance  can  continue  to  prosper.  It  is  confidently  believed,  however, 
that  the  calamities  of  Chicago,  Boston,  New  York,  and  Pittsburgh,  have  now 
called  such  attention  to  the  subjects  of  the  architecture  of  cities,  water- 
supply,  patrols,  and  fire-apparatus,  that  the  chances  of  any  other  great  city 
being  entirely  or  even  partially  destroyed  by  fire  during  this  generation  are 
very  much  diminished. 

In  1876  the  fire-insurance  companies  of  the  United  States  had  increased 
to  eight  hundred  and  fifty-one,  including  thirty-four  foreign  com-  companies 
panics  doing  business  here.     From  the  following  table  no  idea  is  *"  '"'•• 
gained  of  the  comparative  importance  of  the  insurance  interest  in  the  various 
States ;  as  Connecticut,  for  example,  transacted  more  business  than  several  other 


I 
836  INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 

States  which  had  a  much  larger  list  of  companies.    They  were  distributed  as 
follows :  — 

Alabama II 

California    .               ..' 7 

Connecticut 31 

Delaware •'*4 

District  of  Columbia ti 

Georgia        ...• 6 

Illinois 9 

Indiana 5 

Iowa     ....>.. 7 

Kansas 3 

Kentucky 13 

Louisiana 17 

Maine 43 

Maryland     . .       .       .18 

Massachusetts 85 

Michigan 40 

Minnesota    ...n 3 

Mississippi i 

Missouri 29 

New  Hampshire 37 

New  York I2i 

North  Carolina .*...3 

Ohio 58     ' 

Pennsylvania 177 

Rhode  Island 34 

South  Carolina i 

Tennessee if3 

Texas 7 

Vermont 6 

Virginia        ............  16 

West  Virginia 6 

Wisconsin 9 

Foreign 34 

Total 851 

The  risks  assumed  by  these  companies  amount  to  something  over  1 10,000,- 
000,000,  the  people  of  the  United  States  paying  for  this  protection  a  sum 
variously  estimated  from  $100,000,000  to  1 150,000,000  yearly.  This  is  indeed 
a  very  heavy  tax.  to  pay  in  order  to  be  secure  from  the  consequences  of  one's 
own  negligence,  or  the  accidents  or  wrong-doing  of  others ;  but  human  nature 
is  such  a  poor  thing,  that  no  man  is  regarded  as  prudent  now-a-days  who  does 
not  carry  a  proper  amount  of  insurance  upon  his  houses,  bams,  factories,  ships, 
or  merchandise.  It  is  a  very  rare  thing  to  see  a  structure  of  any  sort,  pos- 
sessing much  value,  that  is  not,  in  part  at  least,  insured ;  though  occasionally 
an  insurance-fund  is  accumulated  by  companies  out  of  which  they  reimburse 
themselves  whenever  losses  arise.  The  following  was  the  business  done  by  a 
few  of  the  principal  companies  in  1875  :  — 


1819 
1853 


1852 
1820 
1829 
1859 


Co 
Fir 
Frs 
Ge. 


iSsoGle 

1852  Hai 
1810  Ilai 

1853  Hoi 

!'■ 

ilNiaj 
'825Peni 
i8S4Phce 

Wati 
W 


Perhj 
$50,ooo,< 
table  ver 
risks  con 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


837 


1819 
1853 

1852 

1820 

1829 

1859 

1850 

185 

1810 

1853 
1794 

1849 

1825 

I8S4 
1867 

1837 


iEtna  (Hartford)     . 

(  Agricultural  Insurance  Co. 

I      (Watertown,  N.Y.)  . 
Continental  (Hartford)   . 
Fire  Association  (Philadelphia) 
Franklin  Fire  (Philadelphia) 
Germania  (New  York)    . 
Glen's  Falls(Glen's  Fa'ls,  N.Y.) 
Hanover  (New  York)     . 
Hartford  (Hartford) 
Home  (New  York) . 

{Insurance    Co.    of    North ) 
America  (Philadelphia)    ) 
Niagara  (New  York) 
Pennsylvania  (Philadelphia)    . 
Phcenix  (Hartford) 
Watertown  (Watertown,  N.Y.) 
(  Westchester     (New     Ro- 
\     chelle,  N.Y.)    . 


$3,000,000 
200,000 

1,000,000 
500,000 
400,000 
500,000 
200,000 
500,000 

1,000,000 
.3,000,000 

1,000,000 

500,000 
400,000 
600,000 
200,000 

200,000 


$6,878,000 
1,058,000 

2,845,000 
3,457,000 
3,308,000 
1,710,000 
747,000 
1,592,000 
3,032,000 
6,047,000 

5,167,000 

1,465,000 

1,557,000 

1,950,000 

694,000 

823,000 


$4,097,000 
542,000 

1,677,000 
1, 34 1, coo 
1,208,000 
992,000 
338,000 
1,044,000 
2,066,000 
3.393.000 

3,351,000 

864,000 

677,000 

1,556,000 

352,000 

807,000 


LOSIBS 

FOR 
YEAR. 


$2,059,000 
267,000 

733.000 
507,000 
586,000 
378,000 
187,000 
433.000 
998,000 
1,682,000 

863,000 

469,000 
jj  6,000 
871,000 
187,000 

402,000 


RISKS  IN 
FORCE. 


$269,984,000 
206,471,000 

195,168/XJO 

136,990.000 

165,380,000 

86,814,000 

65,192,000 

96,948,000 

i39.96S.OOO 

356,804,000 

174,596,000 

67,338,000 

63.537,000 
1 1  5,826,000 
109,193,000 

72,112,000 


Perhaps  forty  other  companies  take  risks  amounting  to  from  $20,000,000  to 
150,000,000.  All  the  rest  do  a  business  of  under  $20,000,000.  The  above 
table  very  fsdrly  illustrates  the  proportion  of  assets  and  receipts  to  losses  and 
risks  common  in  all  companies. 

LIFE. 

We  now  come  to  another  branch  of  the  insurance-business  which  has  had 
.its  own  independent  growth  and  history,  and  which  has  passed  through 
vicissitudes  as  unique  and  interesting  as  the  others. 

Life-insurance  in  this  country  is  as  ancient  in  its  origin  as  the  fire  and 
marine  branches.     It  was  introduced  in  a  modified  form  as  early  introduc- 
as  1 769.    On  the  7th  of  February  of  that  year,  the  proprietaries  of  tion  of  life. 
Pennsylvania  appear  to  have  issued  letters-patent  to  a  company  '"""'"'•'• 
called  "  The  Corporation  for  the  Relief  of  the  Widows  and  Children  of  Clergy- 
men of  the  Communion  of  the  Church  of  England  in  America."    The  object 
of  this  society  was  to  secure  to  the  widows  and  children  of  clergymen  the 
payment  of  an  annuity  after  the  death  of  the"  contributor.     The  contributors 
paid  eight,  sixteen,  or  twenty-four  dollars  per  annum,  as  they  pleased  \  and,  if 
fifteen  annual  payments  had  been  made,  their  families  thereby  secured  an 
annuity  of  five  times  the  amount  of  the  annual  paym.ent,  —  forty,  eighty,  or  one 
hundred  and  twenty  dollars,  as  the  case  might  be.    If  the  number  of  pay- 
ments was  less  than  fifteen,  the  annuity  was  reduced  accordingly.     Charters 


838 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


were  taken  out  for  this  society  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  and  in  1787 
they  were  renewed  in  all  three  States.  The  New- York  and  New-Jersey 
branches  were  afterwards  discontinued  ;  although  the  charters  remain  in  force, 
it  is  believed,  to  this  day.  The  original  society  is  still  running,  though  on  a  very 
small  scale.  It  scarce  attracts  attention  now,  except  as  an  historical  curiosity, 
although  its  benefits  are  really  valuable,  and  are  shared  by  a  number  of  people. 

The  example  of  Pennsylvania  was  followed  in  Maryland  in  1 784.  A  cor- 
poration of  Episcopal  clergy  was  formed  on  exactly  the  same  plan. 

No  regular  life-business  was  done  in  this  country,  however,  until  181 2. 
The  same  feeling  against  putting  a  price  upon  the  life  of  a  human  being  was 
prevalent  as  in  earlier  times  in  Europe.  It  was  looked  upon  as  a 
speculation  which  the  laws  of  (lod  could  not  sanction.  This 
prejudice  wore  away,  however,  with  time  ;  and  in  181 2  the  first  life  company  of 
the  United  States  was  started.  It  was  in  Philadelphia  of  course,  the  City 
of  Brotherly  Love  and  of  a  great  many  other  good  things  besides.  It  was 
Penniyi-  Called  "  The  Philadelphia  Company  for  Insurances  upon  Lives  and 
vania  granting  Annuities."     It  had  a  capital  of  $500,000,  and  began 

company.  business  in  1813,  using  the  mortality-tables  of  Dr.  Price,  which 
were  then  in  use  in  England.  This  table  passed  out  of  use  long  ago ;  but  it 
may  be  interesting  to  quote  it  here  for  comparison  with  the  one  now  in  use, 
which  will  be  cited  farther  on.     It  is  as  follows  :  — 


EXPECTATION  OF  LIFE,  IN  YEARS. 


Birth 

S  • 

10  . 

«S  • 

20  . 

25  • 

30  • 

35  . 

40  . 

45  • 

SO  . 

55  • 

60  . 

65  . 

70  . 

75  • 


This  table  was  based  upon  the  observation  of  the  average  length  of  life  of 
ten  thousand  people.     It  gave  an  excessive  mortality-rate,  however,  even  for 


mm^:''M 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


839 


in  1787 
w-Jersey 

in  force, 
on  a  very 
curiosity, 
)f  people. 
A  cor- 

ntil  1812. 
being  was 
ipon  as  a 
an.     Tl^is 
jmpany  of 
,  the  City 
s.     It  was 
Lives  and 
and  began 
rice,  which 
igo ;  but  it 
low  in  use. 


,1FB,  IN  VKABS. 


WOMEN. 
I8.I 

37-12 

36.89 

33-43 

30.01 

26.8 

23.98 

21.62 

19.25 

17.17 

15.13 

12.89 

10.45 

8-39 
6.16 

4-39 

Ih  of  life  of 
ver,  even  for 


England  ;  and  an  experience  of  about  twenty  years  convinced  the  company  in 
Philadelphia  that  it  was  e.\cessive  also  for  the  United  States.    The  company 
therefore  reduced  its  premium-rates  in  1831,  and  again  in  1837.   Reduction 
The  first  tables  of  vital  statistics  in  America  made  up  for  insurance-  °'  '■»«»- 
purposes  were  prepared  by  the  Philadelphia  concern  for  its  own  use  from  the 
mortality-reports  of  the  city. 

In  1830  there  became  apparent  a  perceptible  impulse  toward  the  forma- 
tion of  regular  companies  for  life-insurance.  Some  of  the  fire  companies  had 
joined  a  limited  life-business  with  their  other  privileges :  but  the  total  business 
was  a  mere  thistle-blow  in  the  air  to  the  clouds  above,  compared  with  the 
business  which  could  be  developed  by  regular  life  companies  ;  and 
in  1830  the  regular  companies  began  to  make  \\\m  debut  upon  of^UiVr"" 

companies  in 


the  Stage.     The  Baltimore  Life  and  the  New-York  Life  and  Trust 

appeared  in   1830.     In  New  York  the  Farmers' Loan  and  Trust,   '830  and  «t  a 

'    later  date. 

incorporated  m  1822,  revived  its  life-privileges.  In  Philadelphia 
the  Girard  Life  and  Trust  was  chartered  in  1836,  the  Globe  Life  and  Trust 
in  1838,  and  the  Odd  Fellows'  Life  and  Fire  in  1840.  Then,  in  the  West, 
there  was  incorporated  in  1840  the  Ohio  Life  and  Trust  of  Cincinnati ;  in  tbp 
South,  the  Southern  Life  and  Trust  of  Mobile  in  1836,  and  the  Ocean  Mutual 
Marine  and  Life  in  New  Orleans  in  1835.  The  premium-rates  of  these  com- 
panies were  about  the  same  as  the  mutual  rates  now  in  vogue.  Life-insurance 
was  scarcely  understood  in  the  United  States  when  the  majority  of  these  com- 
panies began  business.  If  the  ancient  prejudice  was  gone,  the  principles  upon 
which  life-insurance  was  based  were  not,  at  any  rate,  well  understood.  These 
companies  had  to  educate  the  public.  They  did  it  well,  and  established  the 
business  in  permanent  favor  in  the  United  States.  By  1840  the  beneficent 
results  of  the  business  were  so  well  understood,  that  the  State  of  New  York 
passed  a  law  by  which  the  benefit  of  the  policj'  was  secured  to  the  wife,  free 
from  the  claims  of  her  husband's  creditors.  The  importance  of  that  law  was 
seen  at  a  glance.  It  was  soon  adopted  in  other  States.  It  gave  a  great  lift  to 
the  whole  business  of  life-insurance. 

Within  seven  years  after  1840  five  great  companies  began  business  in  this 
country,  introducing  a  new  era  in  life-insurance.  The  first  to  appear  was  the 
New- York  Mutual.  It  was  chartered  April  12,  1842,  with  thirty-  period  of 
six  of  the  most  prominent  merchants  of  New- York  City  as  the  '**"• 
incorporators,  Aspinwall  being  the  name  at  the  head  of  the  list.  There  was 
no  guaranty-capital ;  but  the  law  required  that  the  company  should  not 
begin  business  until  it  had  received  applications  for  $500,000  of  insurance.  In 
order  to  make  a  sure  thing  of  it,  the  company  waited  eight  months,  until  the 
applications  had  amounted  to  over  $700,000 ;  and  on  Feb.  i,  1843,  it  threw 
open  its  doors  for  business.  It  was  the  first  mutual  life  company  in  the  United 
States,  and  it  has  been  the  most  substantial  and  successful.  In  1844  the  New- 
England  Mutual  was  started  in  Boston.     It  had  been  chartered  in  1835  ;  but 


840 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


owing  to  the  monopoly  enjoyed  by  the  Massachusetts  Hospital  and  Life  Com- 
pany, chartered  in  1825,  it  had  not  thought  fit  to  begin  business  before  the 
year  stated.  In  1841  the  Nautilus  Company  of  New  York  was  chartered,  with 
fire  and  marine  privileges.  It  did  not  begin  business  at  once,  but  got  its 
charter  amended  so  as  to  include  life-privileges  too.  It  opened  it.  doors  in 
1847,  confining  itself  to  the  life-business  entirely.  In  1849  '^^  name  was 
changed  to  the  New- York  Life.  The  State  Mutual  Life  of  Worcester,  and  the 
Mutual  Benefit  of  Newark,  N.J.,  completing  the  list  of  five  great  mutuals, 
came  into  the  field  in  1845. 

The  one  object  of  all  these  companies  was  to  reduce  the  cash  cost  of  life- 
insurance,  and  to  perfect  the  science  of  the  business,  so  as  to  popularize  these 
Object  of  investments,  and  make  them  safe.  All  except  the  Mutual  Life 
companies,  adopted  the  part-note  system.  In  1846  the  Connecticut  Mutual 
of  Hartford  was  started  upon  the  same  plan  as  the  others.  These  six  com- 
panies won  '.heir  way  rapidly ;  and,  in  ten  years  from  the  time  the  first  of  them 
opened  its  doors,  they  had  driven  every  other  life-insurance  company  from  the 
field,  except  the  Pennsylvania,  the  Girard,  and  Corporation  of  Episcopal  Clergy 
in  Pennsylvania.    These  three  survive,  as  do  the  six  pioneer  mutuals. 

With  1846  the  record  of  unsuccessful  life  companies  begins.  The  Mutual 
Life  of  Baltimore  was  founded  in  that  year,  but  was  unable  to  get  business, 
Fate  of  ^"^  '^  disappeared  in  five  years.     In   1847  six  companies  were 

varioua  formed ;    but  only  one,  the  Penn  Mutual  of  Philadelphia,  now 

companes.  gurvives.  Five  companies  were  started  in  1848:  three  of  them 
were  in  Philadelphia,  and  they  soon  disappeared:  two  of  them  —  the  Union 
Mutual  of  Maine,  and  the  National  of  Vermont  —  were  successful.  In  1S43 
three  companies  started  in  Louisiana,  and  one  each  in  North  Carolina,  New 
Jersey,  and  Connecticut ;  but  they  soon  dissolved.  In  1850  twelve  more  were 
chartered,  —  two  of  them  in  the  South,  and  two  in  the  West.  Seven  of  them 
soon  failed,  re-insured  in  other  companies,  and  went  out  of  sight.  The  other 
five,  all  in  the  East,  survived.    The  situation  in  1850  was  as  follows  :  — 

COMPANIES. 

Connecticut 6 

Pennsylvania '3 

.Maryland 2 

Louisiina        ...                 4 

New  Jersey 3 

.               Ohio 2 

Kentucky 2 

New  York 5 

Massachusetts 3 

Vermont i 

North  Carolina ,        .        .        .  I 

Georgia i 

Maine     .                i 

Foreign 3 

Total 47 


umt^^aa^tnaai^ 


OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 


841 


;  Corn- 
ore  the 
;d,  with 
got  its 
loors  in 
iHie  was 
and  the 
mutuals, 

:  of  lifc- 
izc  these 
tual  Life 
t  Mutual 
six  com- 
t  of  them 
from  the 
)al  Clergy 

le  Mutual 
business, 
mies  were 
jphia,  now 
of  them 
:he  Union 
In  1843 
ilina,  New 
lore  were 
of  them 
The  other 


JMPANIES. 
6 

•3 

2 

4 

3 

2 

2 

5 

3 
I 

I 
I 
I 
3 


Of  this  number  twenty-eight  have  since  closed  or  withdrawn,  three  of  them 
being  the  foreign  companies.  The  year  1 850  was  very  prolific  in  companies. 
Fourteen  were  started,  and  about  as  many  more  sprang  up  in  the  Their  fate 
next  five  years.  'I'he  competition  engendered  by  these  new  com-  •'"•="  ''**• 
panics  threw  the  whole  field  of  life-insurance  into  commotion.  Companies 
came  up  like  mushrooms  year  after  year,  and  suddenly  appeared  Mode  of  do- 
on  the  principal  streets  of  cities,  with  gilded  signs,  and  showy  ingbutinest. 
buildings  paved  in  colored  tiles,  and  ornamented  with  frescos  and  bronze  rail- 
ings and  statuary,  with  porters  in  uniform  to  receive  the  visitor ;  one  New-York 
company  hiring  a  gigantic  colored  ex-member  of  the  South-Carolina  legislature, 
over  six  feet  high,  to  act  in.  that  capacity.  An  army  of  agents  was  employed 
by  them  to  flood  the  country,  and  besiege  the  wealthy  to  take  out  policies  on 


NBW-YORK   LIFE-INSURANCB  COMPANY. 

their  lives ;  and  all  the  agents  were  supplied  with  printed  books  for  their 
private  contemplation,  entitled  "  A  Few  Practical  Suggestions,"  or  some  similar 
name,  containing  such  instructions  as  these  :  "  There  must  be  hard,  persistent 
work."  "Talk  life-insurance  on  its  merits.  Never  let  any  man  who  has  an 
income  go  without  showing  him  that  his  life  has  a  money  value  "  (a  whole 
chapter  being  given  to  the  work  of  showing  the  agent  how  to  put  the  case  to  a 
man).  "  Talk  large  amounts  ;  but  there  are  many  wealthy  men  whose  families 
would  not  suffer  in  case  of  their  death  :  these  are  the  men  who  can  best  afford 
to  pay  a  premium  ;  they  can  pay  for  a  handsome  insurance,  and  not  feel  it." 
"  Don't  make  too  large  promises  about  dividends."     And  so  on,  until  the 


fxm. 


47 


84a 


INDUSTRIAL  HISTORY 


"Practical  Suggestions"  have  covered  every  inch  of  the  field.  The  companies, 
in  fact,  had  discovered  that  there  was  money  in  life-insurance  ;  and  they  began 
a  systematic  effort  to  swell  the  business  of  taking  risks  to  the  utmost  possibk- 
point,  in  order  to  realize  therefrom  a  number  of  enormous  salaries  to  officers, 
and  the  use  of  the  surplus  funds  of  the  business  for  speculation.  Prudent  ami 
honest  companies  did  much  during  this  j)eriod  to  elaborate  tables-of-mortality 
statistics  (the  New- York  Mutual  pre-eminently),  and  to  jnit  the  business  other- 
wise on  a  solid  basis :  but  the  fever  of  speculation  burned  in  the  veins  of  half 
the  existing  companies ;  and  the  business  was  pushed  at  a  reckless  rate,  nnd 
on  unsound  and  ruinous  principles.  Hy  i860  the  withdrawals  of  companies 
had  been  as  numerous  as  their  multiplication,  and  in  i860  only  twenty-two 
of  which  there  is  any  record  were  doing  business  in  the  United  States.  Those 
twenty-two  had  outstanding  insurances  to  the  amount  of  $180,000,000  011 
60,000  citizens,  their  receipts  of  premiums  being  $7,000,000  a  year. 

With  the  war,  life-insurance  received  a  new  impetus.  A  new  era  of 
feverish  competition,  speculation,  showy  companies,  and  ruin,  began.  In  1864 
Effector  the  policies  had  increased  to  $400,000,000.  In  the  next  four 
w«r.  years  seventy  new  companies  sprang  up,  and  insurances  ran  up  to 

$1,600,000,000.  Life  companies  were  the  especial  feature  of  the  tendency 
of  enterprise  in  the  West.  All  the  offices  were  run  on  the  high- pressure 
system.  Mr.  Hine  says,  "Solicitors  extolled  the  merits  of  their  own  and 
depreciated  those  of  rival  companies  in  almost  every  town  and  village  in  tiie 
country,  aided  by  pamphlets,  periodicals,  and  prospectuses,  picturing  in  mag- 
nificent figures  the  attractive  features  of  the  new  philanthropy.  Railroads 
and  the  national  debt  were  about  the  only  things  deemed  worthy  of  com- 
parison with  such  a  business.  Excessive  outlays  and  defective  management 
were  alike  concealed  by  the  enormous  volume  of  new  business  which  every 
enterprising  office  was  able  to  report  at  the  end  of  successive  years ;  and  the 
suggestions  of  speculative  re-action  and  a  possible  collapse  were  unheeded  in 
the  rich  harvest  that  was  being  reaped."  The  experience  of  the  mutual  fire 
corporations  in  the  speculative  days  of  their  history  has  already  been  related. 
The  wild  schemes  of  the  fire  mutuals  were  now  more  than  paralleled  by  tiic 
life  mutuals,  and  wild-cat  companies  were  formed  and  presented  to  the  public 
eye  in  a  manner  which  forcibly  calls  to  mind  the  company  so  keenly  satirized 
by  Dickens  in  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit."  One  would  imagine,  on  reading 
Dickens's  description,  that  the  satire  was  levelled  at  the  bubble  concerns  of 
America.    The  portrait  is  lifelike,  and  may  be  reproduced  here  :  — 

"The  Anglo- Bengalee  Disinterested  Loan  and  Life-insurance  Company 
started  into  existence  one  morning,  not  an  infant  institution,  but  a  grown-up 
company,  running  alone  at  a  great  pace,  and  doing  business  right  and  left  ; 
with  a^  *  branch '  in  a  first  floor  over  a  tailor's  at  the  west  end  of  the  town, 
and  main  offices  in  a  new  street  in  the  city,  comprising  the  upper  part  of  a 
spacious  house  resplendent  in  stucco  and  plate  glass,  with  wire  blinds  in  all 


OF    TUF.    UNITED   STATES, 


S43 


Anglo-Ben- 
galee Ditln- 


■nee  Com- 
pany. 


the  windows,  and  '  Anglo- Ikngalee '  worked  into  tho  pattern  of  every  one  of 
thorn.  On  the  door-post  was  painted  again  in  large  letters,  '  Offices  of  the 
Anglo- Hengalce  Disinterested  Loan  and  Life-insurance  Company  ; ' 
and  on  the  door  was  a  large  brass  plate  with  the  same  inscriptioh, 
always  kept  very  bright,  as  courting  inciuiry,  staring  the  city  out  »"'"»•'' 
of  countenance  after  office-hours  on  working-days  and  all  tlay  Life-in"ur- 
long  on  Sundays,  and  looking  bolder  than  the  bank.  Within,  the 
offices  were  newly  plastered,  newly  jjainted,  newly  papered,  newly 
countered,  newly  ffoor-clothed,  newly  tabled,  newly  chaired,  newly  fitted  up  in 
every  way  with  goods  that  were  substantial  and  expensive,  and  designed  (like 
the  company)  to  last.  Business  !  —  look  at  the  green  ledgers  with  red  backs, 
like  strong  cricket-balls  beaten  flat,  the  court-guides,  the  directories,  day- 
books, almanacs,  letter-boxes,  weighing-machines  for  letters,  rows  of  buckets 
for  dashing  out  a  conflagration  in  its  first  spark,  and  saving  the  immense 
wealth  in  notes  and  bonds  belonging  to  the  company.  Look  at  the  iron 
safes,  the  clock,  the  office-seal,  in  its  capacious  self-security  for  any  thing. 
Solidity  !  —  look  at  the  massive  blocks  of  marble  in  the  chimney-pieces,  and 
the  gorgeous  parapet  on  the  top  of  the  house.  Publicity !  —  why,  '  .Anglo- 
Bengalee  Disinterested  Loan  and  Life-insurance  Company'  is  painted  on 
the  very  coal-scuttles.  It  is  repeated  at  every  turn,  until  the  eyes  are  dazzled 
with  it,  and  the  head  is  giddy.  It  is  engraved  upon  the  top  of  all  the  letter- 
paper,  and  it  makes  a  scroll-work  around  the  seal,  and  it  shines  out  of  the 
porter's  buttons,  and  is  repeated  twenty  times  in  every  circular  an<l  public 
notice,  wherein  one  David  Crimple,  Esq.,  secretary  and  resident  director,  takes 
the  liberty  of  inviting  your  attention  to  the  accompanying  statement  of  the 
advantages  offered  by  the  Anglo-Bengalee  Disinterested  Loan  and  Life- 
insurance  Company,  and  fully  proves  to  you  that  any  connection  on  your 
part  with  that  establishment  must  result  in  a  perfect  Christmas-box  and 
constantly  increasing  bonus  to  yourself;  and  that  nobody  can  run  any  risk  by 
the  transaction  except  the  office,  which,  in  its  great  liberality,  is  pretty 
sure  to  lose.  .  .  . 

"  Lest,  with  all  the  proofs  and  confirmations,  any  man  should  be  sus- 
picious of  the  Anglo-Bengalee  Disinterested  Loan  and  Life-Insurance  Com- 
pany ;  should  doubt,  in  tiger,  cat,  or  person,  Tigg  Montague,  Esq.  (of  Pall 
Mall  and  Bengal),  or  any  other  name  in  the  imaginative  list  of  directors, 
—  there  was  a  porter  on  the  premises  (a  wonderful  creature  in  a  vast  red 
waistcoat  and  a  short-tailed  pepper-and-salt  coat),  who  carried  more  con- 
viction to  the  minds  of  sceptics  than  the  whole  establishment  without  him. 
No  confidences  existed  between  him  and  the  directorship  ;  nobody  knew 
where  he  had  served  last ;  no  character  or  explanation  had  been  given  or 
required ;  no  questions  had  been  asked  on  either  side.  This  mysterious  being, 
relying  solely  on  his  figure,  had  applied  for  the  situation,  and  had  been 
instantly  engaged  on  his  own  terms.    They  were  high ;  but  he  knew,  doubtless, 


844 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


that  no  man  could  carry  such  an  extent  of  waistcoat  as  himself,  and  felt  the 
full  value  of  his  capacity  to  such  an  institution.  When  he  sat  upon  a  seat 
erected  for  him  in  a  corner  of  the  office,  with  his  glazed  hat  hanging  on  a 
peg  over  his  head,  it  was  impossible  to  doubt  the  respectability  of  the  con- 
cern. It  went  on  doubling  itself  with  ivery  square  inch  of  his  red  waistcoat, 
until,  like  the  problem  of  the  nails  in  the  horse's  shoes,  the  total  became 
enormous.  People  had  been  ':.iuwii  to  apply  to  effect  an  insurance  on  their 
lives  for  a  thousand  pounds,  and,  looking  at  him,  to  beg,  before  the  form  of 
proposal  was  filled  up,  that  it  might  be  made  two.  .  .  .  He  was  grave  with 
imaginary  cares  of  office ;  and  having  nothing  whatever  to  do,  and  some- 
thing less  to  take  care  of,  would  look  as  if  the  pressure  of  his  numerous 
duties,  and  a  sense  of  the  treasure  in  the  company's  strong  room,  made 
him  a  solemn  and  thoughtful  man." 

With  1872  the  second  tide  of  speculation  again  ceased  to  flow,  and  the 
re-action  came.  Companies  carelessly  conducted,  which  had  allowed  their 
Re-action  expenses,  commissions,  and  salaries  to  intrench  upon  their  capital, 
•ince  1872.  began  to  go  down.  Collapse  followed  collapse  in  all  parts  of  the 
country.  Disaster  was  postponed,  in  many  cases,  by  the  officers  swearing 
deliberately  to  false  sta.tements  in  regard  to  the  assets  of  their  several  concerns. 
The  salaries  of  |l  20,000  and  $30,000  they  were  paying  themselves  were  too 
large  to  relinquish  without  a  fight.  But  State  supervision  was  relentless,  and 
insisted  upon  searching  examinations  into  the  affairs  of  suspected  concerns ; 
and  not  only  were  a  large  number  of  concerns  compelled  to  close  up  their  affairs 
along  from  1872  to  1878,  but  in  many  cases  their  officers  were  sent  to  prison 
for  deliberate  fraud  and  perjury.  Some  of  the  men  thus  summarily  and  sternly 
punished  had  occupied  prominent  places  in  the  community  for  integrity  and 
godly  lives.  The  losses  inflicted  upon  the  policy-holders  amounted  to  millions. 
No  sympathy  has,  therefore,  been  felt  for  the  punished  officials  of  the  bankrupt 
companies. 

This  era  of  investigating  by  State  officials,  of  failure  and  prosecution,  has 
Present  con-  again  cleared  the  air  in  life-insurance.  The  business  is  again  on  a 
dition.  sound  basis ;  and,  although  the  salaries  and  expenses  of  some  of 

the  companies  are  yet  too  large,  it  is  believed  their  affairs  are  again  in  a  healthy 
condition.  Of  course  the  business  of  life-insurance  has  received  a  tremen- 
dous shock  by  such  an  awful  disclosure  of  wide-spread  mismanagement,  and  it 
will  probably  be  a  long  time  before  confidence  in  the  really  sound  companies 
will  be  fully  restored.  The  innocent  cannot  help  suffering  with  the  guilty,  and 
this  trite  truth  is  emphatically  the  case  with  those  insurance  companies  which 
are  truly  worthy  of  confidence ;  but,  in  the  end,  the  fact  that  they  passctl 
safely  through  such  a  trying  ordeal  will  increase  the  faith  of  the  public  in 
their  soundness,  and  thus  naturally  bring  renewed  prosperity. 
Sixty-one  companies  are  now  doing  business  in  the  United  States, 
distributed  as  follows  :  — 


IT-  — rT<M«»lrifi~Tri--T 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.  845 

Maine i 

Vermont .,,2 

Massachusetts 6 

Connecticut o 

New  York le 

New  Jersey 1 

Pennsylvania » 

Ohio 2 

Indiana 1 

Michigan i 

Wisconsin i 

Missouri ^ 

Iowa , 2 

Kansas 1 

Kentucky i 

California i- 

Alabama 2 

Georgia i 

Virginia i 

Louisiana .,        ,        .1 

Maryland i 

North  Carolina i 

District  of  Columbia 2 

Total 61 

The  policy-holders  number  about  900,000.  The  sum  of  $75,000,000  is 
paid  for  premiums,  and  $50,000,000  is  disbursed  annually  to  the  policy- 
holders. The  companies  hold  $400,000,000  of  assets,  and  have  insured  lives 
to  the  amount  of  $1,900,000,000.  No  other  nation  except  England  can  show 
such  a  record.  In  England,  in  187 1,  there  were  136  life-companies,  with 
1,243,349  policy-holders,  the  risks  amounting  to  ;£'30i, 213,144.  In  Germany, 
in  1 87 1  (and  this  includes  Austria  and  Switzerland),  there  were  only  thirty-six 
companies  against  ninety-one  in  the  United  States.  The  policies  were  424,- 
922  in  number  only,  and  the  insurances  401,000,000  thalers.  In  France,  in 
187 1,  there  were  97,841  policy-holders  and  973,000,000  francs  of  life-insurance. 

"  The  primary  relation  of  a  company  to  its  policy-holders,"  says  C.  T. 
Lewis,  "  is  that  of  the  seller  to  the  buyer  of  insurance.     In  its  simplest  form, 
it  has  no  complications  or  difficulties  but  those  which  arise  between  every 
seller  and  his  customer.    The  company  determines  at  what  price  it  will  offer 
its  insurance :  the  purchaser  pays  the  price,  and  his  family  is  entitled  to  the 
amount  insured  whenever  he  dies."     In  taking  life-risks,  two  tables  are  now 
used  by  the  American  companies.    They  are  called  the  American-Experience, 
and  the  Actuaries'  or  Combined-Experience  tables.     The  former  T,jjie»  used 
is  the  product  of  the  Mutual  of  New  York.    They  differ  from  each  in  insuring 
other  by  a  mere  fraction  only,  and  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  "  '' 
substantially  the  same.    The  following  will  illustrate  the  Combined-Experience 
table:  — 


846 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


10 

J5 
20 

as 

30 
35 
40 
45 
50 
55 
60 

65 
70 

75 
80 

85 
90 
95 
99 


NUMBER 
OF  LIVES, 


100,000 
96,636 
93,268 

89.83s 
86,292 

82,581 
78.653 

74.435 
69.S«7 
63,649 

SS.973 
46,754 
35.837 
24,100 

13.290 

S.417 

i.3«9 

89 


NUMBER  OP 

DEATHS  FROM 

PRECEDING  YEAR. 


3.364 
3.368 
3.433 

3.543 
3.7" 
3.928 
4,218 
4,918 
5.868 
7,656 
9,219 
10,917 

11.737 
10,810 

7,873 

4,098 

1,230 

88 


EXPECTATIONS 
OF  LIFE. 


48.36 
44.96 
41.49 
37.98 

34.43 
30.87 
27.28 
23.69 
20.18 
16.86 

13.77 
10.97 

8.54 
6.48 

4.78 
3.36 
2.11 
1.12 

•SO 


The  following  are  a  few  figures  relative  to  the  failure  of  life-insurance  com- 
panies in  the  United  States.  The  total  number  of  failures  has  been  one  hun- 
8tati«tic«of  dred  and  fifteen  companies,  eighty-three  of  the  number  having 
faiiuret.  \xtti  chartered  since  i860,  and  seventy-one  of  the  eighty-three 
since  1865.  The  years  and  the  States  in  which  the  failures  occurred  were  as 
follows :  — 


YEAR. 
1840 
I85I 
1853 
1853 
'855 
1856 
1857 
I861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 


49 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES.  84.7 

VBAR. 

1840-69 ^5 

1870 6 

1871 8 

'872 ,4 

»873 17 

1874 5 

187s 9 

1876 7 

1877 2 

Total lie 

STATE. 

Alabama 2 

California I 

Connecticut m 

District  of  Columbia I 

Delaware ....3 

Georgia 2 

Indiana |, 

Illinois II 

Kentucky 2 

Louisiana t 

Minnesota 1 

Michigan I 

Maryland 2 

Missouri g 

New  York 31 

New  Jersey 6 

North  Carolina 2 

Ohio 6 

Pennsylvania 12 

Rhode  Island i 

South  Carolina 3 

Tennessee 6 

Texas i 

Virginia i 

Total 115 

It  was  the  disgraceful  failure  of  the  Ohio  Life  and  Trust  Company  of 
Cincinnati  as  a  bank  which  is  said  to  have  started  the  panic  of  1857.  The 
first  great  failure   after  that  date  was  that  of  the  Great  Western 

Mutual  of  New  York  in  1870.      From  1870  on,  the  companies  oMoUfe 

came  tumbling  down  like  a  row  of  trees  in  the  woods  which  the  and  Trust 

wood-chopper  had  prepared  for  a  grand  combination  crash  by  |j|'"'P»"y'" 
cutting  away  the  trunks  so  that  they  were  all  just  ready  to  fall,  and 
then  starting  them  so  that  each  one  should  fall  against  its  neighbor.     One 
company  would  be  closed  by  the  attorney-general,  and  its  affairs  put  into  the 
hands  of  a  receiver.     Its  policy-holders  would  be  re-insured  in  some  other 
brand-new  and  equally  weak  company,  which  would  go  down  in  turn,  often  in 


848 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


the  very  same  year.  Each  failure  was  worse  than  the  preceding ;  and  when 
Failures  in  1876  and  1877  were  reached,  and  the  Continental,  the  Security, 
1876-77.  ji^g  American  Popular,  and  the  Atlantic  Mutual  went  down,  an 

examination  of  their  affairs  revealed  a  shamelessness  of  corruption,  and  depth 
of  inefficiency,  in  the  management  of  the  first  three,  which  shocked  the  moral 
sense  of  the  American  people,  and  led  every  man  to  ask  the  question 
of  his  neighbor,  "  Well,  who  is  there  in  the  community  that  we  can  trust 
now?"  The  Continental  had  $51,000,000  of  insurances,  the  American  Popu- 
lar $10,000,000,  and  the  Security  $20,000,000,  when  they  went  down. 

The  following  is  the  business  which  is  now  being  done  by  the  best  of  the 
Business  "°^^  existing  companies ;  the  old  Mutual  of  New  York  being  put 
done  by  at  the  head  of  the  list,  —  a  place  it  deserves,  not  half  so  mucli 

present  hoTA  the  magnitude  of  its  colossal  business  as  from  the  excellence 

companies.  ° 

and  soundness  of  its  management  and  the  substantial  foundation 
upon  which  it  stands  (the  figures  being  for  Jan.  i,  1876)  :  — 


PAYMENTS  TO 

POLICY- 

HOLDKRS. 


NUMBER   OF 
POLICIE!..    ^ 


1847 
■  850 
1850 

1846 

1859 

1845 
1830 
1857 
I85I 


Mutual  of  New  York  . 

^tna  (Hartford)     ,     . 

Charter  Oak  (Hartford) 
Connecticut  Mutual 
(Hartford)    .    .    . 

Equitable  (New  York) 
(  Mutual  Benefit  (New- 
I      ark,  N.J.)     .    .    . 

New  York  (New  York) 
(  North-western  Mutual 
I      (Milwaukee,  Wis.) 

Phoenix  Mutual  (Hartford) 


.i 


$78,534,000 
21,822,000 
13,314,000 

43,410,000 

28,585,000 

31,300,000 

30,505,000 

17,044,000 

10,133,000 


$20,400,000 

5,526,000 
4,448,000 

$12,674,000 
3,453.000 
2,096,000 

92.393 
56.743 
26,481 

9,818,000 

6,206,000 

66,209 

9,571,000 

5.335.000 

48,700 

6,751,000 

5,526,000 

43.015 

7,944,000 

4,131,000 

44,461 

4,053,000 

2,004,000 

36,428 

3,298,000 

1,934,000 

30,281 

3^305.057.000 
91,454,000 
58,796,000 

185,076,000 

178,632,000 

134,104,000 

126,132,000 
67,124,000 
60,247,000 


The  Germania,  Globe,  Home,  Manhattan,  Life  Association  of  America, 
Knickerbocker,  John  Hancock,  New-England  Mutual,  Pennsylvania,  Provi- 
dence Life  and  Trust,  Union  Mutual,  and  Union  Central,  do  a  large  business, 
and  have  risks  outstanding  amounting  to  from  $20,000,000  to  $60,000,000. 


ACCIDENT. 


This  is  the  last  of  the  four  departments  of  the  insurance-business.  It  is 
_  .  .  the  creation  of  the  single  mind  of  one  man,  —  Mr.  James  G.  Bat- 
accident-  terson  of  Hartford,  Conn,  who,  while  abroad,  had  noticed  tlie 
insurance       workings  of  accident-insurance  in  Europe,  and  who,  upon  his  re- 

coRipan.es.  /•     j  r 

turn,  organized  the  Travellers'  Insurance  Company  of  Hartford  for 
introducing  the  business  to  this  country.     His  company  was  chartered  in  June, 


OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 


849 


nd  when 
Security, 
down,  an 
id  depth 
;he  moral 
question 
can  trust 
;an  Popu- 

ESt  of  the 
being  put 
f  so  much 
excellence 
foundation 


RISKS. 

l$305.o57.ooo 
91,454,000 
58,796,000 

185,076,000 

178,632,000 

134,104,000 

126,132,00° 
67,124,000 

60,247  .coo 


1863.  It  took  some  time  to  get  it  into  operation,  and  the  first  contract  was 
made  upon  the  street.  In  March,  1864,  Mr.  Batterson  happened  to  meet  Mr. 
James  Bolter  in  front  of  the  post-office  at  Hartford ;  and  the  latter  asked  him, 
"  What  will  you  take  to  insure  me  for  $5,000  if  I  get  killed  by  accident  in 
going  from  here  to  my  house  on  Buckingham  Street?"  —  "Two  cents," 
replied  Mr.  Batterson.  "  Agreed ;  here  is  your  money,"  said  Mr.  Bolter. 
This  was  the  first  insurance  for  accident  in  America.  The  two  cents  thus 
earned  were  preserved  by  Mr.  Batterson,  and  are  still  exhibited  in  a  frame. 
The  first  written  policy  was  issued  to  Mr.  Batterson  himself  for  $5,000  in  April, 
1864. 

In  two  years  the  success  of  the  Travellers'  was  assured.    The  American 
mind  is  quick  to  seize  upon  new  ideas  of  this  sort,  and  in  1865  and  1866 
eleven  new  companies  of  various  kinds  to  do  a  casualty  business  succen  of 
were  organized  and  in  operation  in  New  York.    They  all  soon  the  enter- 
retired,  however,  leaving  the  field  to  the  Travellers'.    By  the  end  '*''"■ 
of   1865,  so  rapidly  did  the  business  of  the  latter  grow  under  the   good 
management  of  its  president  and  founder,  that  it  had  2  7,000  policies  in  force, 
with  an  income  of  $500,000,  and  risks  amounting  to  $85,000,000. 

In  1866  seven  of  the  accident-insurance  companies  consolidated,  and 
formed  the  Railway  Passengers'  Assurance  Company  of  Hartford.  Mr.  Bat- 
terson became  president  of  that  also ;  and  the  two  concerns,  the  Railway 
Passengers'  and  the  Travellers',  have  since  attained  a  national  reputation  and 
a  great  business.  The  former  confines  itself  chiefly  to  the  general  accident 
business ;  while  the  latter  has  a  life  business  also,  its  risks  now  amounting  to 
over  $90,000,000. 

To  the  casualty  business  a  Plate  Glass  company  was  added  in  New  York 
in  1870.  Other  cities  have  since  formed  similar  organizations.  They  have 
met  with  moderate  success. 


lof  America, 
lania,  Provi- 
Ige  business, 

500,000. 


Iness.  It  is 
Imes  G.  Bat- 
1  noticed  the 
lipon  his  rc- 
iHartford  for 
Ired  injune, 


&50 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


CHAPTER  III. 


COMMERCE. 


COMMERCE  relates  to  the  exchange  of  products;  transportation,  to 
the  moving  of  them :  and,  having  already  considered  the  latter  sub- 
ject, we  shall  now  confine  ourselves  strictly  to  the  former,  although  the 
two  are  often  treated  as  identical. 


ANTE-REVOLUTIONARY    PERIOD. 

The  history  of  the  foreign  commerce  of  the  United  States  is  very  sharply 
Commerce      divided  by  the  Revolution  into  two  periods,  inasmuch  as  the  laws 

divided  by 
Revolution^ 


•in's  colo- 
nial policy. 


regulating  it  were  radically  changed  by  that  event.  We  shall  first 
proceed  to  sketch  the  colonial  policy  inaugurated  by  Great  Britain, 
which  was  prolific  in  mistakes,  and  which  finally  led  to  the  war  of  separation 
between  the  colonies  and  the  mother-country. 

Great  Britain  was  not  slow  in  declaring  her  intention  to  make  the  colonies 
Great  Brit-  *^  profitable  to  herself  as  possible.  To  accomplish  this,  she 
adopted  a  policy  which  required  the  colonies  to  buy  of  her,  irre- 
spective of  competing  markets ;  and  forbade  their  engaging  in  pur- 
suits which  in  any  way  conflicted  with  the  interests  of  English  manufacturers. 
Let  us  briefly  glance  at  the  manner  in  which  these  ideas  were  executed. 

One  of  the  earliest  industries^  in  which  the  colonies  engaged  was  that 

I  In  the  second  voyage  of  Capt.  Newport  to  the  (Virginia)  colony  in  the  latter  part  of  1608  the  company 
sent  out  in  the  ship — which  brought  also  a  crown  for  the  sachem  Powhatan,  and  orders  for  his  "  crownation  " — 
eight  Poles  and  Germans  to  make  pitch,  tar,  glass,  mills,  and  soap-ashes;  which,  had  the  country  been  peopled, 
would  have  done  well,  but  proved  only  a  burden  and  hinderance  to  the  rest.  A  colonial  historian  says,  "  No 
sooner  were  they  landed,  but  the  president  dispersed  as  many  as  were  able,  some  10  make  glass,  and  others  fur 
pitch,  tar,  and  soap-ashes.  Leaving  them  at  the  port  under  the  coimcil's  care  and  oversight,  he  himself  carried 
thirty  about  five  miles  down  the  river  to  leam  to  cut  down  trees,  make  clapboards,  and  lie  in  the  woods."  The 
council  in  London,  complaining  that  no  gold  and  silver  was  sent,  wrote  an  angry  letter  to  the  president, 
threatening,  that  if  the  expenses,  two  thousand  pounds,  were  not  defrayed  by  the  ship's  return,  they  should  lie 
deserted.  To  this  Capt.  Smith  returned  "  a  plain  and  schobrly  answer "  by  the  ship,  which  was  at  length 
despatched  with  the  trials  of  pilch,  tar,  glass,  frankincense,  and  soap-ashes,  with  what  wainscot  and  clapboard 
could  be  provided.  This  cargo,  of  the  value  of  which  we  are  not  informed,  appears  to  have  been  the  first  export 
made  from  the  British  colonies  to  a  foreign  country,  with  the  exception  of  a  load  of  sassafras  gathered  near 
Ca^  Cod  in  1608,  and  consisted  almost  exclusively  of  manufactured  articles,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term. 


Of  Sh 

was  1 
theb 
Vork 
built, 
article 
were  ( 
and  th 
the  m 
cheapl 
busine; 
constiti 
laden  i 
those  o 
the  sam 
The 
attentioi 
settleme 
were  adc 
olizing  tl 
n.  the  . 
encourag 
"  from  ar 
indigo,  g 
facture  oi 
carried, 
any  land, 
such  othe 
designed 
lies,  and 
Cromwell, 
colony  bui 
time  to  tin 
afterward, 


'  The  doc 

possible,  to  mal 

people  who  sett 

ships  and  other 

New  York  in  co 

<"•  boards  of  an 

'slands.    Thee 

which  proved  in, 

«  was  continued 

when  they  were 

<"»<)  the  time  < 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


851 


rtation,  to 

latter  sub- 
tiougU  the 


,ery  sharply 
as  the  laws 
e  shall  first 
reat  Britain, 
If  separation 

the  colonies 
[h  this,  slie 
lof  her,  ine- 
jging  in  pur- 
inufacturers. 

luted. 

^ed  was  that 

leoS  the  company 
1 "  crownation    — 
Itry  been  peopled, 
Itorian  says,     -^o 
Ls,  and  others  f»r 
Ve  himself  earned 
(the  woods."    The 
Ito  the  president, 
In,  they  should  be 
lich  was  at  leng* 
lot  and  dapbonrd 
Ln  the  first  export 
Ifras  gathered  near 
\  of  the  term. 


lations  dur- 


In  the  reign  of  Charles  !"«  "'^n  of 

°  Charles  II. 


of  ship-building.    The  rivers  were  lined  with  abundant  forests  :   water-power 
was  readily  utilized,  and  this  industry  proved  very  successful  from  ship-buiw- 
the  beginning.     In  New  England  especially,  and  afterward  in  New  *"«• 
York  and  Philadelphia,  ships  of  two  hundred  and  three  hundred  tons  were 
built,  which  were  loaded  with  lumber,  fish,  live-stock,  and  other  Early 
articles,  and  then  sailed  for  the  West  Indies,  where  the  cargoes  voyagea. 
were  exchanged  for  sugars,  which  were  taken  to  England  in  the  same  vessels, 
and  there  sold.     Not  unfrequently  the  ships  themselves  were  disposed  of  in 
the  mother-country  ;    for,  as  timber  was  so  plentiful,  they  could  be  made  more ' 
cheaply  at  that  time  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  than  anywhere  else.    Thus  the 
business  of  ship-building,  the  trade  with  the  West  Indies,  and  the  sale  of  ships, 
constituted  prominent  features  of  a  very  lucrative  business.     Other  vessels, 
laden  with  spars  and  timber,  proceeded  directly  to  British  ports,  as  well  as 
those  of  other  European  countries,  where  ships  and  cargoes  were  often  sold  in 
the  same  manner. 

The  commerce  of  the  colonies  with  the  West  Indies  early  attracted  the 
attention  of  Great  Britain.     Scarcely  had  twenty-five  years  passed  since  the 
settlement  of  New  England  before  a  series  of  trade  regulations  trader 
were  adopted  by  the  British  authorities  for  the  purpose  of  monop- 
olizing the  carrying-trade  thus  established. 

II.  the  celebrated  statute  was  passed,  entitled  "An  Act  for  the 
encouraging  and  increasing  of  Shipping  and  Navigation."  It  was  enacted,  that 
"from  and  after  the  first  day  of  April,  16O1,  no  sugars,  tobacco,  cotton,  wool, 
indigo,  ginger,  fustic,  or  other  dyeing  woods,  of  the  growth,  produce,  or  manu- 
facture of  any  English  plantations  in  America,  Asia,  or  Africa,  shall  be  shipped, 
carried,  conveyed,  or  transported  from  any  of  the  said  English  plantations  to 
any  land,  island,  territory,  dominion,  port,  or  place  whatsoever,  other  than  to 
such  other  English  plantations  as  do  belong  to  his  Majesty,"  &c.  The  act  was 
designed  virtually  to  secure  to  the  English  markets  the  produce  of  the  colo- 
nies, and  was  but  an  extension  of  an  act  passed  in  1650  by  the  Parliament  of 
Cromwell,  restricting  the  import  and  export  trade  of  the  colonies  to  English  or 
colony  built  ships.*  The  list  of  articles  named  in  it,  which  was  extended  from 
time  to  time,  embraced  what  were  known  as  enumerated  articles.  Two  years 
afterward,  in  1663,  it  was  enacted  that  "no  commodity,  of  the  growth,  produc- 

'  The  doctrine  of  each  sovereignty  of  the  world  grasping  .ind  holding  the  largest  number  of  monopolies 
possible,  to  make  the  most  of  its  opportunities,  and  to  keep  its  rivals  down,  was  so  ingrained  and  steeped  into  the 
people  who  settled  this  country,  that  they  manifested  the  same  spirit.  In  order  to  encourage  the  building  of 
ships  and  other  vessels,  and  increase  the  trade  of  Perth  Amboy,  which  at  one  time  sought  to  rival  its  neighbor 
New  York  in  commerce,  the  Assembly  of  New  Jersey,  in  1694,  prohibited  the  exportation  of  any  timber,  planks, 
or  boards  of  any  kind,  hoops,  or  hop-poles,  except  directly  to  England,  the  XVest  Indies,  the  Summer  and  Wine 
Islands.  The  object  of  this  measure  was  to  monopolize  the  transportation  of  its  only  export,  — an  experiment 
which  proved  injurious  to  both  New  Jersey  and  New  York.  Notwithstanding  the  obvious  defects  in  the  system, 
it  was  continued;  and  in  1714  duties  and  other  restrictions  were  imposed  on  the  exportation  of  some  commodities 
when  they  were  shipped  to  neighboring  provinces.  Indeed,  the  system  was  continued  with  considerable  vigor 
until  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  • 


85  « 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


tion,  or  manufacture  of  Europe,  shall  be  imported  into  the  British  plantations 
but  such  as  are  laden  and  put  on  board  in  England,  Wales,  or  Berwick-upon- 
Tweed,  and  in  English-built  shipping,  whereof  the  master  and  three-fourths  of 
the  crew  are  English."  The  effect  of  this  would  be  to  compel  the  colonies 
to  buy,  as  the  former  did  to  sell,  in  the  English  markets  exclusively.  But 
these  laws  were  very  little  regarded  by  the  colonies,  with  the  exception  of 
Virginia,  where  they  excited  remonstrance  and  almost  rebellion,  and  were 
not,  until  a  later  period,  enforced  upon  them.  The  primary  object  of  tlic 
monopoly  was  to  prevent  the  commercial  rivals  of  England  from  supplantirig 
her  in  the  colonial  trade ;  although  the  deeper  object,  as  we  shall  very 
soon  see,  was  to  put  most  of  the  trade  into  the  possession  of  England 
alone. 

Even  at  that  early  date,  there  were  those  who  feared  that  the  prosperity  of 
the  colonies  would  pave  the  way  to  independence.  Said  one  writer  of  that 
independ-  day,  "  The  colonies  are  beginning  to  carry  on  trade :  they  will 
«nce  feued.  goon  be  our  formidable  rivals.  They  are  already  setting  up  manu- 
factures :  they  will  soon  set  up  for  independence."  The  "  Discourse  on 
Trade,"  by  Sir  Josiah  Child,  before  quoted,  thus  expresses  the  prevailing 
opinion  of  this  class :  "  New  England  is  the  most  prejudicial  plantation  to  this 
kingdom.  Of  all  American  plantations,  his  Majesty  has  none  so  apt  for  the 
building  of  shipping  as  New  England,  nor  none  so  admirably  qualified  for  the 
breeding  of  seamen,  not  only  by  reason  of  the  natural  industry  of  that  people, 
but  principally  by  reason  of  their  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries  j  and  in  my  poor 
opinion  there  is  nothing  more  prejudicial,  and  in  prospect  more  dangerous, 
to  any  mother-kingdom,  than  the  increase  of  shipping  in  her  colonies,  planta- 
tions, or  provinces." 

It  was  only  by  an  evasion  or  relaxation  of  the  laws,  says  Bishop,  which  was 
connived  at  by  the  revenue  officials,  that  the  colonies  were  ever  enabled  to  pay 
Evaiion  of  ^^r  the  enormous  amount  of  British  manufactures  and  European 
laws  necet-  merchandise  annually  received  from  England ;  which,  at  the  be- 
to  continue"  ginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  amounted  to  nearly  ;^4oo,ooo, 
purchaiet  of  and,  toward  the  close  of  the  provincial  period,  ;^3,5oo,ooo,  or 
"'""  ■  nearly  one-fourth  of  the  English  export  trade  of  those  periods. 
None  of  the  colonies  north  of  Maryland  ever  had  balances  in  their  favor,  but 
were,  on  the  contrary,  much  in  arrear.  The  obligations  could  only  be  met  ])y 
circuitous  trade,  carried  on,  in  contravention  of  the  trade  acts,  with  foreign 
countries,  whence  they  derived  most  of  their  specie  and  remittances  suitable 
for  returns  to  their  English  creditors.  By  this  illicit  traffic  English  commerce 
was  as  much  benefited,  probably,  as  that  of  the  colonies.  Lord  Sheffield 
admits,  that,  between  the  years  1770  and  1773,  the  colonies  must,  by  this  cir- 
cuitous trade,  have  remitted  to  England  upward  of  ^^30,000,000  in  payment 
of  goods  taken  from  her,  over  and  above  their  remittances  in  produce  and  fish. 
Ships  built  for  sale,  as  has  already  been  remarked,  constituted  an  important 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


853 


itations 
i-upon- 
irths  of 
[:olonies 
ly.     But 
ition  of 
nd  were 
t  of  the 
,)pbnting 
,haU  very 
England 

sperity  of 
er  of  that 
they  will 
up  man«- 
icourse   on 
prevailing 
ition  to  this 
apt  for  the 
fied  for  the 
that  people, 
in  my  poor 
dangerous, 
lies,  planta- 


element  in  this  foreign  colonial  trade,  the  value  of  which  was  usually  remitted 
in  specie,  or  bills  of  exchange  on  London. 

Let  us  look  across  the  sea  for  a  moment,  and  learn  how  the  English  over 
there  carried  on  commerce  with  the  colonies.  Joshua  Gea,  in  a  work  upon 
the  "  Trade  and  Navigation  of  Great  Britain,"  which  appeared  in 
1729,  says,  "  We  have  a  great  many  young  men  who  are  bred  to  ""^c'^^fied 
the  sea,  and  lave  friends  to  support  them.  If  they  cannot  get  on  commerce 
employment  at  home,  they  go  to  New  England  and  the  Northern  ^',o*|,[*"' 
colonies  with  a  cargo  of  goods,  which  they  sell  there  at  a  great 
profit,  and  with  the  produce  build  a  ship,  and  purchase  a  loading  of  lumber, 
and  sail  for  Portugal  or  the  Straits,  &c.,  and,  after  disposing  of  their  cargoes 
there,  frequently  fly  from  port  to  port  in  the  Mediterranean  till  they  have 
cleared  so  much  money  as  will  pay  in  a  good  part  for  the  first  cost  of  the  cargo 
carried  out  by  them,  and  then,  perhaps,  sell,  their  ships,  come  home,  take  up 
another  cargo  from  their  employers,  and  so  go  back  and  build  another  ship. 
By  this  means,  multitudes  of  seamen  are  brought  up  j  and,  upon  a  war,  the 
nation  is  better  provided  with  a  greater  number  of  sailors  than  hath  heretofore 
been  known.  Here  the  master  becomes  merchant  also,  and  many  of  them 
gain  by  this  lumber-trade  great  estates,  and  a  vast  treasure  is  thereby  yearly 
brought  into  the  kingdom  in  a  way  new  and  unknown  to  our  forefathers ;  for 
indeed  it  is  gaining  the  timber-trade  heretofore  carried  on  by  the  Dutch  and 
Swedes,  our  plantations  being  nearer  the  markets  of  Portugal  and  Spain  than 
theirs  are." 

Notwithstanding  the  historic  trade  acts  of  Great  Britain,  which  were 
designed  to  cripple  colonial  commerce,  it  was  actively  carried  on  in  the  man- 
ner described,  especially  with  the  West  Indies  and  the  mother- 
country.  It  is  proof  of  a  pretty  lax  administration  of  the  laws  in 
those  days ;  but  there  were  a  great  many  merchants  interested 
in  making  these  exchanges,  from  whom  the  policy  of  England,  if 
rigidly  enforced,  would  have  evoked  bitter  opposition.  Probably 
tlie  government  was  well  aware  of  the  fact,  and  consequently  was  more  willing 
to  acquiesce  in  the  infraction  of  the  laws  than  if  they  had  been  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  sentiment  of  the  time.  So  exchanges  went  on.  To  the  West  Indies 
were  carried  lumber  of  all  kinds,  fish  of  an  inferior  quality,  —  the  better  sorts 
going  to  the  Roman-Catholic  countries  of  Europe,  —  beef,  pork,  butter,  horses, 
poultry,  other  live-stock,  tobacco,  flour,  bread,  cider  and  apple9>  cabbages,  and 
onions ;  for  which  was  received,  in  return,  molasses,  besides  silver  and  gold, 
which  metals  were  transmitted  to  Great  Britain  to  pay  for  the  commodities  pur- 
chased there.  While  no  gold  and  silver  mines  were  known  in  America,  the 
Spanish  settlers  in  the  West  Indies  were  rich  in  the  precious  metals  which  they 
were  receiving  from  Mexico  and  Peru;  and  from  this  source  the  colonists 
received  something  like  an  adequate  supply  to  discharge  their  obligations  to 
the  mother-country.    But  for  this  illicit  trade,  the  colonies  would  soon  have 


Trade  car- 
ried on,  not- 
withstand- 
ing trade 
acti. 


-mi 


854 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


been  drained  of  their  supply  of  ihe  precious  metals,  and  the  English  mer< 
chants  would  have  found  only  a  poor  market  for  their  wares  in  America. 
America  had  only  a  small  supply  of  the  articles  which  the  people  of  Great 
Britain  wanted  in  return  for  their  commodities.  Fish,  tobacco,  and  ships 
were  the  chief  exports,  besides  gold  and  silver,  to  that  country ;  and  these 
alone  would  have  gone  only  a  little  way  in  payment  for  the  goods  wanted 
of  her. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  describe,  in  this  connection,  the  fisheries  of 
the  colonial  period.  In  those  early  times,  cod,  salmon,  mackerel,  sturgeon, 
Colonial  and  other  kinds  of  Ash,  were  abundant  along  the  coast  and  in  the 
iiiheriei.  rivers,  and  large  numbers  of  men  were  employed  in  catching, 
curing,  and  packing  them.  But  the  New-Englanders  also  frequented  the 
famous  Banks  of  Newfoundland,  as  far  as  the  coast  of  l^brador,  where  enor- 
mous quantities  were  caught.  Indeed,  those  waters  are  scarcely  less  abundant 
to  this  day.  Besides  their  own  catch,  the  colonists  used  to  buy  of  the  New- 
foundland fishermen,  paying  therefor  in  rum  of  New-England  manufacture, 
and  also  in  other  things  coming  Irom  either  the  colonies  or  the  West  Indies. 
The  following  statistics  will  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  quantity  of  the 
warming  fluid  which  was  sent  to  the  provinces  of  Nova  Scotia,  Quebec,  and 
Newfoundland,  for  the  four  years  preceding  the  Revolution  :  — 


1770. 

1771. 

I77». 

«773. 

West-India  rum  (gallons) 
New-England  rum  (gallons)    . 

52,712 
590,748 

36.873 
55o.5'4 

47.736 
520,525 

50,716 
608,025 

Total        .      .       .       . 

643,460 

587,387 

568,261 

658,741 

The  fish  obtained  by  both  capture  and  purchase  were  properly  prepared 
for  market,  and  sent  to  the  various  ports  of  Europe.  The  choicer  qualities 
were  sent  to  Southern  Europe,  and  the  proceeds  were  remitted  in  bills  of 
exchange  to  England  to  pay  for  merchandise  consumed  in  America.  A  few 
of  the  best  fish,  however,  also  found  a  market  in  Great  Britain ;  while  the  infe- 
rior sorts  went  to  the  West  Indies,  and  were  eaten  as  a  relish  to  the  plantains 
and  yams  which  constituted  the  staple  diet  of  the  slaves. 

After  the  peace  of  1 763  with  France,  the  whale-fishery,  which  theretofore 
had  not  been  an  important  industry,  developed  rapidly ;  and  the  seas  between 
Whale-  New  England  and  Labrador  were  vexed  with  a  goodly  number  of 

Rahery.  vessels  engaged  in  the  hazardous  but  exciting  undertaking.    As 

the  tariff  on  oil  and  bone  was  reduced  at  this  time,  a  new  impetus  was  thereby 
given  to  this  industry;  so  that,  before  the  year  1775,  more  than  a  hundred 
and  sixty  vessels  were  thus  profitably  employed.     The  oil  and  whalebone  were 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


85s 


shipped  chiefly  to  Great  Britain ;  while  candles  were  made  of  the  spermaceti, 
which  were  also  exported  thither. 

The  most  unremitting  attention  was  given  to  every  thing  likely  to  yield  any 
profit,  and  so  thoroughly  wide-awake  were  the  colonists  as  to  obtain  the  appel- 
lation of  "the  Dutchmen  of  America."      Their  prosperity  was  c«uieoi 
closely  watched  from  the  other  side  of  the  water ;   and  as  their  commercui 
trade  diminished  with  Great  Britain,  and  increased  more  with  other  P'»»P«''*y' 
countries,  in  spite  of  custom-houses  and  watchmen,  while  manufactures  at 
home   were  growing,   the   British   House   of  Commons   in    1731   instituted 
through  the  Board  of  Trade  an  inquiry  with  respect  to  the  laws  made,  manu- 
factures set  up,  or  trade  carried  on,  detrimental  to  the  trade,  navigation,  or 
manufactures  of  Great  Britain.    Among  other  facts  reported  were  the  follow- 
ing, which  will  doubtless  interest  the  reader,  as  they  throw  much  light  upon  the 
character  of  the  colonists  at  that  time,  the  extent  of  their  trade,  the  progress 
of  home  manufacture,  and  how  laws  which  were  designed  to  oppress  the  colo- 
nies and  enrich  the  merchants  of  Great  Britain  had  been  turned  with  deadly 
effect  upon  those  who  had  made  them  :  — 

"  The  Governor  of  Massachusetts  Bay  informed  us,  that,  in  some  parts  of  this 
province,  the  inhabitants  worked  up  their  wool  and  flax  into  an  ordinary  coarse 
cloth  for  their  own  use,  but  did  not  export  any ;  that  the  greatest  part  of  the 
woollen  and  the  linen  clothing  worn  in  this  province  was  imported  from  Great 
Britain,  and  sometimes  from  Ireland,  but,  considering  the  excessive  price  of 
labor  in  New  England,  the  merchants  could  afford  what  was  imported  cheaper 
than  what  was  made  in  that  country ;  that  there  were  also  a  few  hat-makers 
in  the  maritine  towns,  and  that  the  greater  part  of  the  leather  used  in  that 
country  was  manufactured  among  themselves ;  that  there  had  been  for  many 
years  some  iron-works  in  that  province,  which  had  afforded  the  people  iron  for 
some  of  their  necessary  occasions,  but  that  the  iron  imported  from  Great 
Britain  was  esteemed  much  the  best,  and  used  wholly  by  the  shipping,  and  that 
the  works  of  that  province  were  not  able  to  supply  one-twentieth  part  of  what 
was  necessary  to  the  use  of  the  country.  They  had  no  manufactures  in  the 
province  of  New  York  that  deserved  mentioning  (their  trade  consisted  chiefly 
of  furs,  whalebone,  oil,  pitch,  tar,  and  provisions);  no  manufactures  in  New 
Jersey  that  deserved  mentioning,  their  trade  being  chiefly  in  provisions  shipped 
from  New  York  and  Pennsylvania.  The  chief  trade  of  Pennsylvania  lay  in 
the  exportation  of  provisions  and  lumber ;  their  clothing,  and  utensils  for  their 
houses,  being  all  imported  from  Great  Britain.  By  further  advices  from  New 
Hampshire,  the  woollen  manufacture  appears  to  have  decreased ;  the  common 
lands  on  which  the  sheep  used  to  feed  being  now  appropriated,  and  the 
people  almost  wholly  clothed  with  woollen  from  Great  Britain.  The  manufac- 
ture of  flax  into  linen,  some  coarser,  some  finer,  daily  increased  by  the  great 
resort  of  people  from  Ireland  thither,  who  are  well  skilled  in  that  business ; 
and  the  chief  trade  of  this  province  continued,  as  for  many  years  past,  in  the 


856 


INDUSTRIAL   HISTORY 


exportation  of  naval  stores,  lumber,  and  fish.  By  later  accounts  from  Massa* 
chusetts  Bay  in  New  Kngland,  the  Assembly  have  voted  a  bounty  of  thirty 
shillings  for  every  piece  of  duck  or  canvas  made  in  the  province.  Some  other 
manufactures  are  carried  on  there,  as  brown  Hollands  for  women's  wear,  which 
lessen  the  im]X}rtation  of  calicoes  and  some  other  sorts  of  East- India  goods. 
They  also  make  some  small  quantity  of  cloth,  made  of  linen  and  cotton,  fur 
ordinary  shirting  and  sheeting.  By  a  paper-mill  set  up  three  years  ago, 
they  make  to  a  value  of  two  hundred  pounds  yearly.  There  are  also  several 
forges  for  making  bar- iron,  and  some  furnaces  for  cast-iron  or  hollow- ware, 
and  one  slicting-mill,  and  a  manufactory  for  nails.  The  governor  writes  con- 
cerning the  woollen  manufacture,  that  *he  country- people,  who  used  formerly  to 
make  most  of  their  clothing  out  of  their  own  wool,  do  not  now  make  a  third 
part  of  what  they  wear,  but  are  mostly  clothed  with  British  manufactures. 
The  same  governor  (Belcher),  by  some  of  his  letters  of  an  older  date,  in 
answer  to  our  annual  queries,  writes  that  there  are  some  few  copper-mines 
in  this  province,  but  so  far  from  water-carriage,  and  the  land  is  so  poor,  that  it 
is  not  worth  the  digging.  The  surveyor-general  of  his  Majesty's  woods  writes 
that  they  have  in  New  England  six  furnaces  and  nineteen  forges  for  making 
iron  ;  and  that  in  this  province  many  ships  are  built  for  the  French  and  Span- 
iards in  return  for  rum,  molasses,  wines,  and  silks,  which  they  truck  there  by 
connivance.  Great  quantities  of  hats  are  made  in  New  England,  of  which  tiie 
Company  of  Hatters  in  London  have  likewise  lately  complained  to  us  that  great 
quantities  of  those  hats  are  exported  to  Spain,  Portugal,  and  our  West-India 
islands.  They  also  make  all  sorts  of  iron-work  for  shipping.  There  are 
several  still-houses  and  sugar-bakers  established  in  New  England.  By  later 
advices  from  New  York,  there  are  no  manufactures  there  which  can  affect  those 
of  Great  Britain.  There  is  yearly  imported  into  New  York  a  very  large  quan- 
tity of  the  woolien  manufactures  of  this  kingdom  for  their  clothing,  which  they 
would  be  rendered  incapable  to  pay  for,  and  would  be  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  making  for  themselves,  if  they  were  not  prohibited  from  receiving  from  tlie 
foreign  sugar  colonies  the  money,  rum,  sugar,  molasses,  cocoa,  indigo,  cotton, 
wool,  &c.,  which  they  at  present  take  in  return  for  provisions,  horses,  and  lum- 
ber, the  produce  of  that  province  and  New  Jersey,  of  which  he  affirms  the 
British  sugar  colonies  do  not  take  above  one-half.  But  the  Company  of  Hatters 
of  London  have  since  informed  us  that  hats  are  manufactured  in  great  quanti- 
ties in  this  province.  By  the  last  letters  from  the  deputy-governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania, he  does  not  know  of  any  trade  carried  on  in  that  province  that  can 
be  injurious  to  this  kingdom.  They  do  not  export  any  woollen  or  linen  manu- 
factures ;  all  that  they  make,  which  ore  of  a  coarser  sort,  being  for  their  own 
use.  We  are  further  informed  that  in  this  province  are  built  many  brigantines 
and  small  sloops,  which  they  sell  to  the  West  Indies.  The  Governor  of  Rhode 
Island  informs  us,  in  answer  to  our  queries,  that  there  are  iron-mines  there,  but 
not  a  fourth  part  enough  to  serve  their  own  use ;  but  he  takes  no  notice  of  any 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


857 


sort  of  manufacture  set  up  there.  No  return  from  the  Governor  of  Connecti- 
cut :  but  wc  find  by  some  accounts  that  the  produce  of  this  colony  is  timber, 
iKjards,  all  sorts  of  Knglish  grain,  hemp,  flax,  sheep,  black  cattle,  swine,  horses, 
goats,  and  tobacco;  and  that  they  export  horses  and  lumber  to  the  West 
Indies,  and  receive  in  return  sugar,  salt,  molasses,  and  rum.  We  find  that 
their  manufactures  are  very  inconsiderable,  the  jjcople  there  being  generally 
employed  in  tillage,  some  few  in  tanning,  shoemaking,  and  other  handicrafts, 
others  in  the  building,  and  joiners',  tailors',  and  smiths'  work,  without  which 
they  could  not  subsist." 

Upon  the  conclusion  of  the  war  with  France  in  1 763,  Pa.-liament  thought 
the  colonies  ought  to  pay  a  share  of  the  bills  growing  out  of  the  contest  which 
was  waged  chiefly  for  their  defence.     Accordingly,  resolutions  in  Efftct  of 
favor  of  a  Stamp  Act  similar  to  the  one  which  had  long  been  S'*""?  Act- 
known  in  England  were  i)assed  in  1 764.     This  measure  was  followed  next  year 
by  another,  declaring  all  written  instruments  used  in  the  colonies  null  and 
void,  unless  executed  upon  stamped 
paper,  or  parchment  charged  with 
a  duty  by  Parliament.     This  bill 
at  once  roused  intense  opposition 
here,  and  was  the  prelude  to  the 
Revolution,     The  colonies  imme- 
diately faced   these    measures  by 
declaring   that  they  would   cease 
their  importations  from  Great  Brit- 
ain ;  and   so   effectually  did   they 
execute  this  purpose,  that  British 
merchants  loudly  clamored  for  the  stami-s. 

repeal  of  those   laws  which   had 

worked  such  an  unexpected  injury  to  their  trade.  Their  request  was  com- 
plied with  ;  and,  just  a  year  from  the  time  of  their  enactment,  these  obnoxious 
laws  were  swept  from  the  statute-book. 

In  1767,  however,  Charles  Townsend  introduced  into  Parliament  another 
bill,  imposing  duties  on  glass,  pasteboard,  paper,  painters'  colors,  and  tea,  which 
passed  into  a  law,  and  once  more  aroused  the  opposition  of  the  Taxation  of 
colonists  to  remonstrances,  petitions,  and  non-intercourse  acts.  '">?<"■»•• 
The  merchants  of  Boston,  in  October,  passed  resolutions  —  in  which  they 
were  followed  by  other  towns  —  not  to  import,  or  deal  with  those  who  should 
import,  tea.  glass,  paper,  or  colors,  so  long  as  the  duties  on  those  articles 
remained  unrepealed.  Resolutions  were  at  the  same  time  formed  to  encourage 
by  all  prudent  ways  and  means  home  manufactures,  and  glass  and  paper  were 
especially  mentioned  as  worthy  of  encouragement.  The  British  exports  to 
the  colonies  at  once  fell  off  again  from  _;^2, 378,000  in  1768  to  ;^i,634,ooo 
in  1769,  and  the  repeal  of  the  act  was  loudly  demanded.     Public  excite- 


iLWOS/ 


8s8 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


ment  was  once  more  allayed  in  1770,  temporarily,  by  the  reluctant  withdrawal 
of  five-sixths  of  the  duties,  leaving  but  a  nominal  tax  of  threepence  per 
pound  on  tea,  as  a  testimony  of  the  asserted  legislative  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment. 

Says  Bishop,  "  The  trade  acts  were,  in  many  respects,  a  manifest  violation 
of  the  rights  of  the  colonist^s  to  make  the  most  of  their  industry.  Unless 
Biihop  on  exemption  were  guaranteed  by  their  charters,  a  right  to  exact  from 
trade  acts.  (hem  a  contingent  for  the  general  expenses  of  the  empire  of  whic  h 
they  were  an  integral  part  seemed  to  rest  upon  the  same  prerogative  by  wliic  h 
the  parent  state  assumed  in  other  cases  to  legislate  for  its  dependencies.  Tlie 
legislatures  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York  had  indeed,  ten  years  before, 
enacted  a  provincial  Stamp  Act ;  the  former  granting  to  his  Majesty  duties  on 
vellum,  parchment,  and  paper,  for  two  years,  toward  defraying  the  charge  of 
this  government.  That  of  New  York,  passed  the  following  year,  continued 
four  years  in  operation.  But  the  impost  was  now  resisted  upon  the  principle 
that  the  colonists  were  not  amenable  to  a  statute  which  they  had  no  voice 
in  making;  and,  upon  this  question  of  prerogative,  the  empire  was  dis- 
membered." 

How  the  continuance  of  this  policy  resulted  the  world  knows.  It  was 
opposed  by  the  colonies,  and  in  the  end  came  revolution  and  separation.  But, 
Effect  of  the  before  this  step  was  taken,  a  long  series  of  experiments  in  the  way 
■yitem.  ^f  imposing  and  resisting  taxes  were  tried  on  both  sides.     Laws 

were  passed,  to  be  modified  or  repealed  at  the  next  session  of  Parliament.  In 
the  year  1767  several  measures  favorable  to  colonial  trade  were  enacted  ;  but 
the  next  witnessed  a  renewal  of  the  fiscal  schemes  of  the  previous  ministry 
by  the  imposition  of  a  duty  on  paper,  glass,  painters'  colors,  and  tea,  providing 
for  the  quartering  of  soldiers  in  the  colonies,  and  for  a  more  effectual  enforce- 
ment of  the  revenue  system  by  the  establishment  of  a  custom-house.  Al- 
though the  people  had  so  readily  receded  from  the  determined  stand  taken 
against  the  Stamp  Act,  and  a  sum  of  ^15,000  was  voted  to  be  raised  by  a 
tax  on  foreign  sail-cloth  and  lawns,  to  be  paid  in  premiums  on  flax  and  hemp 
imported  from  the  colonies,  this  and  other  favorable  legislation  did  not  prevent 
a  renewal  of  the  opposition  to  the  new  plan  of  taxation.  Boston,  in  town- 
meeting,  Oct.  28,  commenced  the  former  system  of  retaliation  and  redress  by 
declaring  that  the  "  excessive  use  of  foreign  superfluities  is  the  chief  cause  of 
the  present  distressed  state  of  this  town,  as  it  is  thereby  drained  of  its  mom.  y ; 
which  misfortune  is  likely  to  be  increased  by  means  of  the  late  additional 
burdens  and  impositions  on  the  trade  of  the  province,  which  threaten  tlie 
country  with  poverty  and  ruin."  Resolutions  were  made  to  abstain  from  the 
use,  after  Dec.  i,  of  such  foreign  articles  as  "loaf-sugar,  cordage,  anchors, 
coaches,  chaises,  and  carriages  of  all  sorts,  horse-furniture,  men's  and  women's 
hats,  men's  and  women's  apparel  ready  made,  household  furniture,  gloves, 
men's  and  women's  shoes,  sole-leather,  sheathing  and  deck  nails,  gold,  silver, 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


8S9 


nt  withdrawal 
reepence  per 
rity  of  Parlia- 

lifest  violation 
istry.     Unless 
to  exact  from 
ipire  of  which 
itive  by  which 
dencies.    Tlie 
years  before, 
esty  duties  on 
the  charge  of 
ear,  continued 
1  the  principle 
^  had  no  voice 
npire  was  dis- 


tation  and 
non-exporta- 
tion act  of 


and  thread  lace  of  all  sorts,  gold  and  silver  buttons,  wrought  plate  of  all  sorts, 
diamonds,  stone,  and  paste-ware,  snuff,  mustard,  clocks  and  watches,  silver- 
smiths' and  jewellers'  ware,  broadcloths  that  cost  above  ten  shillings  per  yard, 
muffs,  furs,  and  tippets,  and  all  sorts  of  millinery-ware,  starch,  women's  and 
children's  stays,  fire-engines,  china-ware,  siik  and  cotton  velvets,  gauze,  pew- 
terers'  hollow-ware,  linseed-oil,  glue  lawns,  cambrics,  silks  of  all  kinds  for  gar- 
ments, malt  liquors,  and  cheese"  Thus  the  regulations  which  were  designed 
to  yield  such  a  revenue  to  Greal  Britain  signally  failed  in  their  purpose. 

On  the  loth  of  September,  1774,  was  passed  by  the  Continental  Congress, 
then  in  session  at  Philadelphia,  the  famous  non-importation  and  non-exporta- 
tion resolutions,  which  constituted  a  pledge  on  the  part  of  the 
colonists,  "  under  the  sacred  ties  of  virtue,  honor,  and  love  of  ,a°i"'n'^^" 
country,"  not  to  import,  after  the  ist  i,f  December,  any  goods 
whatever  from  Great  Britain  or  Ireland,  or  British  goods  from  any 
place ;  not  to  import  or  purchase  any  slave  imported  after  that 
time,  after  which  they  would  wholly  discontinue  the  slave-trade  ;  not  to  import 
or  purchase  East-India  tea ;  to  suspend  the  non-exportation  agreement  until 
Sept.  10,  1 775  ;  to  request  merchants  as  soon  as  possible  to  order  their  factors 
in  Great  Britain  not  to  ship  any  goods  to  them  on  any  pretence  whatever ;  to 
use  their  utmost  endeavors  to  improve  the  breed  and  increase  the  number  of 
sheep  by  killing  them  as  seldom  as  possible,  and  not  exporting  them,  but  sell- 
ing them  on  moderate  terms  to  their  neighbors  who  might  need  them ;  to 
encourage  frugality,  economy,  and  industry,  and  promote  the  agriculture  and 
manufactures  of  this  country,  especially  that  of  wool ;  to  discontinue  and  dis- 
courage every  species  of  extravagance  and  dissipation,  shows,  plays,  &c. ;  to 
use,  on  funeral  occasions,  only  a  ribbon  or  a  piece  of  crape  on  the  arm  for 
gentlemen,  and  a  black  ribbon  and  necklace  for  ladies,  and  to  discourage 
the  giving  of  gloves,  scarfs,  &c.,  at  funerals.  It  recommended  venders  of 
goods  not  to  take  advantage  of  the  scarcity  occasioned  by  the  association 
to  ask  for  more  than  they  had  been  accustomed  to ;  that  goods  imported 
after  the  ist  of  December  ought  to  be  either  reshipped,  or  stored  at  the 
owner's  risk,  until  the  non-import-ition  agreements  ceased,  or  be  sold,  and 
the  owner  re-imbursed  the  first  cose  and  charges,  the  profits  to  be  devoted  to 
the  Boston  sufferers.  Committees  should  be  chosen,  in  each  county,  city,  and 
town,  to  carry  out  the  resolutions,  and  report  violations ;  and  the  committee 
of  correspondence  should  frequently  inspect  the  custom-house,  and  inform 
each  other  of  the  state  thereof:  that  al!  manufactures  of  the  country  should 
he  sold  at  a  reasonable  rate ;  and  that  no  trade,  commercial  dealings,  or  inter- 
course, be  had  with  any  colony  or  province  that  did  not  accede  to  or  should 
afterwards  violate  the  agreements,  but  they  should  be  held  unworthy  the 
rights  of  freemen,  and  as  inimical  to  the  liberty  of  their  country.  T,' -sc 
resolutions  met  with  general  approval,  and  continued  in  force  until  peace  with 
Great  Britain  was  declared. 


86o 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


POST-REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD. 


Commerce 
during  the 
Revolution. 


With  separation  and  peace  came  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  American 
commerce.  During  the  Revolution  it  had  sadly  waned  ;  indeed,  it  was  nearly 
ruined.  But,  as  soon  as  hostilities  were  declared  at  an  end,  the 
king  removed  all  legal  restraints  upon  intercourse  with  the  United 
States,  dispensing  with  a  manifest  for  a  time  even  on  the  arrival  of 
an  American  vessel  in  a  British  port.  Trade  at  once  revived  ;  the  imports  to 
this  country  amounting  to  $30,000,000,  while  the  exports  were  about  one-third 
of  that  sum,  for  the  first  two  years  of  peace.  This  inequality  in  the  balance 
of  trade  caused  much  distress ;  but  the  needed  remedy  was  within  reach,  and 
was  speedily  applied.  Thereupon  prices  fell,  imports  were  checked,  and  in 
1788  these  were  nearly  equalled  by  our  exports.  In  1790  our  exports 
amounted  to  upwards  of  $20,000,000,  and  our  imports  footed  up  $23,000,000. 
The  remedy  to  which  we  here  refer  was  an  act  of  retaliation  designed  to 
put  American  shipping  on  an  equal  footing  with  that  of  Great  Britain,  and  thus 
Commercial  insure  reciprocity.  The  old  country  forbade  that  produce  he 
freedom.  imported  to  her  harbors,  except  in  British  bottoms.  Immediately 
Congress  enacted  that  foreign  produce  should  not  be  landed  on  our  shores, 
except  from  American  ships.  Under  this  arrangement,  vessels  had  to  go  one 
way  empty.  This  had  the  effect  of  securing  a  treaty  by  which  Great  Britain 
conceded  equal  privileges  to  American  ships  with  her  own,  as  between  tlu 
ports  of  the  two  countries.  This  was  the  first  of  three  great  principles  in 
international  usage,  all  in  the  direction  of  commercial  freedom,  which  the 
United  States  established ;  the  other  two  being,  that  neutral  ships  make  free 
goods,  and  that  a  neutral  nation  is  responsible  for  the  damage  done  by  priva- 
teers fitted  out  in  her  ports.  Thus  it  will  be  observed  that  the  young  republic 
of  the  West  has  championed  the  rights  of  mankind  upon  the  sea  as  well  as 
upon  land  ;  and,  as  those  of  the  sea  are  exclusively  commercial,  her  champion- 
ship has  been  of  the  greatest  value  to  whoever  navigates  the  common  high- 
ways of  the  world.  The  commerce  of  the  world  has  been  benefited  and 
promoted  by  the  pride,  pluck,  and  conscious  dignity  of  the  American  nation. 
The  prompt  and  decided  self-assertion  of  commercial  equality  cannot  l)e 
appreciated  in  these  present  days  without  a  recollection   of  tlie 

Importance  .  /,,-.,  i  i 

of  maintain,   exclusive  maritime  supremacy  of  the  Dutch  over  the  whole  woritl 
ing  commer-  p^jor  to  the  time  of  Charles  II.,  and  of  the  subsequent  monoi)oly 
of  the  world's  commerce  by  Great  Britain.     Viewed  in  comparison 
with  precedent  history,  it  was  a  singularly  bold  assumption. 

Another  noticeable  influence  upon  the  development  of  America's  foreign 
trade,  immediately  after  the  Revolution,  was  the  rise  of  our  enterprising, 
Merchant-  shrewd,  and  adventurous  merchant-princes,  who  designed  the  most 
princes.  daring    and    successful    commercial    expeditions,    comparatively 

speaking,  this  country  has  ever  known.     They  sent  ships  to  all  parts  of  the 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


86t 


globe,  even  to  China,  founding  in  tliis  last-named  quarter  a  ti.  ae  that  has  never 
ceased  to  grow ;  and  so  summarily  punishing  the  Algerine  pirates  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, that  American  trade  on  that  sea  enjoyed  unusual  freedom  from  that 
pest.  Among  the  most  prominent  among  these  men  was  William  wuiiam 
Gray  of  Boston,  whose  reputation  soon  became  world-wide,  and  as  °''*y- 
honored  in  the  East  as  in  the  West.  His  ships  navigated  every  sea,  and  em- 
ployed hundreds  of  hardy  men.  The  skinul  and  bold  seamen  who  com- 
manded his  ships  were  not  of  the  later  class  of  "  dandy  captains,"  who  came 
in  with  the  "  liners ;  "  but  it  was  his  saying,  that  the  best  captains  would  sail 
with  a  load  of  fish  to  the  West  Indies,  hang  up  a  stocking  in  the  cabin,  put 
therein  the  hard  dollars  as  they  sold  the  fish,  and  pay  out  from  it  as  they 
bought  the  rum,  molasses,  and  sugar,  tie  up  the  balance,  and  hand  it  in  at  the 
counting-room  on  their  return  home  in  lieu  of  all  accounts.  The  honesty 
and  judgment  of  their  proceedings  were  beyond  question,  and  the  problem 
of  the  profits  between  the  fish  sent  and  the  cargo  and  stocking  returned  was 
for  the  clerks  to  solve.  The  genius  for  plotting  long  and  intricate  voyages 
belonged  to  the  head  of  the  house.  New  York,  in  John  Jacob  Astor,  had  a 
still  more  extensive  operator.  He  first  projected  the  enterprises  to  the  north- 
west coast,  and  laid  out  with  profound  skill  schemes  which  it  took  ten  years  to 
ripen;  and  his  name  was  knovM  throughout  the  world.  Philadelphia  had  an 
exponent  of  her  commercial  power  in  Stephen  Girard,  whose  en-  Stephen 
terprises  belonged  to  the  same  period  of  large  operations  and  bold  G'"'^'*' 
conduct.  Girard's  ships  were  actively  engaged  in  commerce  with  the  West 
Indies  at  the  time  of  the  revolution  in  San  Domingo,  and  carried  away  many 
rich  refugees.  His  wealth  received  large  accessions  from  the  property  placed 
on  board  by  those  who  could  not  escape.  The  Patersons  of  Baltimore  led 
the  commerce  of  that  city  :  and  behind  these  leading  names,  which  are  asso- 
ciated in  history  with  vast  fortunes,  came  a  crowd  of  lesser  ones ;  for  the  mer- 
cantile intellect  was  as  busy  in  this  country  at  that  time  as  was  military, 
political,  and  literary  genius  througliout  the  world. 

The  internal  agency  that  led  to  the  national  self-assertion  and  this  bold 
individual  enterprise  was  doubtless  the  enthusiasm  of  independ- 
ence. Already  the  colonists  were  a  commercial  people  :  triumph 
over  England  inspired  them  to  greater  ventures ;  freedom  and 
success  stimulated  further  action  ;  and  the  imposition  of  a  tariff", 
the  organization  of  a  bureau  of  commercial  statistics,  and  the 
establishment  of  our  currency  on  a  sound  basis,  awakened  confidence  in  our 
commercial  strength  at  home  and  abroad. 

Another  impulse  was  given  to  our  commerce  by  the  sudden  development 
of  the  cotton  production  at  the  commencement  of  this  century,  Effect  of 
which  we  have  elsewhere  described  at  some  length.     The  invention  cotton  pro- 
of the  cotton-gin  gave  a  sudden  development  to  this  industry, 
and  gave  us  a  new  and  valuable  commodity  for  export.     In  1 790  we  exported 


Effect  of 
independ- 
ence in  stim- 
ulating com- 
merce. 


862 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


but  $42,285  worth  of  cotton  :  in  1807  the  amount  was  valued  at  ;J>i4,232,oo(). 
Later,  still  vaster  dimensions  were  attained.  But,  in  the  last  year  here  cited, 
our  cotton  alone  formed  nearly  one-third  of  the  value  of  our  total  export.  It 
might  be  mentioned  in  this  place,  that  just  previous  to  this  time  the  South  iuul 
become  greatly  depressed,  business-wise  ;  for  her  blacks  had  not  been  able  to 
earn  their  own  living.  Hence  in  1808,  some  years  after  the  ovil  began  to  he 
first  felt,  the  further  importation  of  slaves  was  prohibited  by  an  amendment 
to  the  Federal  Constitution  ;  and,  as  the  vessels  engaged  in  this  traffic  were 
chiefly  of  New-England  ownershij),  the  check  was  not  fully  enjoyed  by  the 
commercial  interest.  Other  events,  however,  at  that  time,  distracted  attenti(jn. 
and  prevented  any  expression  of  resentment. 

A  cause  external  to  American  politics  and  enterprise  also  gave  new  stimu- 
lus to  An  .rican  commerce  soon  after  tlie  Revolution.     The  ambition  of  the 
great  Napoleon  led  to  war  between  iCngland  and  France  at  the 

Napoleon.         "  ° 

close  of  the  eighteeiitii  century,  and  thus  the  shijiping  of  both 
nations  was  unsafe  at  sea.  The  carrying-trade  was  therefore  assumed  by  the 
navigators  of  this  country,  who  brought  much  cf  the  West  Indies  and  other 
produce  designed  ultimately  for  Europe,  and  much  of  the  exchange  freight,  to 
our  shores  en  route.  The  stoppage  of  production  in  Europe  on  account  of  a 
general  war  created  a  greater  demand  for  .American  footl-products  and  niann- 
liictiires,  antl  thus  increased  our  domestic  exjjort  trade.  An  interesting  trian- 
gular exchange  of  credits  occurred  at  this  time.  iMigland  had  large  credits  in 
this  country  at  that  time  on  account  of  certain  shipments  of  manufactures : 
the  United  States  was  ac(]uiring  large  credits  in  France  on  account  of  siiip 
ments  of  produce.  England  had  no  direct  trade-relations  with  F'rancc,  hut 
wanted  to  transfer  money  to  the  Continent  for  political  uses ;  and  so  botii^hl 
these  American  credits  in  France,  taking  tiiem  in  '\iyment  of  our  debts  to  iier. 
While,  on  the  whole,  the  .Anglo- Frencli  conflict  was  advantageous  to  us  at 
first,  it  had  its  embarrassments  and  was  afterwards  disastrous  in  its  influence 
upon  our  commerce.  In  1793,  England,  jealous  of  seeming 
benefits  derived  by  France  from  this  arrangement,  domineerinu'ly 
forbade  American  vessels  to  carry  food  to  any  port  occupied  hy 
French  tr^.  ,)s.  Siie  also  exercised  tlie  right  of  impressing  .Ameri- 
can seamen  into  her  own  navy.  Under  these  and  other  orders 
.Americans  were  robbed  of  much  property,  and  war  was  threatened  ;  l)ut 
matters  were  smoothed  over  by  a  treaty  negotiated  by  Mr.  Jay,  by  which  the 
sum  of  ten  million  dollars  was  awarded  us.  This  enraged  France,  whi(  h 
began  to  seize  our  ships ;  but  Napoleon  put  a  stop  to  such  proceedings  in 
1800.  But  further  embarrassments  ensued.  England  declared  all  of  Europe, 
from  the  Elbe  to  Brest,  in  a  state  of  blockade,  thus  prohibiting  Americ  an 
ships  from  entering  there.  Napoleon  retaliated  with  the  Berlin  decree  of 
November  in  that  year,  prohibiting  all  intercourse  with  the  British  islands. 
Both  sides  issued  further  and  more  comprehensive  edicts  of  the  same  insane 


Embarrass 
ments  of 
Anglo- 
French 
conflict. 


5  valued  at  $14,232,000. 
the  last  year  here  cited, 
of  our  total  export.  It 
)  this  time  the  South  lunl 
ks  iiad  not  been  able  to 
ter  the  ovil  began  to  W 
bited  by  an  amendniLiit 
aged  in  this  traffic  wore 
lot  fully  enjoyed  by  the 
ime,  distracted  attention, 

se  also  gave  new  stinui- 
1.  The  ambition  of  the 
land  and  France  at  the 
js  the  shipping  of  lioih 
liereforc  assumed  by  the 
:  West  Indies  and  otlicr 
the  exchange  freight,  to 
Europe  on  account  of  a 
)od-products  and  nianii- 
e.  An  interesting  triaii- 
land  had  large  credits  in 
)mcnts  of  manufactures : 
ice  on  account  of  siiip- 
ilations  with  France,  but 
al  uses  ;  and  so  bought 
nent  of  our  debts  to  her. 
:s  advantageous  to  us  at 
isastrous  in  its  influence 
md,  jealous  of  seeming 
angement,  domineeringly 

0  any  port  occupied  by 
;ht  of  impressing  Ameri- 
•  these  and  other  orders 
ar  was  threatened  ;  l)ut 
Dv  Mr.  Jay,  by  which  the 

enraged    France,  wlii(h 
to  such  proceedings  in 

1  declared  all  of  Europe, 
us  prohil)iting  American 
th  the  Berlin  decree  nf 
with  the  British  islands. 
iicts  of  the  same  insane 


O/'    THE    UA'U'ED   STATES. 


863 


f.i 


■f-    ; 


"Mm 


864 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


sort ;  and  finally,  in  1807,  to  avoid  war,  the  United-States  Government  laid  an 
embargo  upon  commerce  altogether.  So  violen*  was  the  re-action  in  Ameri- 
can commercial  circles,  that  our  government  was  forced  to  modify  very 
essentially  this  action  next  year,  substituting  non-intercourse  laws  for  the  first 
enactment.  Still  our  commerce  was  sadly  crippled,  and  was  long  in  recovering 
from  the  effects  of  this  blow.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  in  this  connection,  that, 
in  1803,  Jerome  Bonaparte,  brother  of  the  great  Corsican,  married  into  tiie 
Paterson  family  of  Baltimore,  already  spoken  of  as  eminent  in  commerce. 
The  Paterson  interest,  through  Jerome,  was  successful  in  gaining  stealtiiy 
admission  to  French  ports  for  what  was,  after  all,  much-coveted  produce. 
This,  however,  was  chiefly  before  the  embargo  of  1807. 

This  was  the  culmination  of  a  long  period  of  remarkable  commenial 
activity  and  prosperity.  An  immediate  and  remarkable  decline  ensued.  Before 
considering  the  latter,  therefore,  it  is  worth  while  to  briefly  review 
the  former.  The  treaty  of  peace  which  acknowledged  American 
independence  was  signed  in  1783.  The  loose  confederation  of  States  was 
succeeded  by  the  present  union  under  the  new  constitution  in  1 789.  From 
the  following  year  our  commercial  statistics  date.  The  embargo  occurred  in 
1807.  The  following  table  shows  the  development  of  our  commerce  in  the 
interval,  and  the  check  put  upon  it  by  this  enactment,  and  the  delay  in 
recuperation :  — 


Embargo. 


VBAR. 

TONNAGE. 

DOMESTIC 
EXPORTS. 

FOKEICN 
EXPORTS. 

TOTAL 
EXPORTS. 

IMPORTS. 

1790 

1807 

1808              .           . 

I815 

I816             .           . 

474,374 
1,268,548 

1.247,596 
1,368,127 
1,372,218 

$19,666,000 

48,669,592 

9.433.546 

45.974.403 

64,781,896 

#539.156 
59.643.558 
i  2,997.414 

6.583.350 

»7.i38,S56 

$20,205,156 

108,343,150 

22,430,960 

52.557.753 
81,920,452 

$23,000,000 
138,500,000 
56,990,000 
113,041,274 
147,103,700 

These  international  complications  led  at  length  to  war  with  Eng'and,  which 
lasted  from  1812  to  1815.    The  result  of  that  war,  it  will  be  remembered,  was 

the  establishment  of  the  principle,  that  England  had  no  right  to 
with  Great  board  our  merchant-vessels,  and  claim  our  seamen  for  her  citizens ; 
Britain,  and    ^jjjj  ^jgg  ^j^j^j  ^^  merchant-marine  of  a  neutral  nation,  in  time  of 

war,  might  go  where  it  pleased  without  molestation.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  this  triumph  was  accomplished  chiefly  by  the  American  navy ; 
and  it  is  worth  remembering  that  that  navy  was  greatly  strengthened  by  tin- 
influx  thereto  of  hardy  sailors  from  our  now  paralyzed  merchant-marine.  At 
first  it  was  feared  that  the  magnificent  British  navy  would  destroy  ours  in  almost 
no  time,  and  Congress  was  determined  to  send  the  government  ships  up  the 
rivers  for  refuge  ;  but,  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  the  naval  officers  themselves, 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


86s 


t  laid  an 
n  Ameri- 
dify  very 
r  the  first 
ecovering 
tion,  that, 
I  into  tlic 
:ommer(e. 
g  stealtliy 
produce. 

:ommer(:ial 
;d.  Before 
iefly  review 
I  American 
States  was 
fSg.  From 
occurred  in 
erce  in  the 
he  delay  in 


IMPORTS. 


$23,000,000 

138,500,000 

56,990,000 

147.103-"°° 


l^'and,  which 

nbered,  was 
I  no  right  to 

her  citizens ; 
I,  in  time  of 
1  It  is  a  wcU- 
(rican  navy; 

ened  by  the 
Imarine.  At 
Ijrs  in  almost 

|hips  up  tlie 
i  themselves, 


they  were  permitted  to  go  to  sea.  "The  astonishment  in  Europe,"  says  Kettell, 
"  the  dismay  in  England,  and  delight  in  the  United  States,  could  scarcely  be 
equalled,  when  the  encounter  on  the  seas  resulted  in  the  unprecedented  spec- 
tacle of  a  series  of  triumphs  over  the  tyrant  of  the  ocean.  In  the  short 
period  of  twenty  years  a  power  had  arisen  that  was  thenceforth  to  know  no 
master  upon  the  ocean,  and  submit  to  no  insults ;  and  this  power  had  been 
born  of  commerce." 

War  had  paralyzed  all  other  industries  as  well  as  commerce.     Agricultural 
produce,  finding  no  outlet,  accumulated  in  warehouses ;  ships  lay  idle  at  the 
wharves ;  property  depreciated ;  and  credits  became  overstrained.   ^„  jnduB- 
Something  like  a  panic  ensued  upon  the  declaration  of  peace ;  tries  para- 
but  general  business  soon  recuperated,  owing  to  the  improvement    ^"    ^  '*' 
brought  about  by  the  escape  of  penned-up  agricultural  produce,  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  the  imposition  of  a  tariff  on  the 
heavy  importations  that  followed  the  war. 

Several  important  changes  now  took  place  in  our  various  industries.    That 
department  of  agriculture  which  produced  food  was  depressed,  because  no 
longer  called  upon  by  Europe  for  such  large  supplies :  indeed,  our  foreign 
trade  in  food  did  not  again  develop  for  thirty  years.    Cotton  was  called  for 
more  than  ever  at  home  and  abroad,  and  its  culture  rapidly  developed.     In 
1818  fully  forty  per  cent  of  573,854,000  worth  of  exports  were  of  raw  cotton, 
or  more  than  double  what  they  were  in  1807.    The  commercial  interest  of 
New  England,  which  had  opposed  the  war,  and  had  been  prostrated  thereby, 
was  discouraged  by  the  falling-off  in  the  foreign  de.nand  for  food-products, 
and  still  more  by  the  resumption  of  their  own  carrying-trade  by  the  other 
countries.     It  will  be  discovered,  from  the  table  which  we  shall  presently  give, 
that  this  latter  branch  of  American  industry  never  regained  the  dimensions 
of  the  period  just  before  the  embargo.     Accordingly,  capital  was  withdrawn 
from  the  shipping-interest,  and  put  into  manufactures,  which  were  protracted 
by  the  increasing  tariffs  of  1816,  1818,  1819,  1824,  and  1828.     These,  in  turn, 
checked  the  importation  of  foreign  goods  after  the  first  rush  consequent  upon 
the  peace  of  1815.    The  combined  effect  of  all  these  causes  was  to  reduce 
our  imports,  lessen  our  re-exports,  increase  our  domestic  exports,  keep  the 
balance  of  trade  very  nearly  even,  and  induce  a  period  of  unusually  quiet, 
even  trade,  whose  proportions  were  rather  less  than  those  of  the  period  pre- 
ceding the   embargo  of  1808.      This  latter  fact  can  be   perceived    from   a 
comparison  of  the  following  figures  with  the  preceding  table  :  Average  exports 
of  domestic  produce  for  each  of  the  years  1821-30,  $53,610,502;    average 
foreign,  $22,964,383;    total  average  export  per  year,  $76,574,885;    average 
import,  $79,863,340. 

A  notable  feature  of  the  commerce  of  the  era  of  which  we  are  now  speak- 
ing was  the  endeavor  of  Great  Britain  to  control  it  by  more  peaceful  means, 
but  not  less  certainly  than  before,  by  making  her  ports  the  great  point  of 


i 


866 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


exchange  between  the  Uniteil  States  and  such  other  countries  as  traded 
Warehouta  with  her.  This  was  largely  effected  by  the  "  warehouse  system." 
•y»t«m.  « Inducements   were   held   out,"   says   Kettell,   "  by  facilities  of 

entry,  and  advances  on  merchandise,  to  attract  thither  the  protluce  of  all 
nations ;  because,  under  such  circumstances,  not  only  did  British  manufac- 
turers have  within  their  reach  the  raw  materials  of  all  manufactures,  but  trading- 
vessels  had  in  those  ample  warehouses  every  variety  of  goods  to  make  uj)  an 
assorted  cargo  for  any  voyage  in  the  world,  and  make  of  them  the  me<liuni  f)f 
selling  British  goods.  Thus  all  the  new  countries  of  America,  Africa,  and  Asia, 
offered  markets  which  would  absorb  small  quantities  of  a  great  variety  of 
articles ;  but  a  cargo  of  any  one  of  them  would  glut  them.  To  make  a  profita- 
ble voyage,  therefore,  a  cargo  should  be  composed  of  such  a  variety  of  wares 
as  would  all  sell  to  advantage.  If  Virginia  was  to  send  a  whole  cargo  of 
tobacco  to  Africa,  a  portion  of  it  would  sell,  and  the  remainder  be  a  dead 
stock,  and  the  voyage  a  losing  one.  The  same  thing  would  happen  to  a  cargo 
of  rum,  or  calicoes,  or  gunpowder,  or  hardware,  or  the  variety  of  articles  that 
make  up  the  wants  of  a  small  community.  If  a  vessel's  cargo  should  be  com- 
posed, in  proper  proportions,  of  all  these  articles,  the  whole  would  sell  well, 
and  the  voyage  pay ;  but  for  a  vessel  to  go  around  to  places  where  each  of 
these  articles  is  to  be  had,  and  so  collect  a  cargo,  is  expensive,  and  would  still 
result  in  loss.  The  English  warehouse  system  sought  to  supply  a  want  here 
by  attracting  into  them  all  possible  descriptions  of  tropical  and  other  produce. 
A  ship  might  then  make  up  her  cargo  for  any  part  of  the  world  at  the  smallest 
average  expense,  and  every  cargo  was  sure  to  be  completed  with  British  manu- 
factures. Under  such  circumstances,  they  could  compete  with  any  other  nation. 
The  advantage  was  so  manifest,  that  American  ships  would  go  out  in  ballast 
to  England,  to  fit  them  out  for  Asiatic  markets.  It  resulted  from  this,  that 
England  continued  to  be  the  recinient  of  most  American  produce,  not  only 
for  her  own  use,  but  for  export  elsewhere.  With  her  large  capital  she  ad- 
vanced on  the  produce,  and  so  controlled  it,  becoming  the  banker  for  the 
Americans.  The  nations  of  the  Continent,  slowly  recovering  from  the  effects 
of  the  long  wars,  began  to  manufacture  such  articles  as  found  sale  in  the 
United  States ;  while  they  did  not  purchase  largely  in  return.  China  furnished 
teas  and  silks,  and  got  its  pay  by  bills  drawn  against  American  credits  in 
London.  The  new  Bank  of  the  United  States  operated  the  credit,  giving  the 
China  merchant  a  six-months'  bill  on  London,  which  he  took  in  preference  to 
silver,  which  he  before  remitted.  These  bills  were  paid  out  for  the  tea,  and  by  the 
Hong-Kong  merchant,  who  received  them,  were  paid  to  the  British  East-India 
merchant  for  opium  or  raw  cotton.  By  the  latter  it  was  remitted  to  London, 
where  it  was  met  by  funds  already  provided  through  the  United-States  Bank  by 
sales  of  American  produce.  This  centralization  of  trade  in  England,  however, 
became  inconvenient.  The  American  ships  that  now  began  to  carry  cotton, 
tobacco,  rice,  and  some  breadstuff,  to  Europe,  had  thence  no  adequate  return- 


OF    THE    U XI TED    STATES. 


My 


freights,  because  those  countries  did  not  as  yet  offer  a  good  supply  of  merchan- 
dise. Soon,  however,  there  sprang  up  an  increasing  migration  to  the  United 
States  from  Germany,  across  France,  vid  Havre  j  and  these  passengers  became 
a  desirable  return-freight,  causing  a  change  in  tli  model  of  the  ships  engaged 
in  the  trade.  By  this  means  the  freight  was  reduced  ;  or  rather  the  ship  cofild 
carry  out  cotton  cheaper,  since  she  was  no  longer  compelled  to  return  empty. 
The  result  was,  therefore,  cheapened  transportation,  in  the  same  manner  that 
the  modification  of  the  navigation  laws,  enabling  ships  to  carry  cargoes  both 
ways,  had  chc.".pened  freight." 

We  now  approach  an  important  event  in  the  financial  and  industrial  his- 
tory of  this  country ;  namely,  the  panic  of  1837.  It  is  not  within  the  scope  of 
our  present  purpose  to  show  all  its  causes  and  effects,  but  merely  Panic  of  1837) 
its  relations  to  our  foreign  commerce.  Suffice  it,  therefore,  to  say,  =■"»=■  »'  >*• 
that  the  era  of  land  speculation  from  1830  to  1837  undermined  the  spirit  of 
industry,  and  lessened  our  production.  In  agricultural  circles,  cotton  was 
almost  the  only  commodity  that  continued  to  increase  in  yield  and  export ; 
and  this  it  did  steadily  and  rapidly.  As  for  food,  not  only  did  our  exports  fall 
away  to  almost  nothing,  but  in  1836  we  were  reduced  to  the  shameful  neces- 
sity oi  importing  \\\\QdX  from  Russia.  In  1831  the  high  tariff  on  imported 
manufactured  goods  was  greatly  reduced.  It  was  then  discovered,  that,  in  the 
movement  of  capital  after  the  war  of  1812-15,  more  was  invested  in  domestic 
manufactures  than  was  wise.  There  was  over-production,  and  pernicious 
competition  even  at  home.  The  reduction  of  the  tariff  let  in  a  flood  of  foreign 
goods  at  lower  prices,  and  still  further  paralyzed  the  manufacturing  industry ;  sa 
that  this  class  of  our  exports  fell  off.  By  consulting  the  table  which  we  shall  give^ 
a  few  pages  hence,  the  reader  will  see  how  abnormal  was  the  excess  of  imports 
over  our  exports  during  the  decade  1831-40.  In  the  year  1836  alone  this 
excess  amounted  to  upwards  of  $61,000,000,  which  was  twice  the  balance  of 
trade  against  us  during  the  whole  ten  years  prior  to  1 830.  As  a  further  indi- 
cation of  the  demoralized  condition  of  business,  it  may  be  remarked,  that  th^ 
increase  in  imports  was  chiefly  in  articles  of  luxury,  —  silks,  wines,  &c. ;  yet  in 
the  mean  time  we  were  doing  less  remunetative  labor  to  pay  for  such  things 
than  usual.  Thus,  while  the  imports  of  silk  rose  from  less  than  $6,000,000  in 
1831  to  $23,000,000  in  1836,  and  silks,  wines,  spirits,  and  sugar,  from  $13,550,- 
000  to  $41,850,000  in  the  same  period,  the  export  of  flour  and  other  pro- 
visions fell  from  $28,000,000  to  barely  more  than  $14,000,000.  At  this  period 
our  credit  was  remarkably  good  in  London ;  and  not  only  was  merchandise 
sent  here  on  credit,  but  capital  was  loaned  to  start  banks  in  the  West  wherewith 
to  promote  land  speculation.  The  crops  were  good  in  England,  money  was 
plenty,  and  capitalists  felt  liberal ;  besides,  the  large  fire  in  New  York  in  1835 
^- which  destroyed  $18,000,000  worth  of  goods,  and  created  a  special  demand 
from  abroad  to  that  extent  —  was  regarded  as  a  piece  of  good  fortune  for 
the  British  merchant,  rather  than  otherwise.     One  cauaC  that  operated  to  blind 


':4";T 


868 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


our  eyes  to  tlie  coming  collapse  was  the  over-estimate  of  the  value  of  our 
exports.  The  course  of  business  at  that  iiine  required  shipments  of  America.) 
produce,  mostly  cotton,  to  firms  abroad,  who  made  advances  on  the  consign 
ment  at  a  certain  ratio  less  than  the  faces  of  the  invoice.  The  produce  after- 
wards sold  for  the  account  of  the  owner,  and  not  infrequently  did  not  bring 
the  amount  of  the  advances.  Thus,  if  cotton  were  shipped  at  sixteen  cents  a 
pound,  and  twelve  cents  were  advanced,  the  amount  realized  might  be  only 
eleven  cents.  Hence  the  real  exports  of  the  country  were  not  always  ntcab- 
ured  by  the  export  value.  ' 

The  grand  crash  came  in  1837.  Like  all  such  crises  in  this  and  other 
coiuitries,  it  took  even  the  business-men  two  or  three  years  to  fully  understand 
Cauiei  not  how  it  camc  about,  and  the  people  even  longer.  At  length  it  was 
underitood.  realized  that  while  speculation  in  land  or  any  thing  else,  ample 
credits  from  home  and  foreign  capitalists,  and  plenty  of  banks-bills  based  u|)on 
credit,  gave  a  temporary  and  artificial  pros[>erity  to  a  nation,  the  only  basis  of  real 
./ealth  was  labor  in  the  production  of  something  to  sell,  and  enough  of  it  not 
only  to  supply  our  own  consumption,  but  al.so  to  send  abroad  to  pay  for  what 
we  bought  there.  Accordingly,  personal  and  mercantile  credits  came  to  an 
end,  individuals  and  merchants  stopped  running  in  debt,  and  the  country 
applied  itself  to  productive  industry.  The  effect  is  clearly  discerned  in  the 
statistics  given  in  our  next  table.  Our  imports  for  the  decade  ending  1850 
were  slightly  less  than  for  the  previous  ten  years,  and  our  exports  vastly  more  ; 
and  the  balance  of  trade  against  us  was  cut  down  from  1260,753,154  to 
^7,319,199  for  the  two  periods.  In  the  years  1813,  1821,  1825,  and  1827, 
owing  in  some  cases  to  abnormal  influences,  our  exports  had  exceeded  our 
imports,  but  only  to  a  slight  extent.  In  1825  the  excess  was  a  little  over 
^3,000,000,  which  was  more  than  in  any  of  the  other  years  here  named.  Ikt 
in  1840  the  country  had  so  well  mastered  the  teachings  of  the  recent  panic 
and  hard  times,  that  our  exports  exceeded  our  imports  by  $25,000,000.  We 
could  not  keep  up  this  advantage,  however.  Thrice  during  the  next  decade 
did  our  exports  exceed  our  imports:  in  1842  the  difference  was  $4,589,447, 
in  1844  it  w^  $2,765,011,  and  in  1847  it  was  $12,102,984.  Yet  in  the 
other  years  we  ran  behind  enough  to  wipe  this  all  out,  and  remain  $7,219,199 
in  debt  to  Europe ;  which,  however,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  was  a  vast 
reduction  compared  with  the  previous  ten  years. 

A  force  which  tended  to  equalize  trade  at  this  time  was  the  Irish  famine  of 
1846.  In  1842  the  British  Government  removed  the  prohibition  upon  inipor- 
irish  famine  tations  of  American  cattle  and  provisions,  and  reduced  the  duties 
of  1846.  on  com,  which  were  finally  abolished  in  1849.    Under  the  influ- 

ence of  the  former  enactments  the  export  of  dairy  products,  bacon,  barrelled 
pork  and  beef,  and  grain,  began  to  grow.  But,  when  the  tremenuous  demand 
of  1846  came,  a  wonderful  impetus  was  given  to  food  production  and  export, 
and  a  development  imparted  to  the  agricultural  interests  of  this  country  which 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


m 


rth  it  was 
,se,  ample 
ised  upon 
tsis  of  real 
I  of  it  not 
y  for  wlut 
ime  to  an 
le  country 
led  in  the 
iding  1850 
istly  more ; 

753.»54  to 
and  1827, 
;eeded  our 
little  over 
uned.    But 
(cent  panic 
,,000.    We 
[ext  decade 
.14,589,447- 
Yet  in  the 
$7,219,199 
was  a  vast 


has  since  steadily  continued.  Our  exports  rOR<'  Trom  $106,000,000  in  1841  to 
$150,000,000  in  1848  ;  and  the  gain  was  principally  in  food,  which  constituted 
one-half  of  the  value  of  the  exports  of  1847.  The  Irish  were  led  at  this  time 
to  adopt  corn  instead  of  potatoes  for  the  staple  of  their  diet.  From  this  and 
other  like  causes,  American  produce  obtained  a  permanent  foothold  in  the 
foreign  market ;  and,  although  a  slight  subsidence  in  the  trade  ensued  shortly, 
the  growth  soon  increased,  and  then  kept  up  steadily  and  rapidly  to  the 
present  day,  its  dimensions  rivalling  those  of  our  huge  cotton  export. 

The  heavy  export  of  produce  and  its  quick  cash  sales  in  1847  brought  us 
a  specie  import  of  $24,121,289,  —  a  receipt  never  before  paralleled  in  our 
history.    This  enlivened  business  wonderfully.     But  the  French  importation 
revolution  next  year,  turning  upon  property-rights,  depressed  the  °'  •?«<:»«. 
home-market  in  France,  and,  by  lowering  prices,  induced  a  heavy  temporary 
export  to  this  country,  which  soon  absorbed  our  extra  cash.    This  Tariff  of 
movement  was  facilitated  by  a  reduction  in  our  tariff  in  1846.  '"*•• 
Inasmuch  as  business  was  then  on  a  sound  basis  in  this  country,  no  harm  was 
experienced  in  consecjuence. 

The  next  remarkable  feature  of  American  commerce  was  the  heavy  export 
of  gold  bullion  resulting  from  the  discovery  of  mineral  wealth  in  California. 
Our  cotton  and  food  exports  had  already  risen  into  prominence.  Export  of 
As  yet,  petroleum  was  comparatively  unknown  j  and  American  buuion. 
manufactures,  while  steadily  growing  in  proportions  *  and  gaining  a  better  place 
in  our  own  markets,  were  advancing  but  slowly  in  competition  with  those  of 
E^ngland  in  the  other  emporiums  of  the  world.  In  1848  gold  was  found 
near  Capt.  Sutter's  fort  in  California.  Although  the  influx  of  adventurers 
quickly  attained  large  dimensions,  the  product  of  the  precious  metal  did  not 
amount  to  much  until  1850,  when  it  was  about  $9,000,000.  This  steadily 
increased,  and  our  total  export  of  bullion  for  the  following  decade  was 
$507,000,000.  The  gold  furore  here  and  in  Australia  stimulated  the  transpor- 
tation to  both  regions  of  immense  quantities  of  food,  clothing,  machinery,  and 
other  commodities,  thus  stimulating  both  our  import  and  export  trade ;  the 
former,  however,  more  than  the  latter.  In  1847,  for  the  eighth  time  in  our 
history,  our  exports  exceeded  our  imports.  This  was  the  case  again  in  1851. 
But  the  heavy  importation  of  goods  for  the  California  trade,  and  the  slight 
lelaxation  of  industry  for  purposes  of  gold-seeking  and  land  speculation,  turned 
the  balance  heavily  against  us  for  the  next  three  years ;  and  though  the  scales 
turned  again  in  our  favor  during  the  next  five  years,  yet  the  whole  decade  left 
us  indebted  to  the  Old  World  nearly  $11,000,000.' 


'i 


'■•.«i 


[;.■'■     ( 


'  The  total  value  of  our  manufactures  caught  up  with  that  of  agricultural  production,  and  passed  it  for- 
ever in  the  race  shortly  before  1850. 

'  Only  thrice  since  1834  has  the  balance  of  trade  been  against  this  country.  It  is  noteworthy,  that  whereas, 
prior  to  1850,  the  balance  of  Kritish  trade  was  in  favor  of  that  kingdom,  it  has  since  been  increasingly  the  othet 
way.    The  imports  and  exports  of  France  are  almost  identical 


S76 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


•  *    It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  here  the  causes  of  the  panic  of  1857,  or 

to  show  its  general  resemblance  to  the  one  twenty  years  before.     It  is  eiioiij^li 

to  say  here  that  it  was  preceiled  by  heavy  foreign  cretlits,  and  l)v 
Panic  of  1837.     ,       '  ,■  -•      •  1        I  I       .        • 

the  extensive  investment  of  foreign  capital  in  the  railroads  ol  iIil- 

Mississippi  and  Ohio  Valleys,  which  were  called  for  by  the  sudden  agricultural 

development  of  that  region,  and  to  build  which  immense  (piantities  of  rails 

were  imported  from  Kngland.      'I'hc  general  effect  of  that  j)anic  upon  Diir 

commerce  was  to  slightly  diminish  our  exports,  ami  largely  lessen  our  imports, 

the  following  year;  but  that  was  about  all.     An  attendant  circumstance,  if  not 

one  cause,  of  the  panic  of  1857,  was  the  failure  of  the  Louisiana  sugar-crop, 

which  caused  us  to  import  $55,000,000  worth  of  that  commodity,  or  five  times 

the  amount  imported  in  1850. 

\      It  will  be  seen  by  the  following  table,  that  while  it  took  the  country  full  ten 

years  to  learn  the  lessons  of  the  panic  of  1837,  and  to  recover  from  the  effects 

of  it,  the  interval  from  1850  to  i860  was  one  of  remarkable  prosi)erity.     Our 

total  trade  with  foreign  lands  during  the  decade  immediately  preceding  our 

civil  war  was  more  than  during  the  twenty  years  prior  to  1851. 


1791-1800 

1801-10  . 

l8tI-20  . 

1821-30  . 

1831-40  . 

1841-50  . 

1851-450  . 


DOMESTIC 
II  TOUTS. 


$293,634,645 
383,401,077 
462,701,288 
536,104,918 
892,889,909 
1,1  1,458,801 
2,71,      .^9,881 


FORRK.N 
BXrOKTS. 


1191,344,293 

372.536.294 
127,190,714 
229,643,834 

I99.4S'.994 
129,105,782 
226,950,036 


TOTAL 

EX(-UKi:i 


$484,968,938 

755.937.37 1 
589,892,002 

765.748.752 
1,092,351,903 
1,260,564,583 
3.993.749.9'7 


IMPORTS. 


$591,845,454 
927,663,500 
688,120,347 
798.633.427 

i,302,476,oS4 
1,267,783,782 
3,004,591,285 


BAI.ANl  K  or 
TNAUK. 


$106,876,516 

171,726,1:9 

98,228,545 

30.3s  J/^^G 
260,753,154 

7.219.  "J9 
10,841,368 


In  estimating  the  influence  of  our  civil  war  upon  American  commerce,  it 
needs  to  be  remembered  that  commerce  and  transportation  are  not  identical. 
Effect  of  civU  ^Vhile  it  was  unsafe  to  ship  goods  under  the  American  flag  while 
war  upon  the  rebel  cruisers  were  afloat,  there  was  no  interference  with  such 
commerce.  xxzAt  as  was  carried  on  in  foreign  bottoms.  The  rebel  cruisers 
depredated  upon  our  fishing-fleets,  especially  our  whalers ;  but  still  greater 
damage  was  done  to  this  latter  branch  of  industry  by  the  marvellous  and 
sudden  development  of  our  petroleum  product  just  before  and  during  the 
war.  We  may  attribute  to  the  war,  then,  the  diminution  of  our  exports  of  fish 
and  oil. 

The  real  harm  done  to  commerce  by  this  internecine  conflict  was  the 
Effect  upon  lessening  of  actual  production  and  the  impairment  of  our  credit, 
production     The  former  effect  was  most  marked  in  the  stoppage  of  cotton- 

ere  t.  culture,  and  consequently  of  cotton-exports.  This  is  the  principal 
explanation  of  the  falling-off  of  domestic  exports  noticeable  in  the  table  which 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


871 


we  shall  shortly  give.  The  capture  of  New  Orleans  opened  up  a  small  supply 
of  the  stored  crop  of  i860,  which  now  l)ej;an  to  find  its  way  to  market.  The 
great  bulk  of  the  hidden  cotton,  though,  was  not  obtained  until  1865  ;  and  it 
figured  in  the  exports  of  the  following  year.  I'or  four  or  five  years  after  the 
war,  cotton-culture  recuperated  slowly  ;  but  since  1870  it  has  figured  as  promi- 
nently among  our  exports  as  before  the  war.  The  impairment  of  credit,  and 
consecpient  high  prices,  lessened  importation  ;  but,  when  the  Rebellion  was 
suppressed,  confidence  in  the  ability  of  American  merchants  to  pay  recovered, 
anil  importation  increased.  The  total  dimensions  of  our  trade  from  1861  to 
1865  inclusive  was  much  less  than  from  1856  to  i860  inclusive:  but  the 
balance  of  trade  was  even  more  in  our  f;xvor  during  the  war-period  than  during 
the  corresponding  interval  before ;  so  that  the  people  of  the  country,  in  the 
capacity  of  private  persons,  more  than  paid  Europe  for  what  she  sold  us  by 
their  labor. 

Two  notable  features  of  the  war-period  of  our  history  were  the  sudden 
development  of  our  petroleum-industry,  and  the  discovery  and  i>roduction  of 
the  famous  Comstock  lode,  each  of  which  is  treated  at  length  in   ug^,^,^ 
other  departments  of  this  book ;   but  we  mention  them  here  to   ment  of 
say  that  the  two  products  formed  a  conspicuous  part  of  our  exports   p**"'*"'"' 
during  the  era  of  which  we  are  now  speaking.     Gold  had  fiillen 
off  in  production  and  export ;  and,  shortly  after  the  war,  silver  lessened  gradu- 
ally also.    The  petroleum-export,  however,  has  steadily  increased. 

Two  influences  growing  out  of  the  war  exerted  a  peculiarly  stimulating 
effect  on  production,  and  so  increased  our  trade  immediately  upon  the  termi- 
nation of  hostilities.  One  was  the  imposition  of  a  heavy  tariff 
on  imports,  which  promoted  manufacturing ;  and  the  other  was 
the  invention,  manufacture,  and  extensive  use  of  labor-saving  machinery  for 
both  agricultural  and  manufacturing  purposes.  These  facilities  were  needed 
to  replace  the  men  called  off  by  the  army  and  navy.  When  the  survivors 
came  back,  the  new  facilities  enabled  the  country  to  hugely  augment  its  pro- 
duction in  all  departments  of  industry.  The  effect  was  to  greatly  increase  our 
export  of  food  of  all  kinds,  slightly  increase  our  export  of  manufactures,  and 
lessen  our  importation  of  the  latter. 

The  panic  of  1873  and  consequent  period  of  "hard  times  "  were  brought 
on  by  chiefly  the  same  causes  as  induced  the  paries  of  1837  and  1857.  First, 
there  was  an  immense  over-production  of  manufactured  goods;  panicof 
second,  agricultural  activity  had  led  to  the  construction  of  new  ''^a-  '  ' 
railroads,  notably  the  Northern  Pacific,  which  were  not  really  needed ;  third, 
credits  were  vastly  overstrained  for  personal  luxury  and  indulgence,  commer- 
cial extension,  and  speculation  in  oil-lands,  mining-stocks,  and  railroad-build- 
ing ;  fourth,  an  inflated  paper  currency  had  imparted  false  values  to  property, 
which  now  began  to  shrink.  That  usual  prelude  to  a  panic,  a  remarkable 
excess  of  imports  over  exports,  was  noticeable  in  1872      In  1871  we  exported 


War-tariff. 


872 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


;J5o,ooo,ooo  more  than  we  imported  :  in  1872  we  imported  if 68,000,000  more 
than  we  exported.  So  much  for  causes.  The  effect  of  the  panic  at  home  was 
to  check  manufacturing,  lessen  credits,  reduce  consumption  by  promoting  per- 
sonal and  individual  economy,  lower  prices,  stay  importation,  and  facilitate 
export.  Hence,  on  the  whole,  our  foreign  commerce  has  been  enlarged  since 
the  panic ;  but,  as  the  surplusage  of  manufactured  products  has  been  worked 
off,  the  export  trade  has  slightly  diminished,  and  importation  begun  to  revive. 
This  and  several  other  facts  referred  to  in  the  last  page  or  two  will  appear  from 
the  following  table  :  —  c 


DOMESTIC 

FOREIGN 

TOTAL 

YEAR 

EXPORTS. 

EXPORTS. 

EXPORTS. 

IMPORTS. 

BALANCE. 

i86o»       .       . 

$373,189,274 

f  26,933,02  2 

{^400,122,296 

$362,166,254 

)?37,956,042 

I86I 

228,699,486 

20,645,427 

249.344.913 

286,598,135 

37,253,222* 

1862 

213,069,519 

8,147.771 

222,217,290 

205,771,729 

14,445,461 

1863 

305,884,998 

26,123,584 

332,008,582 

252,919,920 

79,089,662 

1864 

320,035,199 

20,256,940 

341.292,739 

329,562,895 

11,729,844 

1865 

306,306,758 

30.390.365 

336,697,123 

234,434,167 

2,262,956 

1866 

550,684,277 

14,742,117 

565,426.394 

445,512,158 

119,914,236 

1867 

438.S77.3'2 

20,611,508 

459,188,820 

417,831,571 

41,357.249 

1868 

454.301.713 

22,601,126 

476,902,839 

371,624,808 

105,278,031 

1869 

4t3,96i,iis 

25.173.414 

439.«34.529 

437,3'4,25S 

1,820,274 

1870 

499,092,143 

30,427,159 

529,519,302 

462,377,587 

67,141,715 

187 1 

562,518,651 

28,459.899 

59 '.978.550 

541,493,708 

50,484,842 

1872 

549,219,718 

22,769,749 

571,989,467 

640,338,766 

68,349,299" 

1873 

649,132,563 

28,149,511 

677,282,074 

663,617,147 

13,664,927 

1874 

693.039.054 

23.780,338 

716,819,392 

595,861,248 

120,958,144 

187s 

5S9.237.63S 

22,432,724 

581,690,362 

553,906,153 

27,784,209 

1876* 

685.545.352 

23.3".538 

708,856,890 

461,818,499 

247.038,39i 

1877 » 

671,632,366 

23,618,923 

695,251,289 

504,013,000 

191,238,289 

The  necessity  for  finding  an  outlet  for  our  excessive  stock  of  domestic 
manufactures  has  led  to   much  enterprise   in  the  way  of  reaching  foreign 

markets  formerly  occupied  almost  exclusively  by  Europe.  To 
finding  new  India,  China,  and  Brazil  especially,  within  the  past  four  years, 
outlets  for      extensive  exportation  of  American  goods  has  been  effected.     Tills 

is  particularly  the  case  with  cotton-cloths ;  although,  besides  these, 
we  have  been  able  to  stop  the  sale  of  other  foreign  articles  in  our  own  markets, 
and  compete  successfully  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Paper  of  all  grades, 
from  the  finest  stationery  to  the  coarsest  wrappings  and  pasteboard,  now  goes 

'  The  figures  here  given  for  :86o  and  the  next  sixteen  years  are  for  the  fiscal  years  enuins  June  30,  not 
the  calendar  years  ending  Dec.  31.  The  calendar  year  i860  shows  a  balance  of  trade  against  us  ol  thirty-four 
million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  which  here  enters  into  the  statement  of  the  fiscal  year  t86i. 

*  Balance  against  us.    The  other  balances  here  given  are  in  our  favor. 

*  Calendar,  not  fiscal  year. 


«.'  m 


OF    THE   UNITED    STATES. 


873 


0,000  more 
it  home  was 
moting  per- 
id  facilitate 
larged  since 
)een  worked 
in  to  revive, 
appear  from 


BALANCE. 


$37,956,042 
37,253,222* 

14,445.461 
79,089,662 

11,729,844 

2,262,956 

119,914,236 

41,357.249 

105,278,031 

1,820,274 

67,i4«.7i5 
50,484.842 
68,349.299' 
13,664,927 
120,958,144 
27,784.209 

247.038.39' 
191,238,289 


of  domestic 

[ching  foreign 

Europe.    'l"o 

1st  four  years, 

Iffected.    Tliis 

Ibesides  thesi.-, 

own  markets, 

I  of  all  grades. 

lard,  nuw  goes 

,iir.2  June  30.  "<" 
nst  lis  ol  thirly-foiir 
I1861. 


abroad.  Agricultural  implements  go  in  vast  quantities  to  Europe  and  else- 
where. This  movement  is  still  further  aided  by  the  efforts  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment at  Washington,  under  President  Hayes,  to  utilize  the  consular  service  in 
finding  out  what  American  commodities  might  find  a  better  market  in  each 
quarter  of  the  globe  where  our  nation  is  represented.  We  can  give  this  chap- 
ter no  more  fitting  conclusion,  perhaps,  than  the  following  analysis  of  our 
export  trade  for  1875,  which  appeared  in  "  The  New- York  Times  ;  " — 

The  value  of  our  foreign  exports  can  be  expressed  by  nine  figures ;  but  the 
character  of  that  branch  of  our  commerce,  —  the  articles,  quantities,  and 
values  embraced,  —  and  its  world-wide  diffusiveness,  cannot  fail  to  vaiue  of 
interest  and  instruct  those  not  in  the  habit  of  making  their  own  ««?<>««. 
generalizations  fron»  confusing  statistical  tables.  The  entire  value  of  merchan- 
dise exported  from  the  United  States  during  the  last  fiscal  year,  computed  in 
national  currency,  was  $693,039,054.  The  gold  valuation  of  the  same  was 
1652,913,445  ;  which  is  greater  than  the  valuation  of  our  foreign  imports  for 
the  same  period  by  over  $57,000,000,  aiid  the  balance  of  trade  is  consequently 
in  our  favor  by  that  amount.  Many  of  the  articles  enumerated  in  the  list  of 
exports  which  are  grown  or  manufactured  in  the  United  States  are  also  found 
in  the  list  of  articles  imported  from  abroad.  The  simple  statement  of  this  fact 
should  suffice  to  show  the  folly  of  Americans  sending  their  money  abroad  for 
articles  which  may  be  purchased  at  much  lower  prices,  and  of  equally  good 
quality,  at  our  own  manufactories. 

As  the  United  States  furnish  the  principal  market  for  the  sale  of  British 
merchandise,  so  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies  offer  the  principal 
markets  for  our  exported  productions.  We  sent  to  the  mar':ets  of  Q„gntit 
that  nation  during  the  last  fiscal  year  merchandise  to  the  value  of  shipped  to 
$440,045, 8 70  :  which  is  nearly  two- thirds  of  the  entire  value  of  all  ^"'■'""'» 
our  exports  for  that  period.  Of  that  amount  there  was  shipped 
direct  to  England  $308,876,292,  and  to  Ireland  and  Scotland  $64,690,216. 
The  value  of  merchandise  received  last  year  from  Great  Britain  was  $?55,- 
180,597  gold.  Next  to  Great  Britain,  Gevmany  is  our  best  customer,  $64, 344,- 
622  being  our  receipts  for  her  purchases.  To  France  and  her  dependencies 
we  shipped  $50,485,045  worth  of  merchandise,  of  which  France  received 
c'irectly  over  $50,000,000  worth.  Spain  and  her  colonies  paid  us  $33,505,549, 
of  which  there  was  from  the  mother-country  $11,643,715,  and  from  Cuba 
$19,597,981.  To  Belgium  we  sent  merchandise  valued  at  $20,197,515  ;  to 
the  Netherlands,  $15,156,309  ;  Russia,  $10,284,803  ;  Italy,  $8,378,666;  Tur- 
key, $2,549,493;  Denmark,  ,*i2,430,79i  ;  Norway  and  Sweden,  $2,385,088; 
China,  $1,629,165  ;  Japan,  $1,808,107 ;  Brazil,  $7,562,852;  United  States  of 
Colombia,  $5,123,845;  Mexico,  $4,073,679;  Hayti,  $4,265,686;  Chili, 
$2,730,617;  Peru,  $2,518,494;  Argentine  Republic,  $2,478,513;  Venezuela, 
$2,384,139.  The  countries  named  are  the  largest  markets  for  the  sale  and 
consumption  of  our  productions.    The  countries  which  purchased  least  from 


■•     !:■ 


874 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


US  are  Greece,  $32,668  ;  Liberia,  $123,463  ;  San  Domingo,  $514,633  ;  and  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  $623,280. 

If  cotton  is  no  longer  called  king,  it  is  still  the  largest  and  most  valuable 
article  of  export,  and  brought  to  this  country  last  year  $211,223,580.  In 
Shiptnenu  exchange  for  that  large  sum  of  money  we  exported  2,903,075 
of  cotton.  bales,  or  1,358,602,303  pounds.  Of  that  quantity  England  alone 
received  over  875,000,000  pounds,  and  paid  us  $136,952,187.  From  France 
we  received  for  the  same  staple  $27,187,222;  from  Germany,  $17,250,000 ; 
Russia,  $8,479,481;  Spain,  $8,266,178;  Ireland,  $3,855,303;  the  Nether- 
lands, $2,779,265  ;  Italy,  $1,974,114.  In  cotton-fabrics  we  exported  17,872,- 
322  yards,  valued  at  $2,350,000.  It  will  surprise  many  readers  to  learn  that 
England  received  of  those  fabrics  1,145,786  yards,  valued  at  $132,857.  Brazil, 
however,  bought  most  of  our  exported  cotton-fabrirs,  the  yards  numbering 
2,236,950,  of  which  the  value  was  $291,674.  France,  which  taxes  us  so 
heavily  for  fabrics  of  her  own  manufacture,  bought  only  $8,000  of  our  cotton- 
fabrics  ;  while  Germany  patronized'  us  in  that  line  of  goods  to  the  value  of 
$46,000.  ;:  ;  -  ,         v  "  '  .    i  ■• 

The  Chinese  consumed  of  our  cotton-fabrics  1,749,440  yards,  paying  us 
$204,354  ;  which  is  a  sum  equal  to  twice  the  amount  we  paid  China  for  fire- 
Cotton-  crackers.     Chili  took  1,680,960  yards,  and   sent  us,  to  pay  for 

fabrica.  them,  $210,970 ;  while  Mexico  bought  1,363,915  yards  'or  $158,- 

366.  The  remainder  of  that  class  of  fabrics  went  to  Asiatic  and  South-Ameri- 
can countries,  the  British  East  Indies  receiving  nearly  $75,000  worth.  The 
other  exported  articles  manufactured  "rom  cotton,  and  not  enumerated  above, 
are  valued  at  $745,850.  Our  total  receipts  for  exported  raw  cotton  and  manu- 
factures of  cotton  foot  up  $215,089,081.  Our  imported  manufactures  of  cot- 
ton for  the  year  were  valued  at  less  than  $25,000,000. 

Breadstuffs  are  next  to  cotton  in  valuation  of  exports,  amounting  to  $161,- 
198,864.  These  were  consigned  to  nearly  every  nation  on  the  globe,  tue  only 
The  BtarvifiK  European  countries  not  receiving  them  being  Austria,  Denmark, 
Greece,  Norway  and  Sweden,  and  Turkey.  Of  wheat  we  exported 
71,039,928  bushels,  valued  at  $101,421,459;  wheat-flour,  4,094,- 
094  barrels,  valued  at  $29,258,094 ;  Indian-corn,  34,434,606  bushels,  valued 
at  $24,769,951.  England  receives  most  jf  our  breadstuffs.  43,128,552 
bushels  of  wheat,  1,307,286  barrels  of  wheat-flour,  and  10,299,483  bushels  of 
Indian-corn,  went  to  her  markets  last  year.  Scotland  received  3,903,630 
bushels  of  wheat,  353,495  barrels  flour,  and  2,235,026  bushels  com ;  wliile 
Ireland  received  17,609,837  bushels  wheat,  43,203  barrels  flour,  and  13,764,- 
814  bushels  com,  which  was  more  than  one-third  of  the  entire  quantity  of  corn 
exported  during  the  year.  France  took  2,223,366  bushels  wheat,  7,260  barrels 
flour,  and  452,951  bushels  com  ;  and  Germany  bought  886,485  bushels  wheat, 
31,960  barrels  flour,  and  825,620  bushels  com. 

France  bought  three  times  as  much  flour  as  Germany ;  while  Germany 


milliont  fed. 
Breadstuff!. 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


875 


m 


Lile  Germany 


bought  three  times  as  much  wheat  as  France,  and  twice  as  much  corn.  In  the 
same  time  Ireland  consumed  six  times  as  much  of  our  wheat  as  both  France 
and  Germany,  thirteen  times  as  much  corn  as  both  these  countries,  six  times 
as  much  flour  as  France,  and  twice  as  much  as  Germany.  Belgium  received 
3,709,694  bushels  wheat,  72,401  barrels  flour,  and  84,798  bushels  corn  ;  Neth- 
erlands, 3,160,435  bushels  wheat,  26,389  barrels  flour,  and  51,718  bushels  corn. 
Of  barley  we  exported  320,399  bushels,  valued  at  $210,738;  oats,  812,873 
bushels,  valued  at  $383,762;  rye,  1,564,48.'  bushels,  valued  at  $1,568,362. 
Of  Indian-corn  meal  we  shipped  387,807  barrels,  worth  $1,529,399  ;  and  rye- 
flour,  59,820  barrels,  worth  $388,313.  We  also  exported  11,142,429  pounds 
of  bread  and  biscuit,  worth  $676,197,  the  greater  part  of  which  is  consumed 
in  the  British  West  Indies.  Belgium  and  Germany  consumed  about  two-thirds 
of  the  rye  exported,  and  Cuba  more  than  one-half  of  the  rye-flour.  Canada 
and  the  West  Indies  bought  most  of  the  Indian-corn  meal ;  while  the  British 
West-India  islands,  Honduras,  and  Guiana  consumed  over  seven  of  the 
eleven  million  pounds  of  bread  and  biscuit  exported.  Peru  received  135,193 
bushels  of  barley,  being  over  one-third  of  the  entire  quantity  exported  ;  Eng- 
land took  over  79,000  bushels;  and  24,752  bushels  went  to  British  Australasia. 
One  half  of  all  the  oats  exported  went  to  Canada ;  the  other  half  going  to  the 
West  Indies,  Central  and  South  America,  and  Eastern  Asia. 

The  value  of  provisions  other  than  breadstuffs  exported  was  $78,317,087. 
Bacon  and  hams,  beef,  butter,  cheese,  eggs,  lard,  pork,  fish,  anJ  vegetables  are 
embraced  under  this  head,  and  were  distributed  over  the  whole  Bacon  beef 
world.  Bacon  and  ham  lead  the  list;  347,405,405  being  the  num-  and  other 
ber  of  pounds,  and  $33,383,908  the  valuation.  The  beef  was  p"^'*"""*- 
valued  at  $2,956,676,  and  the  4,367,983  pounds  of  butter  at  $1,092,381  ; 
which  is  just  $100,000  more  than  enough  to  pay  for  the  sardines  we  imported 
from  Europe  last  year.  We  distributed  abroad  90,611,077  pounds  of  cheese, 
which  brought  us  $11,898,995.  It  may  be  stated  here,  by  way  of  comparison, 
that  we  paid  last  year  for  outter  and  cheese  imported  $1,354,495  gold.  Eng- 
land is  the  largest  consumer  of  our  cheese,  nearly  70,000,000  pounds  having 
been  the  amouit  sent  her.  Germany  bought  over  i  ",000,000  pounds,  and 
Scotland  nearly  9,000,000.  China  and  Japan  each  took  about  29,000  pounds, 
and  14,000  pounds  went  to  the  Sandwich  Islands.  The  West  Indies  consumed 
the  greater  portion  of  the  remainder.  Germany  bought  from  us  64,436,920 
pounds  of  lard;  England,  33,581,107  pounds;  Belgium,  28,174,335  pounds; 
Cuba,  22,186,472  pounds;  France,  9,937,387  pounds;  Scotland,  9,429,771 
pounds.  The  entire  quantity  of  lard  exported  was  205,527,471  pounds,  valued 
at  $19,308,019.  Ireland,  Russia,  and  Turkey  are  the  only  European  countries 
which  did  not  purchase  lard  from  the  United  States.  Of  pork  we  exported 
70,482,379  pounds,  worth  $5,808,712.  About  one-third  of  the  pork  went  to 
Europe.  Of  the  West-India  islands,  Hayti  bought  10,976,705  pounds,  and 
Porto  Rico  2,476,262  pounds.  For  onions  exported  we  received  $52,000,  and 
for  potatoes  $471,332. 


i* 


ii/i 


m 


n 


876 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


For  green  and  dried  fruits  we  received  $994,163.  The  dried  apples  ex- 
ported weighed  4,234,736  pounds,  the  valuation  being  $294,893.  Of  this 
Dried  and  article  Germany  bought  2,811,915  pounds,  or  more  than  half  of 
green (ruiti.  all  that  was  exported;  the  Netherlands  bought  489,612  pounds; 
Australia,  226,332;  England,  209,389;  France,  59,358;  Japan,  21,644; 
China,  2,371.  Of  green  apples  we  sent  abroad  123,533  barrels,  worth  S204,- 
312.  Of  these  England  received  36,814  barrels ;  Scotland,  27,085  ;  Germany, 
2,427;  Sandwich  Islands,  2,109;  Liberia,  1,286;  Australia,  300;  Russia,  29; 
Mexico,  6,547 ;  and  Cuba,  4,729.  For  fruit  other  than  apples  we  received 
$211,308,  and  for  canned  fruits  $283,649. 

For  iron,  and  manufactures  of  iron,  we  received  $9,5  78,694,  and  for  steel 
$4,119,344.  Machinery  was  shipped  to  almost  every  nation  in  the  world; 
Iron,  steel,  bringing  US,  in  return,  $3,357,909.  For  our  machinery  Germany 
machinery,  paid  $908,883;  England,  $197,134;  Scotland,  $84,724;  France, 
and  tool!.  $17,773;  Belgium,  $28,532;  Japan,  $99,295;  China,  $7,228; 
British  East  Indies,  $2,079  J  Cuba,  $559,679 ;  Mexico,  $383,006 ;  Peru, 
$229,564;  Canada,  $270,000;  United  States  of  Colombia,  $208,669.  We 
sent  abroad  seventy-nine  locomotives,  valued  at  $1,147,366.  Of  these  Russia 
took  fourteen ;  Cuba,  twelve  ;  Chili,  nineteen ;  Brazil,  thirteen  ;  Canada,  nine ; 
Argentine  Republic,  four ;  Mexico  and  the  Central-American  States,  each  three ; 
and  Peru,  two.  For  the  forty-eight  stationary  steam-engines  exported  were 
paid  us  $74,749  :  all  these,  except  one  sent  to  Liberia,  were  purchased  by 
neighboring  American  countries.  American  stoves  to  the  value  of  $102,398 
were  pretty  well  distributed  among  foreign  nations,  England  even  purchasing 
to  the  extent  of  $1,000.  Of  manufactures  of  steel  we  sold  abroad  edge-tools 
to  the  value  of  $941,016  ;  cutlery,  $47,162  ;  files  and  saws,  $21,496  ;  muskets, 
pistols,  and  rifles,  $2,340,138;  other  manufactures  of  steel,  $225,457.  Most 
of  our  cutlery  went  to  Canada  and  to  countries  south  of  the  United  States. 
England  took  $906  worth;  France,  $510;  Germany,  $483.  For  edge-tools 
Germany  paid  us  $34,836 ;  England,  $19,425  ;  France  bought  none.  Our 
best  market  ibr  edge-tools  was  the  United  States  of  Colombia,  where  we  sold 
$324,121.  Australia  bought  from  us  to  the  value  of  $122,945  ;  Mexico,  $113,- 
697;  Canada,  $97,171  ;  Brazil,  $75,292.  Australia  sent  us  for  files  and  saws 
$4,852;  Mexico,  $2,812;  Cuba,  $2,547;  Canada,  $6,667;  England,  $703. 
For  fire-arms  England  paid  us  $774,598  ;  Germany,  $288,719  ;  France,  $1,750; 
Turkey,  $169,960;  Cuba,  $496,426  ;  Argentine  Republic,  $239,192  ;  Mexico, 

$113,846. 

The  total  value  of  agricultural  '  nplements  sent  abroad  was  $3,089,753. 
These  are  classified  as  follows:  S....^ -three  fanning-mills,  valued  at  $2,645; 
Agricultural  horse-powers,  fifty-nine,  valued  at  $30,685  ;  mowers  and  reapers, 
impiementa.  16,139,  valued  at  $1,797,130;  ploughs  and  cultivators,  17,639, 
valued  at  $236,203  ;  other  implements  valued  at  $1,023,090.  All  the  fanning- 
mills  went  to  Canada ;  Chili  bought  all  the  horse-powers  except  one,  which 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


877 


was  sent  to  Scotland;  Germany  purchased  9,613  mowers  and  reapers,  more 
than  one-half  of  all  exported,  for  which  she  paid  $1,167,323  ;  England  bought 
3,838;  France,  1,030;  Sweden  and  Norway,  462;  Russia,  187;  Chih,  171; 
Scotland,  146;  Argentine  Republic,  292;  Canada,  293;  Netherlands,  52; 
Australia,  12  :  the  rest  were  scattered  over  the  West  Indies  and  South 
America.  More  than  one-half  of  all  the  ploughs  and  cultivators  exported  went 
to  the  British  possessions  in  Africa,  the  exact  number  being  10,504  :  Chili  took 
2,423;  Argentine  Republic,  1,938;  Peru,  593;  Uruguay,  697;  Brazil,  237; 
Mexico,  132;  Cuba,  274.  Only  eighty-five  were  sent  to  Europe,  of  which 
England  received  eighty-three,  and  France  two.  The  Sandwich  Islands  bought 
thirteen ;  Australia,  sixty-two ;  Japan,  two.  The  miscellaneous  implements 
were  pretty  widely  distributed.  About  $300,000  worth  went  to  Europe,  and 
the  rest  to  the  West  Indies,  and  to  Central  and  South  America. 

We  exported  last  year  books  to  the  value  of  $584,950.  The  records  of 
the  exports  show  that  readers  of  American  books  are  to  be  found  in  all  parts 
of  the  world.  For  books  we  received  from  England  $95,688 ;  and  American 
from  Canada,  who  was  our  largest  purchaser  of  books,  $138,189.  books. 
Germany  paid  for  our  books  $26,515;  France,  $7,515;  Brazil,  $82,222;  the 
United  States  of  Colombia,  $77,809  ;  Japan,  $32,664  ;  the  Argentine  Republic, 
$23,821;  Cuba,  $23,779;  Mexico,  $16,207;  Australia,  $14,268;  China, 
$8,758:  Sandwich  Islands,  $4,627.  Other  countries  purchased  in  amounts 
ranging  from  $100  up  to  the  lowest  sum  specified  above. 

The  coal  exported  reached  763,402  tons,  valued  at  $3,823,750 ;  all  of  which, 
except  about  2,000  tons,  went  to  American  countries.  For  clocks  we  received 
$1,070,822;  England  contributing  of  that  amount  $533,600;  Ger-  Unclassified 
many,  $103,688;  Japan,  $61,485;  China,  $12,461.  Nearly  "**<:•«»• 
$10,000  worth  of  American  watches  were  also  sent  abroad  to  record  the  pas- 
sage of  time.  For  carriages  and  carts  we  received  $578,433,  most  of  the 
trade  being  with  American  countries.  Germany,  however,  purchased  American 
carriages  to  the  value  of  $22,924;  and  England.  $12,840.  We  sent  billiard- 
tables  around  the  globe,  and  received,  in  return  therefor,  $59,378  ;  of  which  sum 
the  United  States  of  Colombia  contributed  $24,930.  For  brooms  and  brushes 
we  received  from  nearly  all  the  countries  in  the  world  $127,593  ;  and  for  shoe- 
blacking,  over  $76,000.  For  cables  and  cordage,  rope  and  twine,  we  received 
$1,379,462  ;  and  for  hides  and  skins  other  than  fur,  $2,560,382.  Hoop-skirts 
are  going  out  of  fashion,  and  last  year  we  sold  abroad  only  $15,302  worth. 
For  combs  we  received  $7,535  :  on  the  contrary,  we  sent  to  foreign  countries 
^409,029  for  combs  during  the  same  period.  Whether  we  should  have  ex- 
ported more  combs,  had  we  imported  less,  is  referred  to  American  comb-makers 
for  discussion.  For  oils  of  all  kinds,  including  the  products  of  our  oil-wells, 
we  received  $41,121,707.  For  naval  stores  we  were  paid  $7,384,570.  Tobacco 
brought  us  $32,968,528, — a  sum  about  equal  to  what  we  paid  for  our  imported 
silk-goods.     Tobacco  was  chiefly  exported  in  the  leaf;  and  the  number  of 


5   i,;  3  IS 


878 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY   OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


pounas  was  318,097,804,  and  the  value  ^30,399,181.  Over  100,000,000 
pounds  of  leaf-io'oacco  went  to  Germany,  and  about  63,000,000  to  Great 
Britain.  We  received  for  distilled  spirits  $1,164,616;  and  for  beer,  ale,  and 
porter,  $39,602.  During  the  same  period  we  paid  foreigners  for  malt  liquors 
over  $2,500,000.  For  7,435,064  pounds  of  starch  we  received  $420,809.  The 
living  animals  exported  yielded  $3,310,388.  They  were, — hogs,  158,581,  val- 
ued at  $1,625,837  ;  horned  cattle,  56,067,  valued  at  $1,150,857  ;  sheep,  124,- 
248,  valued  at  $159,735;  horses,  1,432,  valued  at  $169,303;  mules,  1,252, 
valued  at  $174,125  ;  all  other  cattle  exp)orted,  together  with  fowls,  were  valued 
at  $30,531.  Little  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  entire  value  of  exports  was  carried 
in  American  vessels,  the  record  standing  thus  :  Exported  in  American  vessels, 
$165,998,880;  exported  in  foreign  vessels,  $521,394,909. 


BOOK    VI. 


TRADE-UNIONS  AND  EIGHT-HOUR  MOVEMENT. 


they  dv    ^ 

over  their 

obedience 

that,  in  su 

•noting  the 

when  the  i 

individual, 

trade-unior 

be  condeni 

Trade-i 

men  were 

no  organizi 

employer  o 

Great  facte 

daily  assem 

same  table, 

questions  ir 

have  sprung 

menting  the 

Lowell,  Pitt 

nearly  all  th 

Railways 

forming  the 

render  fratei 

the  operativ 

scattered  inc 

some  pecun 

among  worki 


CHAPTER    I. 


'\ 


TRADE-UNIONS. 


of  tradts- 
unioni. 


NO  one  will  deny  the  vast  importance  to  which  trade-unions  have  attained, 
•  'ess  he  belongs  to  that  class  of  persons  who  fail  to  see  the  truth  because 
they  dv  lot  wish  to  see  it.  Moreover,  the  influence  they  wield  importance 
over  their  members  is  enormous,  and  a  marvel  too,  because 
obedience  is  so  general,  while  being  purely  voluntary.  It  is  true, 
that,  in  submitting  freely  to  organized  rule,  it  is  believed  they  are  really  pro- 
moting their  own  personal  advantage ;  yet  this  doe .  not  always  appear ;  and 
when  the  interest  is  unseen,  or  thought  to  be  opposed  to  the  interest  of  the 
individual,  his  temptation  to  disobey  is  great.  Such  discipline,  therefore,  as 
trade-unions  often  exhibit,  must  excite  admiration,  however  bitterly  they  may 
be  condemned. 

Trade-unions  have  their  origin  in  the  rise  of  factories.  So  long  as  work- 
men were  isolated  in  their  tasks,  and  could  not  meet  in  large  numbers, 
no  organization  existed  among  them ;  and  the  dominion  of  the  origin  of 
employer  over  his  men  was  complete.  But  times  have  changed. 
Great  factories  have  arisen,  employing  thousands.  When  they 
daily  assemble  under  the  same  roof,  tend  the  same  machine,  and  work  at  the 
same  table,  is  it  not  natural,  nay,  reasonable,  to  confer  and  act  together  upon 
questions  in  which  all  are  mutually  interested  ?  Besides,  manufacturing  cities 
have  sprung  up,  busily  engaged  in  producing  the  same  commodities,  thus  aug- 
menting the  mutual  personal  interest.  Sheffield,  Manchester,  Lyons,  Verviers, 
Lowell,  Pittsburgh,  Fall  River,  are  names  of  great  cities,  in  each  of  which 
nearly  all  their  capita',  and  skill  are  united  in  a  single  industry. 

Railways  and  other  facilities  of  easy  communication  also  lend  their  aid  in 
forming  these  unions,  by  bringing  workmen  together,  and  enabling  them  to 
render  fraternal  assistance.    A  recent  writer  upon  the  condition  of  ^,,^5^  ^, 
the  operatives  in  the  factories  of  Wurtemberg  remarks,  that,  if  its  easy  modes 
scattered  industry  had  been  a  source  of  much  inconvenience  and  °'  commu- 
detriment  to  the   manufacturers,   combinations 


trade- 
unions. 


some   pecuniary  detriment  to  the   manufacturers, 

among  workmen  have  been  rendered  difficult,  if  not  impossible 


'The  oper« 


vi4jj|| 


88( 


88a 


INDUSTRtAL    HISTORY 


atives  of  isolated  spinning-factories  scattered  along  the  banks  of  woodland 
streams  or  collected  together  in  smaller  numbers  in  the  neighborhood  of 
rural  towns,  or  weavers  who  worked  dispersed  in  their  own  domiciles,  and  (jiily 
came  into  casual  contact  with  one  another  on  their  way  to  and  from  tlicir 
common  employer,  —  these  men  had  little  occasion  for  or  incentive  to  hosiilc 
combination."  But  this  state  of  things  has  passed  away  in  that  country,  as  in 
almost  every  other,  by  creating  the  railway,  the  factory,  and  the  manufacturing' 
city. 

While  stating  this  as  the  immediate  or  superficial  origin  of  trade-unions,  tiie 
deeper  one,  as  experience  is  daily  rendering  clearer,  is  the  discontent  existing 
between  workmen  and  their  employers  respecting  the  division  of 
between  em-  profits.  In  the  language  of  Mr.  Hewitt,  an  iron-manufactnar, 
ployed  and  whose  testimony  before  the  Trade-Unions  Commission  of  (Jrcat 
Britain  evinced  wide  observation  coupled  with  the  deepest  insight 
into  the  subject,  "Trade-unions  are  a  symptom  of  the  re-adjustmen  of  tlic 
relation  of  capital  and  labor." 

Nor  can  it  be  said  these  unions  contain  only  workmen  of  inferior  skill  and 
intelligence.  The  proportion  between  the  skilled  and  unskilled  varies,  douht- 
Unions  con-  '^^^»  '"  i^ifferent  trades  and  at  different  times.  "It  is  proljahle, 
uin  intent-  that,  in  many  trades,  some  of  the  best  and  most  educated  nun 
gent  men.  stand  aloof.  It  has  not,  however,  been  suggested  by  any  one  that 
the  union  is  ever  composed  of  the  inferior  order  of  workmen,  though  it  may 
not  invariably  be  composed  of  the  superior.  In  some  trades,  and  those 
requiring  the  greatest  skill,  it  seems  to  be  admitted  that  the  union  contains 
the  great  bulk  of  the  most  skilled  men,  as  the  engineers,  the  iron-founders, 
the  painters,  glass-makers,  printers,  ship-builders,  and  others."  * 

Respecting  the  right  to  form  *hese  associations,  it  is  just  as  evident  that 
laborers  have  the  right  to  combine  in  order  to  get  their  dues  as  masters  have 
Right  to  *°  resist  an  advance  of  wages.  As  long  ago  as  when  Adam  Smith 
form  thete  wrote,  he  said  that "  masters  are  always  and  everywhere  in  a  sort 
•■■ociationt.  ^j.  j^^j^  i^y^  constant  and  uniform  combination  not  to  raise  tlic 
wages  of  labor  above  their  actual  rate.  To  violate  this  combination  is  every- 
where a  most  unpopular  action,  and  a  sort  of  reproach  to  a  master  among  liis 
neighbors  and  equals."  This  is  rather  too  highly  colored  to  represent  the  triitli 
in  the  United  States ;  yet  the  statement  is  partially  true  even  in  respect  to 
employers  in'this  country. 

The  reason  for  combining  is  to  form  a  reserve-fund,  by  means  of  which 
workmen  seek  to  put  themselves  upon  an  equal  plane  with  the  capitalist  in 
Reaiona  for  bargaining  for  wages.  The  latter,  having  such  a  fund,  occupies  a 
combining,  vantage-ground  in  respect  to  the  workman ;  for  the  capitalist  is 
a  combination  hiinself.  Workmen,  in  combining,  seek  only  to  get  what  capi- 
talists already  possess ;  namely,  a  reserve-force,  so  that  they  can  bargain  fo' 


*  Messn.  Hughes  and  Harrison,  Dissenting  Report,  p.  33. 


*  1 

m 


woodland 
orhood  of 
s,  and  only 

from  their 
!  to  hostile 
untry,  as  in 
inufacturing 

;-unions,  the 
:cnt  existing 
division  of 
lanufactnrcr, 
on  of  (iroat 
epest  insight 
;men    of  the 

rior  skill  and 

/arics,  douht- 
is  probable, 

ducated  men 
any  one  thai 

lough  it  may 
■s,  and  those 
lion  contains 
iron-foiniders, 

evident  that 
I  masters  have 

Adam  Smith 
lere  in  a  sort 

to  raise  the 
ition  is  every- 
Iter  among  his 
]sent  the  trnth 

in  respect  to 

tans  of  wli'.ch 
le  capitalist  in 
\d,  occupies  a 
capitalist  is 
Ut  what  capi- 
In  bargain  for 


O/--    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


883 


their  labor  upon  favorable  terms.  It  seems  impossible  to  frame  an  argument 
for  preventing  the  sons  of  toil  from  doing  this,  unless  the  old-fashioned  and 
exploded  idea  be  maintained,  that  workmen  are  bondmen  to  the  capitalists, 
who,  consequently,  have  the  sole  right  to  determine  the  rewards  of  labor.  In 
France,  where  the  notion  still  lingers,  we  hear  now  and  then  of  efforts  to  regu- 
late the  price  of  labor  by  law,  but  'n  no  other  country.  Freedom  to  labor  is 
as  universally  recognized  as  any  other  right.  All  have  their  choice  to  work 
separately,  or  unite  and  form  a  partnership  or  other  organization,  if  they  like. 

It  was  a  long  period  before  workmen  in  England  were  permitted  to  form 
these  societies,  so  strongly  intrenched  were  capitalists  in  the  legislation  of  the 
realm.     In    lyge;  the   following   act   of    Parliament  showed   the   Early  lawt 
willingness   of  that  body  to  legislate  against  the  combination  of  relating  to 
workmen :  "  Contracts  entered  into  for  obtaining  an  advance  of  '  *  *"  '""' 
wages,  for  altering  the  usual  time  for  working,  or  for  decreasipi^  the  quantity 
of  work  (excepting  such  contract  be  made  between  a  master  and  his  journey- 
man), or  preventing  any  person  employing  whomsoever  he  may  think  proper 
in  his  trade,  or  for  controlling  the  conduct,  or  any  way  affecting  any  person 
or  persons  carrying  on  any  manufacture  or  business  in  the  conduct  or  man- 
agement thereof,  shall  be  declared  illegal,  null,  and  void." 

This  statute  illustrates  how  workmen  were  regarded  in  that  day.  Not  until 
1827  did  Parliament  repeal  all  statutes  prohibiting  workmen  fifom  combining. 
Until  then,  employers  and  Parliament  had  taken  it  for  granted  they  alone  could 
regulate  wages. 

In  France  the  law  permitting  workmen  to  combine  was  not  decreed  until 
1864.  Prior  to  that  period  the  "  Penal  Code  "  contained  the  most  rigorous 
stipulations  against  combinations  of  ..orkmen.  They  were  characterized  as 
misdemeanors,  and  the  promoters  of  them  were  punished  with  from  two  to  five 
years'  imprisonment.  It  is  fair  to  state  that  the  combination  of  employers  for 
the  purpose  of  unjustly  depressing  wages  was  also  declared  to  be  illegal, 
though  the  punishment  inflicted  was  less  severe. 

In  the  several  states  constituting  the  German  Empire  various  laws  were  in 
force  relating  to  the  rights  of  workmen  until  1867,  when  a  new  enactment 
went  into  operation  throughout  the  empire,  declaring  that  "  all  prohibitions 
and  penal  provisions  directed  against  persons  engaged  in  industry,  trade, 
assistants,  journeymen,  or  factory-operatives,  on  the  ground  of  their  co-oper- 
ating and  uniting  ior  the  purpose  of  obtaining  more  favorable  wages  and 
conditions  of  labor,  more  especially  by  means  of  strikes  or  discharge  of  work- 
men, are  repealed ; "  thus  guaranteeing  to  the  industrial  classes  the  right  to 
form  trade-union  associations. 

In  the  United  States  workmen  have  no  just  reason  to  complain ;  for  they 
have  always  stood  upon  the  same  footing  with  capitalists,  and  have  enjoyed 
the  unquestioned  right  to  form  trade-union  societies.  It  is  true,  in  colonial 
times,  the  price  of  labor  was  sometimes  regulated  by  law ;  but  so  were  the 


I 


884 


IND  US  Th'/A  I.    //AV  TOK  Y 


prices  of  every  thing  which  were  exchanged.  Labor  was  never  singled  out  as 
the  only  thing  reciiiiring  State  regulation.  The  rights  of  the  laborer  li;uc 
been  as  jealously  guarded  as  the  rights  of  those  for  whom  he  has  toiled.  Not 
until  very  recently  has  the  old  doctrine  been  revived,  that  the  State  has  a  ri^^lit 
to  control  the  price  of  labor,  (lov.  Hrown  of  Ocorgia,  in  an  annual  message 
to  the  legislature  of  that  State,  did  remark  that  "  labor  must  be  controlled  liy 
law."  There  is  no  occasion  for  fearing  the  re-establishment  of  this  do<;triiu' 
on  republican  soil.  Liberty  to  contract  for  labor  is  a  right  too  deeply  grounded 
to  be  crushed  out  by  the  action  of  (lov.  Hrown,  or  by  any  one  else  holding  a 
similar  opinion. 

All  this  by  way  of  clearing  the  field  for  intjuiring  into  the  pur|)ose  of  trade- 
unions  and  the  sotmdness  of  their  methods. 

Their  purpose  is  twofold  :  first,  that  of  an  ordinary  friendly  or  benefit 
society,  —  namely,  to  afford  relief  to  the  members  of  the  union  when  ineapa- 
object  of  citated  from  work  by  accident  or  sickness,  to  provide  a  sum  for 
trade-  the  funeral-expenses  of  members  and  their  '."ives,  and  sometimes 

un  ont.  ^^  grant  superannuation  allowances  to  members  disabled  by  old 

age ;  second,  that  of  a  trade  society,  —  namely,  to  watch  over  and  promute 
the  interests  of  the  working-classes  in  the  several  trades,  and  especially  to  pro- 
tect them  against  the  undue  advantage  wliich  the  command  of  a  large  capital 
is  supposed  to  give  the  employers  of  labor. 

Many  societies  exist  having  only  one  object  in  view.  Some  are  |)  irely 
friendly  societies  :  others  are  organizations  for  promoting  the  interests  of  mem 
bers  in  their  various  trades,  without  any  reference  to  their  social  welfare.  For 
years,  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe,  societies  of  the  former  description  have 
flourished,  while  trade-unions  are  of  recent  creation.  Thus  we  have  seen  tliat 
workmen  in  France  were  not  permitted  to  combine  in  order  to  raise  the  rate 
of  wages  until  1867;  ^^t  they  have  helped  each  other  in  an  organized  way 
during  sickness  and  old  age,  and  provided  for  burial,  and  done  other  humane 
acts,  for  a  long  period.  And  this  applies  as  truly  to  many  other  countries  as  to 
France. 

It  has  been  found  desirable  generally  to  unite  the  two  purposes  j  and  in  this 
form  most  trade-unions  exist,  especially  in  the  United  States.     Consideral)le 
Ar  umentt     opposition  to  them  as  thus  constituted  has  been  manifested,  l)e 
for  and  cause  persons  who  are  friendly  to  purely  benefit  organizations,  and 

aKainatunit-  hostile  to  those  organized  for  purposes  of  trade,  oppose  socle- 
poiea  in  ties  combining  this  double  purpose.  No  enemies  to  friendly  so- 
trade-  cieties  have  appeared  ;  for  their  purpose  is  a  most  noble  one,  and 
the  good  they  have  done  is  incalculable.  The  amount  yearly 
distributed  to  sick  members,  and  expended  for  burial  and  other  like  purposes. 
is  an  eloquent  testimony  to  the  character  of  these  institutions ;  but,  in  uniting 
the  two  objects,  trade-unions  taint  the  sensibilities  of  some  people,  who  are 
moved  on  this  account  to  compass  their  destruction. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


885 


inglcd  ovii  as 

laborer  have 

toiled.    N'li 

te  has  a  rinlu 

nnual  mcssa^^o 

controlled  liv 

f  this  dodriiu' 

;cply  grounded 

else  holding  x 


ndly  or  benefit 
n  when  incapa 
(vidc  a  sum  for 
and  so'nelimcs 
disabled  by  <>l<i 
er  and  promote 
specially  to  pro- 
f  a  large  capital 


Much  can  be  advanced  in  favor  of  and  against  this  coupling  of  ends. 
Did  they  remain  separate,  friendly  societies  would  have  the  sanction  and 
su])port  of  all ;  for  their  usefulness  none  will  dispute.  Iksides,  they  would  grow 
in  numbers,  and  swell  their  income.  'I'housantls  who  would  not  join  trade- 
unions  aiming  to  affect  the  price  of  wages  only  would  gladly  join  societies  of 
a  friendly  nature.  A  great  many  workmen  beyond  the  pale  of  imionism  arc 
likely  to  remain  outside,  who  are  desirous  of  joining  their  fellow-workers  in 
alleviating  distress,  and,  consequently,  of  laying  the  foundation  for  receiving  aitl 
in  return.  Moreover,  benevolent  men  live  everywhere  who  would  willingly  join 
friendly  organizations,  and  contribute  moral  and  financial  assistance. 

On  the  other  hand,  trade-unions  are  dignified  and  ennobled  by  superadding 
a  friendly  and  humane  purpose  to  that  of  a  trade  society.  Though  they  inflict 
much  evil,  the  enmity  against  them  is  somewhat  softened  when  the  good  they 
do  is  remembered.  Hut  we  cannot  agree  with  Mr.  Morrier,  that  the  strength 
of  the  Knglish  system  depends  upon  the  two-edged  purpose  to  which  the 
funds  of  trade-unions  may  be  applied.  Doubtless  they  are  stronger  when 
created  in  this  manner ;  but  their  vitality  depends  upon  something  more  sub- 
stantial than  this. 

Nor  is  any  moral  principle  violated  in  bestowing  this  double  function  upon 
the  society.  Provided  the  members  know  what  they  are  giving  their  money 
for,  —  whether  sickness,  burial,  strikes,  or  any  thing  else,  —  there  is  no  oppor- 
tunity for  practising  fraud ;  and  they  probably  do  know,  both  by  personal 
impiiry  and  by  experience,  how  unions  employ  their  funds.  Mr.  Morrier  is 
hardly  fair  in  saying  they  are  raised  for  purposes  of  peace,  but  are  applicable 
to  the  purjjoses  of  war.  It  is  known  before  they  are  given  for  what  purposes 
they  may  be  used.  No  deception  is  necessary,  nor  is  it  practised,  in  raising^ 
fimds  for  these  societies.  "         ■  ' 

Whenever  a  society  unites  both  purposes,  it  is  evident  that  a  separation  of 
funds  for  any  particular  object  is  cjuite  impracticable.  The  cry  is  heard  every 
now  and  then  that  a  division  of  the  resources  for  friendly  and  trade  objects 
ought  to  be  made.  It  comes  from  some  one  who  either  does  not  understand 
the  nature  of  the  organization,  or  is  so  keen  as  to  see,  that,  by  providing 
several  funds,  collision  would  oftener  arise  among  the  members  respecting 
their  appropriation,  ending,  perhaps,  in  disunion.  This  will  appear  clearly 
when  the  nature  of  the  organization  is  more  fully  explained. 

Its  income  is  derived   from  members,  who  pay  a  certain  sum  weekly, 
monthly,  or  annually,  according   to   its  rules.      This  sum,  as  remarked,   is 
devoted  to  several  purposes.     One  purpose  is  to  provide  some-  „ 
thing  for  sick  members   during  their  illness ;    another  is   termed  deriving  and 
an  accident-benefit,  which  consists  of  a  sum  given  to  those  who  •?«"*"»» 

income. 

lose  their  tools ;   while  a  third  is  a  burial-fund.      Besides  these, 

some  of  the  richer  unions  have  additional  funds  for  reading-rooms,  libraries, 

donations,  and  charitable  subscriptions. 


m 


•li 


I 


m 


886 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOliY 


United 
State*. 


The  benefits  conferred  often  extend  much  farther.  One  of  the  most  fre- 
quent nnd  costly  objects  of  donation  is  to  members  out  of  work.  This  is 
occasionally  so  large  as  to  maintain  all  the  workmen  of  a  trade  during  a  period 
of  disaster.  During  the  year  1867  the  engineers  of  Great  Britain  spent  almost 
three  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  this  manner,  and  the  iron-founders  nearly 
two-thirds  of  that  sum.  The  great  service  thus  rendered  in  keeping  a  large 
number  of  working-men  and  their  families  from  the  cold  field  of  pauperism 
no  one  will  question. 

The  earliest  germ  of  a  trade-union  in  the  United  States  appeared  in  Phila- 
delphia soon  after  the  beginning  of  this  century.  In  1806  a  remarkable  trial 
First  trade-  ^^^^  ixom.  the  efforts  of  several  members  of  such  an  association 
union  in  to  prevent,  by  violent  and  unlawful  methods,  others  from  working. 
Eight  persons  were  indicted ;  and  .  the  indictment  they  were 
charged  for  not  being  content  to  work  at  the  usual  prices,  but 
for  contriving  to  increase  and  augment  them,  and  endeavoring  to  prevent,  by 
threats,  menaces,  and  other  unlawful  means,  other  artificers  from  working  at 
the  usual  rate,  and  uniting  into  a  club  or  combination  to  make  and  ordain 
unlawful  and  arbitrary  rules  to  govern  those  engaged  in  their  trade,  and 
unjustly  exact  great  sums  of  money  by  means  thereof.  Eminent  counsel  were 
engaged  on  both  sides  The  account  of  the  trial  here  given  is  taken  from 
"  Lippincott's  Magazine," '  which  says  that  the  evidence  showed  in  the  clearest 
manner  that  a  system  of  frightful  thraldom  had  been  put  in  force.  A  witness 
named  Harrison  stated,  that,  when  he  reached  the  United  States  in  1 794,  he 
found  this  system  of  terrorism  prevalent.  He  went  to  work  for  a  Mr.  Bedford, 
and  presently  got  a  hint,  that,  if  he  did  not  join  the  association  of  journeymen 
shoemakers,  he  was  liable  to  be  "  scabbed  ; "  which  meant  that  men  would  not 
work  in  the  same  shop  nor  board  or  lodge  in  the  same  house  with  him,  nor  would 
they  work  for  the  same  employer.  The  case  of  this  man  seemed  exceptionally 
hard.  He  made  shoes  exclusively ;  and,  when  "  a  turn-out  came  to  raise  the 
wages  on  boots,"  he  remonstrated,  pleading  that  shoes  did  not  enter  into  the 
question,  and  urging  that  he  had  a  sick  wife  and  a  large  family.  But  it  was  all 
to  no  purpose.  He  then  resolved  that  he  would  turn  a  "  scab,"  unknown  to 
the  association,  and  continue  his  work.  But,  having  a  neighbor  whom  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  deceive,  he  went  to  him,  and  said  that  he  knew  his  cir- 
cumstances, and  that  his  family  must  perish,  or  go  to  "the  bettering-house," 
unless  he  continued  to  work.  This  neighbor,  Swain,  replied  that  he  knew  his 
condition  was  desperat;.  but  that  a  man  had  better  make  any  sacrifice  than  turn 
a  "scab"  at  that  time.  He  presently  informed  against  him,  and  Mr.  Bedford 
(his  employer)  was  warned  that  he  must  discharge  his  "  scabs."  He  refused, 
saying,  that,  "  let  the  consequence  be  what  it  might,  we  should  sink  or  swim 
together."  However,  one  Saturday  night,  when  all  but  Harrison  and  a  man 
named  Logan  had  left  him,  Bedford's  resolution  gave  way ;  and  he  exclaimed. 


'  March  number,  1876. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


887 


"  I  don't  know  what  the  devil  I  am  to  do !  They  will  ruin  me  in  the  end. 
I  wish  you  would  go  to  tlse  body  and  pay  a  fine,  if  not  very  large,  in  order 
to  set  the  shop  free  once  more."  The  fine  ">ffered  was  refused,  and  Mr. 
Bedford's  shop  remained  "  under  scab  "  for  a  year.  Still  Mr.  Bedford,  who 
must  have  been  a  very  plucky  fellow,  would  not  give  Harrison  up,  but 
removed  in  1802  to  Trenton.  Harrison  stated,  that  although  he  could  not, 
had  Mr.  Bedford  given  him  up,  have  got  work  anywhere  else,  and  that  he 
might  have  ground  him  down  to  any  terms,  yet  he  (Bedford)  very  nobly  always 
gave  him  full  price.  At  length,  by  paying  a  fine,  Harrison  became  reconciled 
to  his  persecutors,  and  Bedford's  shop  was  once  more  free. 

William  F'orgrave  said  that  "  the  name  of  a  '  scab '  is  very  dangerous :  men 
of  this  description  have  been  hurt  when  out  at  night."  He  had  been  threat- 
ened, and  joined  the  association  from  fear  of  personal  injury.  A  vast  deal 
more  of  evidence  was  given,  and  eloquent  speeches  delivered  by  counsel ;  but 
the  foregoing  gives  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  case. 

In  the  course  of  the  summing-up,  Recorder  Levy  said,  "  To  make  an 
artificial  regulation  is  not  to  regard  the  excellence  of  the  work  or  quality  of 
the  material,  but  to  fix  a  positive  and  arbitrary  price,  governed  by  no  standard, 
but  dependent  on  the  will  of  the  few  who  are  interested.  .  .  .  What,  then,  is 
the  operation  of  this  kind  of  conduct  upon  the  commerce  of  the  city?  It 
exposes  it  to  inconveniences,  if  not  to  ruin  :  therefore  it  is  against  the  public 
welfare.  How  does  it  operate  upon  the  defendants  ?  We  see  that  those  who 
are  in  indigent  circumstances,  and  who  have  families  to  maintain,  have  declared 
here  on  oath  that  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  hold  out.  They  were  inter- 
dicted from  all  employment  in  future  if  they  did  not  continue  to  persevere  in 
the  measures  taken  by  the  journeymen  shoemakers.  Does  not  such  a  regula- 
tion tend  to  involve  necessitous  men  in  the  commission  of  crimes?  If  they 
are  prevented  working  for  six  weeks,  it  might  lead  them  to  procure  support  for 
their  wives  and  children  by  burglary,  larceny,  or  highway  robbery." 

The  jury  found  the  defendants  "guilty  of  a  combination  to  raise  their 
wages ; "  and  the  court  sentenced  them  to  pay  a  fine  of  eight  dollars  each,  with 
ccis  of  suit,  and  to  stand  committed  till  paid. 

After  this  early  attempt  at  unionism,  nothing  more  was  heard  of  any  similar 
experiment  for  fifty  years ;  though  this  long  period  of  repose  was  not  due 
probably  so  much  to  the  result  of  this  early  venture  as  to  ether 
conditions.  There  was  no  need  of  creating  trade-unions,  inas-  ,o"y"<tr«de. 
much  as  every  person  found  instant  employment  at  favorable  uniomin 
prices.  Across  t!ie  ocean  the  condition  of  the  working-man  was 
very  different,  and  he  rought  to  combine  with  his  fellows  at  a  much 
earlier  period  in  order  to  secure  higher  wages  and  other  advantages.  Union- 
ism in  this  countrv  atti acted  no  attention  until  after  i860,  when  its  presence 
and  power  were  first  felt  in  the  mining  regions.  Workmen  there  sought  to 
obtain  higher  wages  ;  and,  in  order  to  succeed  in  this  end,  they  formed  them- 


United 
Statei. 


888 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


selves  into  unions,  believing  that  they  would  be  more  likely  to  achieve  success 
than  if  they  dealt  with  their  mastt.s  single-handed.  As  wages  rapidly  ad- 
vanced, the  miners  naturally  ascribed  the  result  to  the  power  of  unionism  j  and 
forthwith  other  unions  were  formed  of  men  engaged  in  a  great  variety  of 
pursuits.  Generally  speaking,  wages  were  advanced  in  every  trade ;  and  ihe 
members  of  these  associations  were  swift  to  conclude,  that,  as  the  wages  of 
miners  had  rapidly  risen,  it  was  due  to  the  resistless  power  of  their  associa- 
tions. They  never  stopped  to  think  that  the  pay  of  thousands  of  men  wlio 
were  not  members  of  any  sort  of  a  union  was  also  increased ;  that  the  wa^ci 
of  household  servants  went  up  to  a  high  figure,  although  no  combinatiijn 
existed  among  them  tor  this  purpose.  The  day-laborers — whether  employed 
on  the  farm,  or  engaged  in  working  upon  the  streets,  or  working  here  and 
there  as  they  could  find  employment  —  all  reaped  higher  rewards  for  their 
toil,  although  combinations  amongst  them  were  never  dreamed  of,  and  were 
indeed  impossible. 

Whether  we  are  right  in  our  deductions  or  not,  trade-unions  rose  as  by 
magic,  and  spread  themselves  over  every  part  of  the  country.  In  the  larger 
Rapid  cities,  like   New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  Chicago,  they 

growth.  made  their  power  most  potently  felt,  and  held  numerous  meetings, 

at  which  their  principles  and  beliefs  generally  received  an  enthusiastic  airing. 
Communism  found  many  an  advocate  among  them  ;  and,  next  to  their  belief  in 
unionism  in  general,  this  doctrine  has  struck  the  deepest  root  in  the  mind  of 
the  average  working-man.  It  is  not  indigenous,  but  purely  a  foreign  importa- 
tion :  yet  the  plant  has  been  carefully  nursed  ;  and,  however  unwelcome  it  may 
be  to  many,  communism  has  here  found  a  fruitful  soil. 

Besides  holding  meetings,  public  as  well  as  private,  and  discussing  their 
situation,  and,  to  some  extent,  their  principles  and  beliefs,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  unionism  accomplished  very  much  i  the  way  of  securing 
higher  wages  during  the  first  stage  of  its  existence,  if  the  advance 
in  wages  to  which  we  have  referred  were  due  to  other  causes  than 
combinations  among  workmen.  It  is  fair  to  say,  however,  tliat  workmen  them- 
selves ascribed  the  rise  of  wages  which  occurred  about  the  time  of  the  forma- 
tion of  their  unions,  or  soon  after,  to  their  existence.  These  two  facts,  how- 
ever, none  will  deny,  —  that  many  unions  were  formed  between  i860  and  1865 ; 
and,  during  that  period,  wages  rapidly  rose.  This  created  the  impression  among 
the  working-men  that  their  unions  were  the  cause  of  their  success ;  and  tlity 
were  led  to  embark  in  a  new  experiment,  a  brief  history  of  which  we  will  lay 
before  the  reader  in  the  next  chapter. 


Succei*  of 

trade- 

unioni. 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES, 


889 


CHAPTER  II. 

EIGHT-HOUR   MOVEMENT. 

IT  was  about  1867  when  the  agitation  began  among  the  working-class  s  for 
the  enactment  of  laws  prescribing  eight  hours  as  a  legal  day  of  labor. 
Their  reason  for  this  law  was,  that  more  time  was  needed  for  cul-  object  oi  the 
ture  and  pleasure  than  they  enjoyed  under  the  former  arrange-  •***'• 
ment ;  and  the  request  to  them  seemed  not  only  reasonable,  but  they  manifest- 
ed considerable  surprise  if  any  one  differed  from  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
many  regarded  the  measure  of  no  importance  from  any  point  of  view,  as  no 
one  thought  of  making  the  law  compulsory,  so  as  to  prevent  the  making  of 
contracts  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period  of  service.  The  chief  opponents  to 
the  measure  were  those  who  feared  the  working-men  would  demand  ten  hours' 
pay  for  eight  hours'  work ;  and  that,  if  a  reduction  in  pay  were  made  corre- 
sponding with  the  reduction  in  service,  strikes  and  other  untoward  difficulties 
would  occur.  * 

The  law  was  enacted  in  most  of  the  States  and  by  the  Federal  Government, 
and  the  effect  thereof  soon  began  to  appear.  At  first  the  Federal  Government 
reduced  the  number  of  hours  during  which  the  workmen  in  its  l.w  every, 
employ  at  the  navy-yards  and  other  places  were  engaged  in  con-  where 
formity  with  the  law,  yet  continued  to  pay  them  the  old  rates ;  •^■''*«'- 
which  was  a  great  victory  for  the  laborers.  But  there  was  no  uniformity  about 
the  matter.  In  some  trades  the  day  was  reduced  to  eight  hours,  and  a  reduc- 
tion of  twenty  per  cent  was  made  in  their  wages.  Whenever  this  result  was 
experienced  from  the  working  of  the  law,  workmen  were  generally  willing, 
nay,  desirous,  of  returning  to  the  former  terms  of  employment.  In  some  cases 
the  men  demanded  a  reduction  of  hours  without  a  reduction  of  pay ;  and 
this  demand  resulted  in  strikes,  the  most  important  of  which  occurred  at  the 
works  of  Messrs.  Brewster  &  Company  of  New  York,  the  famous  carriage- 
manufacturers.  Four-fifths  of  the  men  struck,  and  remained  idle  two  wl  ks, 
when  work  was  resumed  without  any  concession  on  the  part  of  the  em- 
ployers. 

During  the  year  1872  the  movement  reached  its  height ;  and  in  all  the  large 


•Hi 


m 


1 1'« 


II 


890 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


cities  and  important  centres  of  industry  there  were  frequent  meetings  among 
Movement  the  working-men,  at  which  the  subjected  was  agitated,  and  strikes, 
at  its  height,  and  prosecutioHs  for  violating  the  law,  were  threatened.  In  most 
of  such  gatherings  it  appeared  clearly  enough  that  the  chief  aim  of  the  friends 
of  the  law  was  to  get  the  same  pay  for  eight  hours'  work  as  for  ten ;  which,  of 
course,  was  an  addition  of  twenty  per  cent  to  the  cost  of  labor,  —  an  advance 
which  employers  very  generally  were  unwilling  to  pay.  The  clouds  of  the 
impending  panic  were  beginning  to  form  :  some  trades  had  already  experienced 
a  slackened  demand,  and  this  large  advance  was  not  regarded  as  warranted  l)y 
the  future  prospects  of  business  anywhere.  In  some  cases  employers  were 
unwilling  to  have  their  laborers  do  less  than  ten  hours'  work  per  day,  whatever 
might  be  the  amount  of  wages  paid  them.  Said  a  member  of  the  firm  of 
Steinway  &  Company,  the  famous  piano-forte  manufacturers,  in  reply  to  the 
question,  "  Would  you  agree  to  the  eight-hour  system,  provided  the  men  did 
not  ask  for  ten  hours'  pay?"  "No:  we  would  not  agree  to  any  thing  less 
than  ten  hours,  whether  they  wanted  eight  hours'  pay  or  not."  Many  other 
employers  similarly  situated,  or  who  were  unwilling  to  reduce  their  production, 
entertained  a  similar  opinion.  Thus  opposition  between  employer  and  em- 
ployed increased :  the  meetings  of  the  latter  class  multiplied,  at  which  the 
denunciation  of  employers  became  more  frequent  and  violent.  Everywhere 
strikes  were  threatened,  and  many  actually  broke  out.  In  1873  a  panic  swept 
CoUapteof  over  the  land.  Many  factories,  furnaces,  and  shops  were  closed, 
movement,  ^nd  thousands  wr  ,  thrown  out  of  employment.  The  strife  soon 
was  to  get  work  upon  the  best  terms  possible,  and  the  cry  for  eight  hours  for  a 
day's  work  ceased  almost  as  suddenly  as  the  cry  was  raised. 


=— tiw  ^.'»g.  liWtfjMWffiSEWBWWt  -. 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


891 


CHAPTER    III. 


LATER    HISTORY    OF    TRADE-UNIONS. 


WE  now  pass  on  to  the  third  stage  in  the  history  of  trade-unions  and 
of  employment  of  labor  in  this  country.    The  eight-hour  movement 
was  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  these  unions ;   yet  it  probably  j^j^j  ,4,^^ 
would  have  taken  place,  just  the  same  as  strikes  would,  even  if  of  trade- 
these  institutions  had  never  been  created.     Perhaps  the  eight-  ""  ""*■ 
hour  movement  rose  more  speedily  in  consequence  of  the  existence  of  organi- 
zations among  the  laboring-men,  and  it  may  be  that  measures  were  pushed 
with  greater  force  and  confidence  by  reason  of  the  solidarity  existing  among 
them  \  and  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  working-men  in  respect  to 
strikes  :  nevertheless,  these  have  occurred  where  no  unions  were  known  ;  and 
in  man"  cases,  as  we  shall  show  before  concluding  this  chapter,  unions  have 
been  formed  on  the  edge  of  a  strike,  and  as  a  consequence  of  it,  rather  than  as 
its  cause. 

Strikes,  which  in  the  fourteenth  century  had  their  counterpart  in  the 
Jacquerie  riots,  ore  the  last  argument  to  which  working-men  resort  in  order  to 
get  an  advance  of  wages.  In  England,  workmen  have  oftener  Result  of 
struck  to  resist  a  fall  than  to  secure  a  rise  of  wages.  Says  Mr.  •twites. 
Brassey,  "  Resistance  to  a  proposed  reduction  was  the  cause  of  the  engineers' 
strike  in  1852.  of  the  strike  at  Preston  in  1853,  of  the  strike  in  the  iron-trade 
in  1865,  and  of  the  strike  of  the  colliers  at  Wigen  in  1868."  The  strikes  in 
the  United  States  have  generally  sprung  from  a  similar  cause.  The  weavers  at 
a  cotton-mill  in  New  York,  having  had  their  wages  reduced  three  cents  a  yard, 
stmck  to  regain  the  old  price.  The  sounding-board  makers  in  a  piano-factory 
struck  on  account  of  a  threatened  reduction  of  ten  per  cent  in  their  wages. 
One  thousand  operatives  employed  in  a  carpet-manufactory  in  New  York 
struck  against  a  similar  proposed  reduction.  The  potterymen  of  Trenton, 
N.J.,  were  on  a  strike  which  lasted  several  months,  causing  a  loss  of  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  the  employers  and  of  fifty  thousand  dollars 
more  to  themselves,  determined  to  accept  no  reduction  for  their  labor.  The 
cordwainers  of  New  York  struck  for  a  period  of  nine  months  against  a  pro- 


1  Sii 


m^ 


893 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


posed  reduction  of  twenty  per  cent ;  and  other  instances  might  be  noted.  What 
Mr.  Brassey  has  observed  concerning  English  strikes  applies  to  all  those  men- 
tioned :  "  Masters  had  found  it  necessarj',  in  consequence  of  the  depressed 
state  of  trade,  to  reduce  the  rate  of  wages ;  but  the  men,  ignoring  the  circum- 
stances of  the  trade,  and  looking  only  to  what  they  believed  to  be  a  degrada- 
tion of  their  position  is  workmen,  refused  to  accept  the  reduction."  This 
remark  is  emphatically  true  of  the  strikes  which  have  occurred  in  the  United 
States  since  the  panic  of  1873.  Profits  have  greatly  declined  ;  prices  in  gen- 
eral have  been  heavily  shrinking ;  and  a  reduction  of  wages  in  most  cases  was 
regarded  as  absolutely  necessary.  The  reduction  of  wages,  however,  has  been 
followed  by  strikes  everywhere  of  varying  degrees  of  duration,  loss,  and  vio- 
lence. During  the  period  when  strikes  were  ordered  to  secure  an  advance 
of  wages,  victory  crowned  the  measure  ;  but  the  strikes  of  later  years  to  resist 
a  fall  of  wages  have  rarely  met  with  success. 

It  would  require  altogether  too  much  space  to  recount  the  story  of  the 
more  recent  strikes  which  have  occurred  in  the  United  Slates ;  and  we  shall, 
Recent  therefore,  allude  to  only  a  few  of  them.     Two  very  notable  strikes 

strikes.  arose  among  the  operatives  of  the  cotton-mills  at  Fall  River  to 

resist  reductions  in  wages,  in  which  several  thousands  of  employees  partici- 
pated. The  factories  had  been  losing  money  in  the  manufacture  and  sale  of 
goods,  and  a  reduction  of  wages  was  absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  continue 
the  business.  The  operatives  deemed  the  reductions  too  large ;  and,  while 
they  were  willing  to  work  for  less,  they  thought  the  employers  demanded  a 
larger  reduction  than  was  necessary  to  secure  them  against  loss  in  the  manu- 
facture of  their  goods.  When  the  first  reduction  was  ordered,  it  was  hoped 
that  it  would  be  the  last :  but,  as  the  prices  of  manufactured  goods  continued 
to  decline,  a  second  reduction  soon  became  necessary ;  and  it  was  this  which 
gave  rise  to  the  chief  opposition  among  the  operatives.  All  their  efforts,  how- 
ever, to  prevent  a  reduction,  were  unavailing ;  and,  what  was  still  worse  for  them 
in  the  end,  the  most  active  opponents  to  the  reduction  were  prohibited  from 
working  in  the  factories.  A  list  of  them  was  prepared,  and  circulated  among 
the  mills ;  and  the  regulation  was  rigidly  enforced.  Not  long  after,  a  strike 
occurred  in  the  Wamsutta  Mills  at  New  Bedford  on  account  of  a  reduction 
of  wages,  which  ended  in  the  same  way  as  the  previous  strikes  at  Fall  River. 
As  wages  were  rapidly  reduced  in  almost  all  trades,  strikes  broke  out  almost 
daily  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  Even  the  rice-fields  of  the  South  were  swept 
with  the  wave  of  discontent ;  and  the  strikes  of  the  working-men  threatened, 
at  one  time,  the  ruin  of  the  crop. 

Thus  one  strike  succeeded  another,  until  a  climax  was  reached  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1877,  when  the  workmen  employed  by  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad 
Rmiiroad-  struck  for  the  retention  of  the  wages  they  were  at  that  time  receiv- 
strikes.  jng^  but  which  the  company  had  proposed  to  reduce.    The  com- 

pany announced,  that,  on  the  i6th  of  July,  their  resolution  would  go  into  effect; 


OF    THE    UNITED   STATES. 


893 


and,  for  several  days  previous  to  the  event,  mutterings  of  discontent  were 
heard  among  the  conductors,  brakenien,  and  firemen,  especially  among  those 
who  were  employed  in  running  freight- trains.  On  the  day  fixed  the  storm 
broke  forth.  The  employees  who  conducted  the  freight-trains  refused  to  work, 
not  only  in  Baltimore,  but  throughout  the  line  of  the  road.  There  was  at  once 
a  total  suspension  of  transportation.  The  company  endeavored  to  procure 
other  men  to  run  the  triins  :  but  it  was  soon  found  that  the  strikers  were  deter- 
mined not  to  allow  them  to  move ;  and  they  dragged  the  crews  from  the 
engines  and  cars,  extinguished  the  fires,  and  openly  avowed  their  determina- 
tion to  resist  by  force  the  passage  of  freight-trains  until  the  company  had  com- 
plied with  their  demand  for  rescinding  the  order  reducing  their  wages.  The 
lawlessness  and  violence  of  the  strikers  rapidly  increased,  while  sympathetic 
mobs  formed  at  the  various  points  where  the  strikers  were  the  most  numerous. 
The  governor  soon  found  that  the  State  militia  which  had  been  called  out  were 
tmable  to  cope  with  so  formidable  an  insurrection :  so  application  was  made 
to  the  President,  who  immediately  responded  to  the  call,  and  sent  troops  to 
aid  in  restoring  order.  The  wave  rapidly  swept  northward ;  and  within  two 
days  the  train-hands  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  at  Pittsburg  also  Pittsburgh 
struck,  and  stopped  tiie  movement  of  all  trains  east  and  wcjt.  ""*• 
The  attempts  of  the  municipal  and  county  authorities  to  restore  traffic  failed  ; 
and  by  the  evening  of  the  20th  of  July,  three  days  after  the  commencement  of 
the  strike,  a  large  number  of  trains,  containing  thousands  of  head  of  live- 
stock and  merchandise,  were  massed  at  Pittsburgh.  Every  effort  to  move 
freight  with  the  aid  of  the  workmen  who  remained  in  the  faithful  employ  of  the 
company  proved  unavailing.  In  the  mean  time,  the  State  troops  were  ordered 
out ;  though,  three  days  after  the  riot  began,  only  six  hundred  men  and  offi- 
cers had  assembled  for  duty. 

Gen.  Pearson,  who  commanded  at  Pittsburgh,  fearing  that  the  majority  of 
his  troops  were  in  sympathy  with  the  strikers,  the  first  division  of  the  National 
Guard  was  ordered  to  join  him.  At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
2 1  St,  the  first  detachment  of  the  Philadelphia  division,  numbering  six  hun- 
dred and  fifty  men,  under  command  of  Gen.  Brinton,  bringing  with  it 
two  Gatling  guns  and  a  large  quantity  of  ammunition,  arrived  at  the  Union 
D^pot  in  Pittsburgh.  Afler  a  short  delay,  to  feed  the  soldiers,  the  movement 
to  open  the  road  began.  Preceded  by  the  sheriff,  and  carrying  the  Gatling 
guns,  the  troops  were  marched  down  the  tracks,  between  the  lines  of  freight- 
cars.  For  some  distance  the  road  was  comparatively  clear;  but,  as  the 
column  approaclied  Twenty-eighth  Street,  it  met  a  constantly-increasing 
crowd,  through  which  it  forced  its  way  into  the  dense  mass  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill.  The  lines  piessed  the  crowd  slowly  and  with  difficulty  back  on  either 
side  of  the  road,  until  that  portion  of  the  tracks  enclosed  by  the  hollow  square 
so  formed  was  clear. 

An  attempt  of  the  sheriff  to  arrest  some  ringleaders  who  had  been  prom- 


% 


894 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTOKY 


inent  in  the  previous  outrages  raised  a  commotion,  during  whicii  stones  wen- 
thrown  by  the  '.nob.  The  troops  were  ordered  to  charge  bayonets,  and,  in 
doing  so,  came  in  immediate  contact  with  the  pressing  and  excited  mass, 
Several  pistol-shots  were  fired,  and  a  volley  of  stones  thrown  from  the  crowd, 
from  those  on  the  hillside,  as  well  as  others ;  and  violent  attempts  were  madi; 
to  wrest  the  muskets  from  the  soldiers.  Having  been  wedged  in  among  a 
surging  body  of  rioters  growing  more  and  more  aggressive,  many  of  whom 
were  attempting  to  crc  d  the  soldiers  from  the  ranks  or  wrench  the  muskets 
from  their  hands,  and  as  a  few  moments  more  would  have  broken  the  ra* '.-;, 
and  involved  the  individual  soldiers  in  inextricable  and  helpless  confusioi) 
among  their  foes,  the  soldiers  fired.  Under  the  circumstances,  they  did  right 
to  resist  the  attempt  to  disarm  or  overpower  them.  A  soldier  is  stationed  or 
commandec'  to  move  as  a  soldier,  and  has  the  undoubted  right,  in  the  execii- 
tion  of  his  order,  to  prevent  himself  from  being  forced  from  his  post,  or  (hs- 
armed.  As  sc  on  as  relieved  of  the  pressure,  the  commands  of  the  officers  at 
once  stopped  the  firing.  From  proximity  to  the  crowd,  the  firing  was  wild 
and  high  as  well  as  desultory,  and  took  effect  principally  upon  the  hill. 
Panic-stricken,  the  crowd  upon  the  hillside  and  adjacent  streets,  and  imme- 
diately surrounding  the  soldiers,  scattered  in  all  directions,  carrying  witii  it 
many  of  the  Pittsburgh  soldiers;  and  the  main  body  of  the  rioters  fell  l)a(k 
along  the  track.  In  the  niHee  fifteen  or  twenty  soldiers  were  wounded,  the 
majority  with  pistol-balls,  and  a  number  of  the  mob  killed  and  wounded. 

At  this  time  the  troops  were  undoubtedly  masters  of  the  situation  ;  and  a 
determined  advance  in  all  directions,  and  co-operation  of  the  civil  authorities, 
would  have  driven  away  every  vestige  of  the  mob,  and,  by  activity  and  care, 
might  have  prevented  it  from  re-assembling.  As  it  was,  though  unskilfully 
executed,  the  movement  produced  the  result  intended ;  but,  though  offered 
a  guard  for  each  one,  the  railway  officials  were  unable  to  move  their  trains, 
from  the  impossibility  of  finding  engineers  and  crews  who  were  willing  to  man 
them  at  that  time.  The  troops  held  their  ground  an  hour  or  two,  during 
which  time  the  rioters  gradually  returned,  and  collected  about  in  squails. 
About  six  o'clock  the  troops  were  withdrawn,  and  placed  wholly  within  the 
round-houses  and  adjacent  buildings.  No  pickets  or  guards  were  left  outside. 
From  this  time  on  the  troops  were  kept  on  the  defensive,  which  gave  the  moh 
a  great  and  fatal  advantage.  The  mob,  rapidly  increasing  in  numbers  and 
boldness  after  dark,  broke  into  various  gun-stores  and  armories,  arming  them- 
selves ;  and  a  desultory  firing  was  kept  up  during  the  night,  without  effect  ui)on 
the  soldiers.,  and  with  considerable  loss  to  the  rioters.  From  that  time  on- 
ward, for  several  days,  the  rioterg  vere  masters  of  the  situation.  Tiie  military 
were  totally  inadequate  to  quell  thorn :  indeed,  the  next  day  they  felt  obliged 
to  withdraw  into  the  open  country.  As  no  engineers  could  be  found  to  run 
trains,  re-enforcements  could  proceed  only  at  a  slow  rate  :  so  the  insurrection 
gained  strong  headway.     Finally,  disregarding  all  law,  and  consideration  for 


OF  THE    UNITED    STATES. 


895 


out  of  the 
State. 


private  property,  the  rioters  began  the  wholesale  destruction  of  property  — 
cars,  engines,  freight,  and  buildings  —  belonging  to  or  in  the  possession  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.  The  government  was  called  upon  to  aid 
in  suppressing  the  insurrection ;  but  only  a  few  troops  were  in  the  East,  though 
these  rendered  very  effective  service.  While  several  of  the  State  organizations 
manifested  much  sympathy  with  the  strikers,  and  in  many  cases  refused  to 
serve  at  all,  the  national  troops  came  promptly  to  the  rescue,  and  never 
siiowed  any  signs  of  wavering.  In  a  few  days,  however,  the  riot  at  Pittsburgh 
had  spent  its  force ;  and  on  Monday,  the  30th  of  July,  the  railroad  companies 
centring  at  that  point  resumed  business,  and  communication  was  opened  with 
all  parts  of  the  country. 

In  the  mean  time  the  disturbances  spread  rapidly  over  the  State.  In 
Philadelphia,  by  the  courage  and  activity  of  the  mayor  and  police,  supported 
by  the  great  body  of  the  citizens  and  the  press,  and  in  Harris- 
burgh,  through  the  coolness  and  promptness  of  the  sheriff  of  riots'to  other 
Dauphin  County  and  the  mayor  of  the  city,  and  the  public  spirit  places  in  and 
of  the  citizens,  who  responded  to  the  call  of  the  authorities,  the 
disturbances  were  speedily  quelled.  In  Reading  the  costly  rail- 
road-bridge over  the  Schuylkill  was  burned  on  the  evening  of  the  2  2d,  and 
freight-trains  stopped.  The  Sheriff  of  Berks  County  proving  unequal  to  the  situa- 
tion, Gen.  Reeder,  with  two  hundred  and  fifteen  muskets  of  the  Fourth  Infantry, 
National  Cuard  of  Pennsylvania,  was  sent  there  by  Gen.  Bolton  ;  and  in  a  severe 
street-fight  after  dark,  on  the  23d,  —  in  which  many  of  his  command  were 
injured  more  or  less  severely  with  stones,  and  eleven  of  the  crowd  killed,  and 
above  fif\y  wounded,  —  the  rioters  were  dispersed.  These  troops,  having  been 
subsequently  demoralized  by  the  action  of  the  Sixteenth  Regiment,  were  with- 
drawn ;  but  the  next  day  (the  24th),  upon  the  arrival  of  a  detachment  of 
United-States  troops  under  Col.  Hamilton,  the  road  was  re-opened. 

In  the  middle  coal-field  of  Luzerne  County,  the  miners,  under  the  prevail- 
ing excitement,  struck  on  the  25th  of  July,  and  all  trains  were  stopped  upon 
the  roads  running  through  that  region.  At  Scranton,  on  the  ist  of  August, 
a  large  body  of  men,  endeavoring  to  drive  the  wor  men  from  the  railroad-shops 
and  factories,  were  courageously  dispersed  by  the  mayor  and  his  posse,  in 
which  conflict  that  officer  was  severely  injured,  and  three  of  the  rioters  killed 
and  a  number  wounded.  As  the  trouble  was  serious  and  threatening,  and 
rapidly  growing  beyond  the  control  of  the  mayor  and  his  small  force,  brave 
and  determined  as  they  were,  the  first  division,  under  Gen.  Brinton,  was 
ordered  to  that  region,  followed  immediately  with  other  forces ;  and  on  the  3d 
of  August  the  railroads  were  once  more  pj.it  into  regular  open  tion.  A  body 
of  troops,  regular  and  militia,  were  stationed  there  until  the  early  part  of 
November,  when,  all  fears  of  any  disturbances  being  removed,  they  were  with- 
drawn. Slight  outbreaks  which  had  occurred  in  various  other  places  had  been 
easily  suppressed  either  by  the  local  authorities  or  the  presence  of  the  United- 


8o6 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


Stutes  Of  Stale  troops  ;  and  before  the  middle  of  August  all  the  railroads 
tlirouf;hout  the  b'ate  were  running  on  scUedule  time,  and  by  the  early  part  of 
November  all  manifestations  of  lawlessness  had  disappeared. 

It  was  in  I'ennsylvania,  and  especially  at  Pittsburgh,  that  the  riot  rose  to 
its  greatest  h(  ight,  was  the  most  destructive,  and  was  least  easily  quelled.  On 
the  2ist  of  July  the  wave  rolled  into  the  State  of  New  York,  and  was  first  fell 
along  the  line  of  the  New-York  and  Erie  Railroad.  Shortly  after,  trains  wcru 
stopped  on  tlie  New- York  Central  lload,  and  large  and  excited  crowds  of  ukii 
gathered  at  Albany,  Syracuse,  Buffalo,  Horn-illsville,  Corning,  Elmira  ;  while  the 
peace  of  the  city  of  Ni  w  York  even  was  seriously  threatened.  The  governor 
ordered  the  entire  force  of  the  National  Guard  to  hold  itself  ready  to  move  m 
a  moment's  notice,  and  several  regiments  were  ordered  to  various  parts  of  ilic 
State.  The  prompt  action  of  the  governor,  and  the  discipline  and  efticiency 
manifested  by  the  troopf,  had  the  good  effect  of  speedily  subduing  the  disturl)- 
ance  ;  and,  within  a  week,  order  was  restored  throughout  the  State. 

But  little  commotion  was  experienced  in  New  England,  and  no  trains  were 
interrupted  by  rioters.  In  the  West,  however,  serious  delays  occurred,  thougii 
nowhere  was  such  violence  practised  as  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  Many 
trains  were  btopped.  In  some  cases,  the  reduction  of  wages  which  had  been 
proposed  did  not  take  place ;  and  overtures  of  one  sort  and  another  were 
made  satisfactory  to  the  railroad  employees,  and  thus  their  anger  was  appeased. 
Having  originated  among  this  class  of  working-men  for  the  most  part,  tlie 
riv  ing  extendei  no  farther;  though,  in  Pittsburgh,  others,  to  some  extent, 
participated.  They  were  aggrieved  over  the  reduction  of  their  wages,  ami 
tiiought  that  various  changes  in  the  arrangement  of  the  railroads  ought  to  be 
made  before  calling  upon  them  to  accept  any  lower  compensation  for  liieir 
services.  Their  requests  having  been  refused,  and  their  reason  becoming 
dethroned,  they  pursued  a  wild  course,  which  proved,  perhaps,  more  in- 
jurious to  them  than  to  any  other  class  of  people.  It  was  one  of  those  wild, 
thoughtless  movements  which  every  now  and  then  break  out  when  least  ex- 
pected, and  which  give  a  great  jar  to  society  ;  but  this  last  blaze  went  down  as 
suddenly  as  it  arose,  because  it  did  not  spring  from  any  fuel  which  could  burn 
long.  It  was  only  a  flash,  terrible  for  the  moment,  blindir  bewildering,  and 
frightening  many,  yet  leaving  no  dangerous  residuum.  The  are  persons  who 
tremble  over  the  possible  recuirence  of  these  scenes;  i  the  public  is  so 
aiive  to  the  danger,  on  the  one  h md,  and  those  who  indu)c;v  '  in  them  must  i)c 
so  convinced  of  their  folly,  on  the  other,  that  the  repetition  of  this  singular 
outbreak  is  not  likely  soon  to  occur. 

The  consequences  of  striking  ofttimes  have  not  been  very  carefully  con 
Effects  of  sidered  before  engaging  in  them,  otherwise  many  of  these  occur 
itrikM  upon  rehces  never  would  have  happened.  In  Antwerp  there  were  at 
butineis.  ^^^  ^^^^  nearly  fifty  establishments  devoted  to  the  manufacture  of 
cigars,  and  employing  about  ten  thousand  workmen  and  apprentices.     During 


Oi      THE    UNITED    STATES. 


897 


jl  the   railroads 
Lhe  early  part  ot 

the  riot  rose  to 
iily  quelled.    On 
and  was  first  toll 
after,  trains  were 
d  crowds  of  nun 
ilmira ;  while  the 
rt.     The  governur 
ready  to  move  at 
irious  parts  of  the 
ine  and  efticiency 
)diiing  the  disturl)- 
:  State. 

and  no  trains  were 
s  occurred,  thougli 
nnsylvania.     Many 
es  which  had  been 
t  and  another  were 
mger  was  appeased. 
I  the  most  part,  the 
rs,  to  some  extent, 
f  their  wages,  and 
roads  ought  to  be 
lensation  for  their 
reason  becomins; 
perhaps,  more  in- 
one  of  those  wild, 
out  when  least  ex- 
blaze  went  down  as 
which  could  burn 
bewildering,  and 
are  persons  who 
(.  the  public  is  so 
,  ■  in  them  must  bo 
tion  of  this  singular 

_i  very  carefully  con 
nany  of  these  occur- 
twerp  there  were  at 
the  manufactvire  of 
ipprentices.     During 


ve 


the  summer  of  1871  all  the  operatives  i  .  tituted  a  strike  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  a  reducfion  of  workiug-iiours,  though  not  of  wages;  and  also  of  pro- 
curing a  discharge  of  tiie  apprentices.  Means  were  furnished  to  the  operatives ; 
so  that  the  strike  was  prolonged  for  four  mouths  and  a  half,  when  work  was 
resumed.  In  the  mean  time,  wl.at  Iiad  hapi)oncd  to  the  Antwerp  cigar-trade? 
It  had  received  a  serious  blow  from  whicli  it  lias  never  recovered.  Those  who 
iiad  been  accustomed  to  obtain  a  supply  of  cigars  from  this  cjuarter-went  else- 
wiicre  when  their  demands  could  not  be  fulfilled,  and  have  never  returned.  i\ 
i^sss  years  ago  ri  strike  occurred  in  the  State  of  Nevada,  which  l<;d  to  the  same 
disastrous  conclusion.  In  the  silver-mines  of  Grass  Valley,  three  hundred 
Cornish  miners  who  were  receiving  four  dollars  a  day  struck  upon  the  intro- 
duction of  a  new  kind  of  blasting-powder  which  was  found  to  effect  .1  consid- 
erable saving  of  labor.  They  insisted  upon  following  the  Cornish  system  of 
mining :  the  result  vas,  that  the  mines  were  closed  forever.  Phe  pottery- 
men  of  Trenton,  N.J.,  by  indulging  in  a  strike  which  entailed  a  direct 
loss  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  upon  their  employers,  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars  upon  themselves,  crippled  the  business  so  severely,  that 
it  has  not  yet  recovered ;  atul,  while  the  loss  has  been  keenly  felt  by  the 
proprietors,  the  workmen  have  been  the  greatest  losers.  With  the  sharp  com- 
petition now  raging  in  every  kind  of  business,  it  is  semitive  even  to  the  slightest 
shock ;  and,  when  so  violent  an  interruption  occurs  as  a  strike,  the  conse- 
(juences  not  infreciuently  are  severe  and  lasting.  The  foregoing  illustrations 
are  only  a  few  of  the  many  which  may  be  given. 

Terrible  as  strikes  often  are,  they  cannot  always  be  laid  at  the  door  of  trade- 
unions.  Many  entertain  the  opposite  opinion ;  and  it  is  desirable  to  present 
the  truth  upon  this  point  as  clearly  as  possible,  even  if  considerable 
space  be  required  for  the  purpose.  All  the  members  of  the  Trade- 
Unions  Commission  were  in  accord  on  this  point  concerning  Eng- 
lish strikes,  and  the  language  used  in  the  leading  and  dissenting 
reports  is  almost  the  same.  To  quote  from  the  chief  one :  "  It 
does  not  appear  to  be  borne  out  by  the  evidence  that  the  disposition  to  strike 
on  the  part  of  the  workmen  is  in  itself  the  creation  of  unionism,  or  that  the 
frequency  of  strikes  increases  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  the  union.  It 
is,  indeed,  affirmed  by  the  leaders  of  unions,  that  the  effect  of  the  estr.blished 
societies  is  to  diminish  the  frequency,  and  certainly  the  disorder,  of  strikes, 
aiv'  to  guarantee  a  regularity  of  wages  and  hours,  rather  than  to  engage  in 
<o!istant  endeavors  to  improve  them." 

This  evidence  throws  into  bold  relief  a  good  feature  of  trade-unions. 
Admitted  upon  the  best  authority  that  they  are  not  the  authors 
of  strikes,  the  strongest,  richest,  and  mflst  extended  of  these 
organizations  have  had  the  fewest  strikes  and  disputes ;  while 
the  wages  of  their  members  and  their  hours  of  laljor  show  the 
greatest  permanence.     The  Society  of  Engineers,  of  which  Mr.  Allan  is  secre 


Trade- 
unions  not 
always  re- 
sponsible for 
strikes. 


Richest 
unions  have 
fewest 
strikes. 


iilii 


m 


898 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


most  fre 
quently. 


tary,  is  very  minicrou3,  embracing  the  principal  portion  of  tlic  worlcmcn 
engaged  in  that  business  in  (Ireat  Britain.  At  one  time  the  society  liad  a 
reserve-fund  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  So  great  is  their 
power,  that  Mr.  Heyer,  a  partner  in  one  of  the  largest  iron-founileries  in 
England,  represented  himself  as  wholly  in  the  control  of  the  union.  IJiit 
their  wages,  notwithstanding  their  jjower,  have  been  scarcely  raised  for  twenty- 
five  years,  except  by  the  voluntary  act  of  their  masters. 

The  feeblest  tmions  —  those  just  struggling  into  existence  perhaps,  or  whii  h 
have  the  least  control  over  their  members  —  oftenest  indulge  in  strikes.  Not 
Feebient  infrequently  unions  are  formed  when  the  spirit  for  striking  is  rife  ; 
unions  strike  and,  conscfiuently,  they  are  charged  with  instituting  strikes  whi(  h 
would  have  happened  whether  unions  existed  or  not.  When  nicn 
are  dissatisfied  with  their  wages,  they  can  easily  subscribe  a  small 
fund  for  the  jjurpose  of  striking,  and  create  a  union  which  is  not  intended  to 
exist  beyond  the  occasion  giving  it  birth.  The  proceedings  of  such  bodies 
ought  not  in  justice  to  be  charged  to  the  regularly-constituted  union.  It  is 
said  of  the  Knglish  tailors'  and  iron-workers'  unions,  that  they  "  never  possessed 
the  power  or  the  permanent  character  of  such  societies  as  the  Amalgamated 
Engineers  and  .Amalgamated  Carpenters ;  "  and  these  are  the  trades  in  wliidi 
the  loudest  comi)laints  are  heard  of  the  freiuency  of  strikes.  Numerous 
strikes  and  lockouts  have  occurred  in  the  coal-mining  districts  of  Wales  and 
Derbyshire ;  but  no  unions  have  flourished  in  those  regions.  In  the  United 
States  most  of  the  unions  are  young,  hardly  in  working-order,  having  no  accu- 
mulated funds,  the  discipline  exercised  being  exceedingly  lax;  the  machine  in 
every  way  bearing  evidence  of  hasty  and  rutle  construction.  While  they  have 
wrought  mischiefs  which  cannot  be  excused,  yet  we  may,  in  a  spirit  of  fairness, 
believe  that  many  of  these  would  not  have  arisen  had  the  unions  been  in  longer 
and  more  perfect  operation. 

During  the  years  1875  and  1876  many  unions  were  created  in  the  United 
States  during  strikes,  or  with  special  reference  to  them.  The  societies  grew 
out  of  a  striking  disposition,  but  not  the  strikes  from  the  creation  of  the 
unions.  Nevertheless,  the  hated  trade-unions  are  unjustly  accused  of  originat- 
ing grave  evils  which  would  have  happened  in  any  event.  As  these  organiza- 
tions grow  older  and  more  stable,  and  select  more  capable  leaders,  they  will 
be  managed  with  greater  wisdom,  and  capital  will  have  less  cause  to  fear  them. 

It  is  (picstioncd  whether  the  diminished  frequency  of  strikes  among  power- 
ful unions  arises  less  from  want  of  disposition  to  strike  on  the  part  of  the  mem- 
Do  stronger  ^'^''^  t'^^"  ^""O'^  ^'^'^  f'^^*^  ^'^''^'  ^'^<^''"  Organization  is  so  powerful,  as,  in 
unions  abuse  most  cases,  to  obtain  the  concession  demanded  without  recourse 
t  e  r  power  ^^  ^j^j^  measure.  Perhaps  this  is  so ;  but  surely  it  will  not  be  denieil 
that  the  Trade-Unions  Commission,  who  raised  this  query,  did  not  glean  a 
scintilla  of  evidence  upon  the  point  in  their  most  thorough  and  in  every  way 
creditable  investigation.     We  can  comprehend  what  influence  these  powerful 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 


899 


organizations  roiild  exert  if  they  chose,  and  how  masters  had  better  submit 
to  llicir  (Icinantls,  liioiiyh  (Io(  laniig  llicuj  wrong,  than  go  through  the  painful 
unceitainty  of  a  striiie.  In  several  instances,  masters  have  confessed  them- 
selves within  tlie  power  of  trade-unions :  if  this  he  true,  they  could  obtain  new 
concessions  without  a  conflict  of  any  kind.  I'ossibly,  if  several  of  the  socie- 
ties were  less  strong,  they  migiit  not  have  received  some  of  the  benefits  which 
iiave  couje  to  then)  peaceably,  and  perhaps  none  at  all.  Let  us  not  forget, 
though,  that  there  is  no  evidence  on  the  subject ;  and  in  the  absence  of 
this  the  <iuestion  is  purely  speculative,  and  cannot  receive  a  definitive 
answer. 

The  reason  why  the  richer  and  more  powerful  unions  moderate  the  dispo- 
sition for  strikes  is  not  merely  to  conserve  their  funds,  nor  because  they  obtain 
concessions  by  reason  of  their  power,  but  because  they  are  more  _, 

'  '  '  •'  Stronger 

wisely  conducteil  than  the  newer  ami  smaller  organizations.     'I'he  union*  are 
covernment  of  each  branch  of  the  union  is  vested  in  a  committee  '"""'^ 

°  guided. 

and  local  secretary  elected  from  time  to  time  by  the  members; 
while  the  government  of  the  whole  society  is  conuuonly  vested  in  a  general  or 
executive  coun«il  elected  by  the  branches,  and  a  general  secretary  elected 
by  universal  suffrage  of  the  entire  organization.  Hoth  the  executive  council 
and  the  committee  of  the  several  branches  are  required  to  govern  them- 
selves according  to  established  rules ;  and,  when  these  do  not  exist,  they 
must  rely  upon  their  juilgment,  subject  to  an  appeal  to  the  general  bociy 
Instituting  and  conducting  strikes  is  the  most  important  funct''>n  of  every 
well-organized  union's  council.  It  is  these  councils  which  liave  toned 
down  the  disposition  of  workmen  so  much  in  regard  to  strikes ;  for,  gener- 
ally, the  best  men  are  selected  for  these  places,  —  men  of  the  most  intelli- 
gence, and  who  are  the  best  capable  of  ascertaining  the  condition  and 
profits  of  the  business  in  which  workmen  are  employed.  These  leaders,  from 
their  superior  knowledge  and  capability  to  find  out  the  true  condition  of  busi- 
ness, can  judge  butler  than  the  members ;  and  hence  it  is  that  strikes  among 
the  larger  ami  more  wisely-conducted  unions  are  diminishing.  And  this  we 
regard  as  a  very  hopeful  feature  of  trade-unions.  One  thing  the  toiling  classes 
need  is  correct  information  concerning  the  business  in  which  they  are  engaged. 
They  imagine  their  employers  are  getting  very  ricli  oftentimes,  when  they  are 
running  at  a  loss,  though  keeping  the  fact  concealed.  The  strikes  which 
occurred  in  the  cotton-mills  of  New  England  during  1S75  are  unanswerable 
proof  of  this  remark.  Most  of  them  had  earned  no  profits  for  several  months; 
yet  the  operatives  in  several  cases  unwisely  demanded  an  increase  of  wages. 
Had  they  known  any  thing  about  the  condition  of  trade,  they  would  have 
comprehended  the  folly  of  asking  for  an  advance  when  employers  were 
keeping  them  busy  at  a  loss.  Personal  knowledge  or  wise  leadership  would 
have  saved  them  from  a  contest  with  their  employers  which  was  sure  to  end  in 
the  laborers'  defeat.     They  were   the  dupes  of  ignorant  and  wild  leaders, 


'='1' 


m 


n 


'',' 


^ 


90O 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


instead  of  wise  and  temperate  ones  ;  and  behold  the  result !  Every  one  who 
knew  any  thing  about  the  condition  of  the  cotton -trade  was  certain  the  strikes 
would  end  in  failure ;  for,  in  fact,  the  owners  were  (luite  as  willing  to  have  the 
mf,n  unemployed  as  not.  Prejudice  and  ill  feeling  between  employed  and 
<  mployer  help  kindle  the  laboring-man's  imagination  respecting  the  profits 
iccruing  from  his  labor.  Now  the  leaders  of  unions  are  in  a  situation  to 
learn  more  perfectly  the  exact  nature  of  things,  and  this  is  why  they  advise 
more  peaceful  measures. 

Here  a  streak  of  light  issues  from  these  organizations,  especially  since  the 
establishment  of  boards  of  arbitration  and  conciliation  for  the  settlement  of 
How  unions  differences  between  men  and  masters.  Members  having  confi- 
•id  concilia-  dence  in  their  councils  are  able  to  submit  questions  to  third  parties 
for  settlement.  They  could  do  what  would  be  impossible  were 
they  unorganized.  Should  all  the  men  in  a  shop  strike,  and  the  attempt 
be  made  to  leave  the  differences  between  them  and  their  masters  to  some 
person  for  arbitration,  the  difficulty  would  be  in  organizing  the  workmen  for 
consultation ;  and  even  were  a  tem^jorary  organization  formed,  and  represen- 
tatives selected  from  it  to  confer  with  their  employer,  they  would  not  command 
such  confidence  as  those  who  were  recognized  as  leaders,  and  thorougiily 
knowing  the  condition  of  business. 

It  is  asserted  that  these  /ery  councils  foment  strikes  when  they  ought  not. 
Being  paid  officers,  they  regard  it  as  part  of  their  duty,  it  is  said,  to  advise 
Do  councils  Striking  occasionally.  This  is  thought  to  be  their  occupation, 
foment  They  are  chosen  to  wage  war,  not  to  maintain  peace.     These 

*  '    "  notions  are  erroneous.     Only  a  very  few  persons  connected  witli 

trade-unions  receive  any  pecuniary  reward  ;  nor  do  they  constantly  agitate  for 
higher  wages  and  other  benefits.  This  we  suppose  they  do,  in  some  cases ; 
yet  it  is  quite  clear,  that,  in  general,  the  tendency  of  their  advice  and  counsel  is 
to  moderate  the  striking  disposition  of  those  under  their  direction  and  control. 
Strikes  began  long  before  trade-unions  were  ever  thought  of:  they  are  inci- 
dental to  collecting  men  in  masses  as  they  have  been  collected  by  the  erection 
of  factories.  The  union  does  give  an  increased  power  of  striking :  it  can  deal 
a  harder  blow  ;  but,  instead  of  giving  it,  an  increased  sense  of  order,  subordi- 
nation, and  reflection,  is  exhibited.  Does  any  one  doubt  the  truth  of  this? 
Listen  to  what  tjie  General  Secretary  of  the  Amalgamated  Society  of  Caii)cn- 
ters  and  Joiners  says  in  his  last  report :  "  Our  demands  on  our  employers  for 
wages  and  reduced  working-hours,  wiiich  have  been  moderate  in  their  charac- 
ter, and  which  have  been  a  consequence,  not  a  cause,  of  the  enhanced  cost  of 
the  necessaries  of  life,  have  generally  been  courteously  conceded ;  and  thus 
our  disputes  have  been  few  and  unimportant.  I  sincerely  trust  that  an  ami- 
cable relationshii)  between  employers  and  employed  may  be  permaneiilly 
maintained.  Although  we  may  be  told,  that,  in  accordance  with  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand,  we  are  justified  in  pressing  for  all  the  advantages  we  can 


OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


901 


18 


possibly  obtain  in  busy  times,  and  that  we  should  accept  whatever  may  be 
offered  to  us  when  trade  is  depressed,  I  hold  that  such  a  policy  is  advan- 
tageous neither  to  employer  nor  employed,  and  cannot  benefit  the  general 
public.  Wherever  our  employers  are  disposed  to  meet  us  in  a  fair  and  concili- 
atory spirit,  our  members  will  do  well  to  meet  them  with  equal  cordiality,  to 
carefully  consider  any  arguments  that  may  be  advanced,  and  thoroughly 
examine  both  sides  of  the  question  at  issue.  If  e.nployers  and  workmen  are 
determined  to  act  fairly  by  their  opponents,  as  well  as  to  secure  justice  to 
themselves,  matters  of  detail  may  be  arranged,  differences  amicably  settled, 
and  results  secured  which  would  be  far  more  satisfactory  to  all  parties  than  any 
thing  which  could  be  obtained  by  a  strike  or  lockout."  Who  can  find  fault 
with  this  advice,  or  maintain  that  working-men  are  not  better  off  under  such 
leadership  than  they  would  be  each  one  struggling  for  himself  ?  Do 
not  these  words  give  promise  of  restored  harmony  between  capital  and 
labor  f  Surely  trade-unions  thus  directed  ought  to  be  encouraged,  not  con- 
demned. 

We  have  reserved  for  the  close  a  word  or  two  in  the  way  of  contrasting 
the  trade-unions  of  the  United  States  with  those  existing  in  European  coun- 
tries.   In  those,  the  ranks  of  labor  for  centuries  ha\  c  been  full ;  the  contrast  of 
power  of  capital  has  been  enormous  :   and  fairness  requires  us  to   working-men 
say  that  the  working-man  there  needed  far  more  protection  than  spates  with 
was  given  him  by  law ;   far  more  than  he,  under  the  most  favor-   those  in 
able   circumstances,   received.     Harsh   and   unjustifiable  as  are     "'°P"- 
some  of  the  rules  and  methods  of  trade-unions  there,  they  are  grounded  in 
the  most  solid  reasons ;  but  in  the  United  States  the  case  is  very  different. 
Even  if  employers  be  found  selfish  and  too  grasping,  an  enormous  public  do- 
main is  open  for  settlement ;  and  thither  can  the  oppressed  son  of  toil  always 
fly  for  relief.     No  one  has  studied  the  case  of  the  working-men  with  greater 
care  and  devotion  than  Thomas  Hughes  of  England  ;  for  years  he  has  fought 
their  battle  without  flinching :   yet,  when  he  visited  this  country  a  few  years 
ago,  he  delivered  a  lecture  to  the  working-men  of  New  York,  in  which  he 
said,  — 

"  I  have  no  right  to  offer  counsel  to  either  side,  and  may  possibly  be  even 
regarded  with  suspicion  by  employers  of  labor  over  here,  as  I  have  been  till 
lately  by  those  of  England  ;  but  as  I  have  helped  the  working-men  xhomas 
at  home  to  fight  their  l)attles,  and  have  had  the  happiness  of  earn-   Hughes's 
ing  t'leir  confidence,  I  trust  their  brethren  here  will  take  the  few  "P'"'""* 
words  I  have  to  say  to  them  in  good  part,  and  as  those,  at  any  rate,  of  a  friend. 
Is  it,  then,  the  fact,  that  you,  the  working-men  of  the  United  States,  are  running 
simply  on  the  old  tracks,  and  arc  fiirbishing  up  the  old  weapons  of  trade- 
unionism,  which  have  so  often  run  into  the  hands  of  those  who  wielded  them  ? 
Are  you  really  trying  by  your  organizations  to  control  the  free  will  of  those  of 
your  body  who  are  not  unionists ;   to  put  restrictions  and  limitations  on  the 


rffl 


902 


INDUSTRIAL    HISTORY 


hours  of  labor,  the  admission  of  apprentiv  .s,  the  use  of  machinery,  the  rate 
of  wages,  and  to  carry  out  your  ideas  by  the  old  method  of  strikes?  These 
things  have  been  done  often  enougli  in  England.  If  not  wise  even  there,  at 
least  they  had  a  justification  which  here  is  wholly  wanting.  Where  tiie 
labor-market  is  overstocked,  and  tliere  are  often  two  men  waiting  for  one 
man's  place,  I  can  understand,  and  have  often  sympathized  with  and  defended, 
rules  and  practices  intended  to  spread  work  evenly,  and  requiring  self-sacrifice 
from  the  ablest  workmen,  that  all  of  fair  capacity  might  earn  a  livelihood. 
Where  all  the  natural  wealth  of  the  country  (if  I  may  use  the  phrase)  is 
already  monopolized,  where  lands,  mines,  waters  —  all  the  raw  material  out  of 
which  wealth  is  created  —  are  in  private  hands,  and  there  is  the  keenest  com- 
petition for  the  use  of  them,  as  there  is  with  us,  one  must  not  be  too  critical 
as  to  the  methods  by  which  the  great  body  of  producers  have  endeavored  to 
secure  their  share  of  the  products.  But  here  you  have  well-paid  employment 
waiting  for  every  man  who  is  ready  to  do  an  honest  day's  work.  Here  the 
natural  wealth  of  the  country  is,  for  all  practical  purposes,  unappropriated,  and 
lying  around  you  in  almost  unbounded  profusion.  You  have  nothing  to  do 
but  to  exercise  a  little  thrift  and  foresight  for  a  few  short  months,  to  spend  for 
that  time  less  than  you  cam,  and  there  are  tlie  means  in  tlie  iiands  of  every 
one  of  you  of  obtaining  house,  land,  wliatever  form  of  wealth  you  are  most 
eager  for,  with  only  too  great  facility. 

"  On  what  possible  plea  of  reason  or  justice  or  necessity,  or  even  of  hand- 
to-mouth  policy,  can  you  undertake  to  control  or  limit  the  right  to  work  on  his 
own  terms,  in  his  own  way,  of  any  man,  when  there  is  ample  room  for  twenty 
times  your  present  numbers,  and  your  land  is  crying  out  for  all  the  work  which 
every  man  among  you  can  put  into  it?  When  the  great  trade-unions  of  Eng- 
land are  becoming  every  day  more  peaceable  and  reasonable  as  they  become 
more  powerful,  and  are  jealous  of  every  expenditure  whicli  is  not  for  some 
provident  or  benevolent  purpose,  are  the  unions  and  the  working-men  of 
America  going  to  pick  up  the  old  armor,  instead  of  leaving  it  to  rust  where  it 
lies,  and  to  spend  the  earnings  which  belong  to  the  wives  and  children  as 
much  as  to  them  in  a  crusade  for  preaching  the  gospel  of  idleness?  I  cannot 
believe  it ;  for,  if  there  is  one  truth  which  this  nation  has  hitherto  preaciicd 
faithfully  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  it  is  .he  gospel  of  work." 

It  is  not  for  us,  in  narrating  the  industrial  movements  in  thi";  country,  to 
add  any  thing  to  them  in  the  way  of  criticism.  Unwelcome  as  trade-unions 
Future  of  ^^  *°  most  employers  of  labor,  and  however  unnecessary  tlity 
trade-  may  be,  their  existence  is  a  fact ;  and,  tliough  many  a  strike  lias 

un  oni.  ended  disastrously  to  their  members,  with  only  a  few  exceptions 

they  have  not  disbanded,  nor  have  they  manifested  the  slightest  intention  of 
so  doing.  There  are  persons  who  have  cherished  the  belief  that  a  few  severe 
reverses  would  put  an  end  to  the  organization ;  but  those  who  have  deluded 
themselves  with  such  thoughts  liave  not  studied  with  sufficient  care  the  nature 


OF   THE    UNITED   STATES. 


903 


of  trade-unions.  Very  likely  they  ought  to  disband;  perhaps  there  is  no  excuse 
for  their  existence  :  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  these  are  not  the  thoughts 
of  unionists  themselves.  They  believe  in  the  necessity  of  organization  in  order 
to  secure  and  preserve  their  rights ;  and  as  long  as  they  do,  though  many  more 
disasters  may  befall  them,  and  severer  ones  than  those  which  they  have  yet 
experienced,  trade-unions  will  probably  live,  and  perliaps  thrive  even  tlie 
more  because  of  their  defeats. 


"IS 


.^ 


BOOK    VII. 


THE  INDUSTRIES  OF  CANADA. 


IT  is 
totl 
of  the  1 
connecti 
not  beer 
newspap 
nianufac 
of  the  w 
taken  pi; 
lament  tl 
ent   talc, 
occupied 
duces  8c 
over  20C 

of  ?250,< 

annually, 
have  bus 
Her  inch 
developm 
ployed, 
related  wi 
admiratioi 
Dominion 


At  pre 
to  the  peo 
industry  tl 
easiest  am 
train  a  var 
&c.,  \vhos( 
ble.    The 


'/ 


THE  INDUSTRIES  OF  CANADA. 


IT  is  proposed  in  this  book  to  make  a,  brief  general  statement  in  regard 
to  the  industries  of  the  nation  which  is  growing  up  on  the  northern  border 
of  the  United  States,  and  with  which  this  country  is  intimately  importance 
connected  by  ties  of  race,  language,  trade,  and  destiny.  It  has  of  Canadian 
not  been  unusual  of  late  years  to  observe  laments  in  the  Canadian 
newspapers  to  the  effect  that  Canada  has  no  industries.  Certain  branches  of 
manufacturing  which  are  carried  on  extensively  in  America  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  world  are  not  yet  practised  in  Canada,  and  general  development  has  not 
taken  place  as  rapidly  as  south  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Noting  this  fact,  writers 
lament  that  Canada  has  no  industries.  The  government  statistics  tell  a  differ- 
ent tale.  Surely  a  land  richly  endowed  by  nature,  and  happy  in  being 
occupied  by  a  free,  intelligent,  and  active-minded  race,  which  already  pro- 
duces 80,000,000  bushels  of  grain  yearly,  15,000,000  gallons  of  petroleum, 
over  200,000,000  cubic  feet  of  lumber,  800,000  tons  of  coal,  and  a  value 
of  ;j25o,ooo,ooo  in  general  nianufoctures,  whose  fisheries  yield  $12,000,000 
annually,  and  which  exports  in  a  fair  year  $89,000,000  worth  of  goods,  must 
have  busy  and  profitable  industries.  Such  is,  indeed,  the  case  with  Canada. 
Her  industries  are  numerous  E.id  vatied,  have  attained  a  most  satisfactory 
development,  and  are  fully  sufficient  to  keep  her  population  profitably  em- 
ployed. The  story  concerning  them  is  interesting,  and  will  now  be  succinctly 
related  with  a  pen  which  will  not  at  any  rate  fail  in  its  task  from  any  lack  of 
admiration  for  what  has  been  accomplished  by  the  spirited  people  of  the 
Dominion. 

T'TE    FISHERIES. 

At  present  the  fisheries  constitute  the  greatest  individual  source  of  wealth 
to  the  people  of  Canada.  Not  only  do  they  employ  more  men  in  profitable 
industry  than  any  other  pursuit  except  farming,  and  not  only  do  they  form  the 
easiest  and  least  expensive  of  occupations,  but  they  carry  in  their  Magnitude  of 
train  a  variety  of  other  industries,  like  ship  building,  transportation,  **"=  fisheries. 
&c.,  whose  prosperity  they  insure.  They  are,  besides,  practically  inexhausti- 
ble.   The  Gulf  Stream,  flowing  northward  near  the  American  coast,  is  met  in 

907 


9o8 


THE   INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


the  vicinity  of  Newfoundland  by  currents  from  the  polar  basin  j  and  by  the 
deposits  which  take  place  at  the  meeting  of  the  opposing  waters  are  formed 
V.  St  submarine  islands,  or  "  banks,"  whose  shallow  waters  are  the  feeding- 
grounds  of  immense  shoals  of  migratory  fish  which  resort  thither  annually. 
I'he  reproductive  pow  .  of  some  of  the  varieties,  the  cod  particularly,  arc 
very  great ;  and  there  ..  probable  impossibility  that  these  species  can  ever  be 
'",  ■•royed  by  human  nv.ans.  'I"he  whole  sea  is  their  breeding-ground.  'Ihesc 
fish  .ire  not  found  on  >he  banks  alone;  they  visit  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrcnc  c 
and  the  shores  of  all  the  maritime  provinces  of  Canada,  in  unlimited  nuniljcis  . 
and  the  cjuantity  of  them  that  will  be  taken  for  ages  appears  to  depend  only 
on  the  efforts  that  will  be  put  forth  for  the  purpose.  This  remark  refers  ukjic 
particularly  to  the  cod,  mackerel,  and  herring.  Certain  of  the  insiiorc  varie- 
ties, migratory  and  otherwise,  such  as  the  salmon,  shad,  smelt,  and  lobster, 
have  shown  a  susceptibilty  to  decrease  with  excessive  fishing ;  but  they  sliU 
exist  in  enormous  numbers,  and  their  capture  engages  the  services  of  thousands 
of  men  annually.  These  latter  fisheries  the  (lovernment  of  the  Dominion  '., 
taking  steps  to  restore  by  breeding  and  by  protective  laws ;  and  they  siiow 
such  a  capability  of  responding  to  fostering  measures,  that  they,  too,  may  he 
termed  practically  inexhaustible.  Besides  the  salt-sea  fisheries,  there  are  others 
in  the  interior,  upon  the  lakes  and  rivers,  which  are  very  profitable  in  their  way, 
and  employ  a  great  many  men. 

The  people  of  the  maritime  provinces  are  peculiarly  fitted  by  origin  and 
training  to  turn  to  account  the  advantages  of  their  geographical  situation. 
Early  de-  ^ '^^  early  French,  Spanish,  and  Portuguese  navigators  of  these 
veiopmentof  coasts,  all  discovered  the  plentifulness  of  the  fish  in  the  ncighbor- 
the  industry,  j^^^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^  unlimited  abundance  of  the  herds  of  walrus  ami 
seals  which  swarmed  on  the  islands  of  the  (iulf  of  St.  Lawrence.  As  early  as 
the  first  part  of  the  fifteenth  century  they  were  aware  of  the  great  sources  of 
wealth  which  surrounded  these  shores.  The  reports  they  made  to  their  respec- 
tive governments  brought  whole  fleets  of  fishing-vessels  to  their  waters ;  and 
in  process  of  time  the  hardy  adventurers,  instead  of  coming  out  in  the  spring 
and  going  back  in  the  fidl,  as  they  were  wont  to  do  at  first,  went  ashore,  and 
settled  permanently  on  the  fishing  islands  and  coasts.  This  was  particularly 
the  case  with  the  French,  who  swarmed  to  this  region  from  the  Norman, 
Basque,  and  Breton  seaports  in  great  numbers,  and  became  permanent  resi- 
dents of  the  country.  The  most  extensive  fisheries  of  the  early  times  witc 
Disappear-      ^'''^  walrus,  seal,  and  cod ;  but,  when  the  former  two   had  nearly 

disap|)eared,  the  setders  fell  back  upon  cod,  herring,  and  mackerel. 

Great  Britain  finally  contributed  her  quota  to  the  population  of 
the  maritime  provinces  from  her  own  fishing-ports ;  and  thus  the  country  was 
taken  possession  of  by  a  body  of  energetic  men,  who,  though  of  differciil 
nationalities,  were  one  in  their  love  for  the  sea  and  the  past  training  whit  li 
fitted  them  for  the  cultivation  of  the  rich  fishing-grounds  which  they  had  come 


ance  of  the 
walrus. 


TIIK    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


go9 


over  here  to  enjoy.  Agriculture  was  for  a  long  period  neglected,  and,  in  fact, 
even  despised.  Tiie  whole  population  was  sustaint-'l  by  the  fisheries  and  naviga- 
tion alone.  This  state  of  things  changed  after  a  while  :  for  the  more  far-sighted 
began  to  clear  the  land,  and  raise  grain  and  cattle,  in  order  to  take  advantage 
of  all  the  resources  of  their  situation  ;  and  they  found  their  profit  in  so  doing. 
IJut,  while  this  change  has  continued  to  go  on  until  agriculture  has  received 
a  very  considerable  development  in  the  maritime  provinces,  fishing  has, 
nevertheless,  always  been  the  main-stay  of  neo;>le,  and  apparently  always 
will  l)e. 

The  government  report  for  the  year  ^77  s"      s  the  magnitude  to  which 
the  Canadian  fisheries  have  now  attained.      ^    e  figiies  are  as  fol-  statistics 
lows;  the  statistics  for  Newfoundland  f     ij7,  oeing  added  to  the   '°''"*74- 
table,  as  properly  belonging  there,  altho  igh     ic  /land  is  still  politically  inde- 
pendent of  the  Dominion  :  — 


DISTRICTS. 

DO  ATS. 

VALUE  OF 
BOATS. 

FISIIEKMUN. 

SHOREMEN. 

VAI.UK  OF 
PKOOUCT. 

Gaspe     .... 

2,970 

$213,000 

3.306 

1,674 

$616,309 

Konaventure  . 

1,111 

204,000 

I.4SS 

247 

130,715 

Labrador 

1.86s 

416,000 

2.795 

1,281 

954,285 

Magdalen  Islands  . 

767 

252,000 

1,500 

597 

366,170 

Anticosti  Island     . 

375 

29,000 

416 

"7 

135,352 

St.  Lawrence  River 

1,840 

21,000 

3,061 

.... 

362,314 

Nova  .Scotia  . 

11,064 

1,504,000 

25.859 

.... 

5.527,858 

New  Brunswick 

3.7IO 

285,000 

8,307 

.... 

2, 1 33-236 

Trince  Edward  Island    . 

1,486 

77,000 

4,28s 

.... 

763,03s 

Ontario  .... 

1,267 

6S,ooo 

3.867 

.... 

438,223 

Manitoba 

.... 

24,023 

British  Columbia  . 

161 

11,000 

444 

745 

583-432 

Total       . 

26,616 

53,080,000 

55,295 

4.661 

$12,034,952 

Newfoundland       . 

12,000 

32,000 



9,000,000 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that,  whereas  manufacturing  and  many  other  pur- 
suits have  been  obliged  to  curtail  production  since  the  flush  times  prior  to 
1873,  the  fisheries  of  Canada  have  steadily  increased  their  prod-   increase  of 
uct  year  by  year.    There  has  been  no  fallin  -off  owing  to  the  hnrd   product 
times:  on  the  contrary,  the  market  for  fii^h  becomes  more  eager  *'"'^'''  ^3" 
and  active  every  year ;   and  the  larger  catch  is   merely  the  response  to  a 
growing  demand.     The  completion  of  the  Intercolonial  Railroad  Effect  of 
in  the  maritime  provinces  within  the  last  few  years  has  been  a  intercoioniat 
powerful  auxiliary  to  the  fishermen.     Tiie  difficulty  of  distributing      "'  '°* 
fresh  fish  in  former  years  compelled  the  fishing-people  to  salt  down  their  catch 
in  barrels,  or  preserve  it  by  canning,  in  order  to  save  it,  and  get  it  to  a 


9IO 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


market.  By  the  opening  of  the  Intercolonial  Railroad  they  are  now  enabled 
to  transmit  salmon,  cod,  iialibiit,  lobsters,  and  other  fish,  fresh,  and  i)ackcd  in 
ice,  from  the  sliorcs  of  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  otiier  fishing-coasts  lo 
market  in  a  few  hours,  and  at  greatly  reduced  prices.  This  has  rendered  the 
trade  more  profitable  by  reilucing  the  expense  of  transportation,  and  has  led  to 
its  expansion  by  bringing  the  catch  into  the  centres  of  population  in  a  per- 
fectly fresh  state.  The  same  results  may  be  expected  when  the  parts  of  Canada 
more  distant  from  the  sea-coast  are  better  united  therewith  by  the  future  railro;i(Is 
of  the  Dominion.  Tiiere  will  be  an  enlargement  of  the  market  for  fish,  and  a 
consecpient  increased  activity  among  the  pursuit  of  the  treasures  of  the  fishint; 
banks  and  coasts ;  tlicre  will  be  less  canning  and  salting,  and  more  jiackiny 
in  ice  (something  of  this  sort  being  already  seen  in  the  abandonment  of  can- 
ning and  salting  establishments  in  New  Brunswick)  ;  and  there  will  be  more 
boat-building,  more  freighting  by  rail  and  ship,  more  training  of  hardy  seamen 
for  the  merchant-marine,  and  a  larger  body  of  non-agricultural  people  to  pur- 
chase the  produce  of  the  farms. 

Statistics  The  following  table  will  show  the  character  and  yield  of  the 

for  187/.  different  fisheries  of  the  Dominion  (Newfoundland  being  omitted), 

the  figures  being  for  the  year  1877  :  — 


Codfish 

Herrings 

Mackerel 

Haddock 

Salmon 

Alcwivcs,  bbis 

Smelts,  lbs 

Lobsters,  preserved,  lbs 

Oysters,  bbls 

Fish  and  clams  for  bait  and  manure,  bbls.     . 

Kish-oils,  galls 

Seal-skins,  pieces 

Pollack,  cwt 

Hake,  cwt 

Halibut 

Trout 

White-fish 

Shad       .••....... 

Whale-oil,  g.ills 

Cod-oil,  galls. 

All  other  fish  and  products,  including  fresh  and  salt 
water  varieties,  the  catch  in  each  case  never  exceed- 
ing $Co,ooo 


CfANTITIES  CAUGHT. 


'S.3'3 

2,266,:o2 

8,085,569 

29,50s 

222,379 

466,579 

20,312 

58.746 

77.454 


I3.7>6 
225,129 


5.1.5<5'.'99 

1,522,091 

1,667,815 

475.7-^2 

855,687 
67,298 

'35.972 
i,2ic,8;5 

£8,704 
'95.7-^1 
303.=7'J 

43.9' 5 
205,611 
271,090 

4S.73- 
«73.'499 
210,6:5 

80,  rw 

6,858 

112,564 


795.479 
112,034,95: 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


9" 


w  enabled 
packet!  ill 
g-coasts  to 
lulcroil  tlic 

has  k'cl  to 
w  in  a  pcr- 

of  Canada 
re  railro;ids 

fisli,  and  a 

tlic  fishini; 
)rc  packing 
cnt  of  cau- 
vill  be  more 
irdy  seamen 
ople  to  pur- 
yield  of  the 
ig  omitted), 


VALUE. 

I,522,0(JI 

1,667.815 

475.7" 

855,687 

67,395 

135.97: 

I,2l-.^,i5 

88,704 
l9S.7-t 

43.9' 5 
205,611 

27  1,0(^0 

4".73: 

210,6:5 

80,  :w 

6,S5S 

112,564 


Cod-flshing. 


795.479 


112,034,95= 


At  Newfoundland  the  principal  fisheries  arc  of  cod,  seal,  herring,  and 
salmon,  ranking  in  importance  in  the  order  named.      In   1874   p^^^^j  ^^ 
the   catch   of  cod   amounted   to    1,500,000  quintals.      In    1873   nsherietat 
107  vessels,  with  8,062  men,  were  employed  in  sealing  (twenty   Newfound- 
of  these  vessels  being  steamers),  and  525,000  skins  were  taken. 

Cod-fishing  is  the  industry  upon  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  maritime 
provinces  and  Newfoundland  chiefly  rely  for  a  living.  It  is  practised  along- 
shore in  Nova  Scotia,  New  Brunswick,  and  the  islands  of  the  Gulf 
of  St.  Lawrence,  and  at  the  banks  two  or  three  miles  from  shore, 
as  well  as  at  the  great  banks  in  the  open  sea.  It  is  mostly  carried  on  in  small 
boats  near  shore.  The  great  banks  in  the  gulf  and  open  sea  have  been  com- 
paratively neglected.  Only  a  few  years  ago,  the  interest  of  the  people  of 
Newfoundland  in  the  great  banks  was  confined  to  the  sale  of  bait  to  the 
Americans  and  French  wiio  were  enterprising,  or  who,  having  larger  capital, 
built  large  boats  for  the  industry,  and  pushed  out  boldly  into  the  stormy  waters 
avoided  by  the  Canadians.  Newfoundland  and  gulf  fishermen  now,  however, 
understand  the  advantages  of  deep-sea  fishing.  Cod  being  sometimes  scarce 
along  the  shore,  owing  to  a  lack  of  food  or  other  causes,  they  have  of  late 
been  fitting  out  vessels  for  the  bank-fisheries,  where  cod  never  fail,  by  reason 
of  their  always  finding  there  an  abundance  of  food.  Cod  is  found  in  the  gulf 
the  whole  year  round.  Other  specimens  of  fish  frequent  the  gulf  at  specific 
periods  of  the  year,  and  seals  and  whalci  follow  them  in  mon*  or  less.  But 
these  varieties  retire,  or  disappear ;  whereas  cod,  though  most  abundant  along- 
shore in  the  spring,  when  the  herring  and  caplin  strike  in,  are  nevertheless 
found  eilh';r  alongsliore  or  on  the  bunks  from  one  end  of  the  year  to  the 
other.  Speaking  of  the  abundance  of  cod  in  the  gulf,  Mr.  N.  Lavoie,  the  fish- 
ery-officer of  the  gulf,  says,  "  The  great  extent  of  the  Canadian  fishing- 
grounds,  and,  above  all,  their  inexhaustible  wealth,  are  not  suflicicnlly  appre- 
ciated by  our  own  people.  Men  of  cduc?.'aon  who  visit  the  coast  of  Gaspd 
for  the  first  time  cannot  sufficicndy  express  their  wonder  at  seeing  such 
abumlance,  and  arc  compelled  to  own  that  its  shores  miglit  aflbrd  a  comforta- 
ble living  to  thousands  of  adventurers,  who  would  find  these  sources  of  wealth 
more  accessible  than  the  gold-mines  of  California,  and  secure  more  prosperity 
than  could  afford  wages  paid  for  working  in  unhealthy  manufactories  of  the 
United  States."  The  reason  why  these  fisheries  have  not  been  appreciated, 
that  is,  utilized,  is,  that,  though  the  richest  fishing-banks  in  the  world  arc  found 
in  the  gulf  and  about  its  mouth,  the  facilities  for  distributing  their  treasures  to 
market  on  shore  have  been  limited,  and  the  inducement  to  embark  in  the  cap- 
ture of  cod  upon  a  scale  commensurate  with  the  abundance  of  the  fi '1  has 
been  lacking.  Now  that  railways  are  building,  a  great  change  is  taking  place 
in  the  business. 

The  chief  difficulties  which  beset  the  cod-industry  arise  from  the  scarcity 
of  bait,  from  the  lack  of  large  boats,  and  the  competition  of  the  Americans. 


912 


THE    IXDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


Oifncuttiei 
in  cod-nsh- 
Ing. 


'I'lie  cod  is  remarkable  for  its  voracious  appetite.  It  follows  the  shoals  of 
small  fisii  ill  to  the  shore  in  May  and  June,  in  order  to  feed  upon 
them  ;  and  even  devours  its  (jwn  young.  It  fretiuents  most  the 
banks  where  food  is  al)undaiit,  and  migrates  along  the  shores 
according  as  the  means  of  satisfying  its  eager  stomach  are  provided  for  it 
by  the  sea.  A  great  deal  of  bait  is  consumed  in  catching  it ;  so  mtw  h 
indeci",  that  Professor  llind  estimates  that  the  cost  of  bait  is  one-seventh 
in  tlie  production  of  all  cod  and  halibut.  In  order  successfully  to  carry  out 
cod-fishing,  therefore,  a  large  supply  of  bait  is  necessary.  The  fish  ordinarily 
used  for  this  purpose  are  herring,  caplin,  mackerel,  launce,  squid,  smell, 
trout,  and  clams.  Some  of  these  varieties,  such  as  the  mackerel,  have  now 
grown  scarce  in  certain  localities  from  over-fishing ;  and  the  cod-boats  are 
at  times  very  much  delayed  in  conseciuence.  The  demands  of  the  United- 
States  schooners  for  bait  at  the  Newfoundland  Banks  caused  the  trade  in  her- 
ring and  caplin  to  take  such  proportions,  that  the  Government  of  the  Domiu 
ion  has  been  informed  that  the  enactment  of  measures  to  protect  the  small 
fish  from  extinction  would  be  hailed  with  pleasure.  In  1876  cod  struck  the 
southern  shores  of  the  gulf  in  August ;  and  the  fishermen  supposed  for  a  while 
that  they  would  have  to  forego  reaping  the  rich  harvest  presented  to  them, 
because  they  had  no  bait.  Those  of  the  (laspe  coast  were  able  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  rush  of  cod  only  by  employing  several  boats  during  the  whole 
fishing-time  in  bringing  clams  taken  on  the  rocks  at  low  tide  from  the  north 
shore,  from  forty-five  to  sixty  miles  distant.  No  less  than  five  thousand 
bushels  of  clams  were  thus  carried  away  for  bait  by  the  (laspd  fishermen  while 
the  fish  were  running ;  but  they  secured  six  thousand  extra  quintals  of  cod  in 
consequence  of  it.  It  is  said  that  about  eighteen  hundred  boats  had  to  lie 
idle  for  tliree  or  four  weeks  in  the  best  fishing-time  in  1877,  on  the  (laspd 
coast  alone,  for  lack  of  bait ;  and  the  same  general  fact  is  true  of  other  fish- 
ing-districts. The  attention  which  has  been  called  to  this  subject  of  late 
will  doubtless  be  followed  by  suitable  action  by  the  Government  of  the 
Dominion, 

The  small  size  of  the  Canadian  boats,  growing  out  of  too  great  a  depend- 
ence on  shore-fisheries,  is  another  drawback.  The  migration  of  small  fish, 
Sman  size  the  temperature  of  the  water  and  air,  and  various  other  physic  al 
of  boats,  causes,  operate  to  make  the  shore-fisheries  uncertain ;  and,  when 
the  cod  are  scarce,  the  fishermen  are  restrained  from  i)ushing  out  to  the  banks, 
where  they  might  always  load  their  vessels,  by  the  small  sizQ  and  frail  character 
of  their  boats. 

It  is  also  held,  in  some  of  the  provinces,  that  great  injury  has  been  done  by 
the  United-States  fishermen  by  their  over-eager  pursuit  of  mackerel,  which  has 
Trawl-  served  at  times  for  bait,  and  by  the  American  practice  of  trawl- 

fishing.  fishing  offshore,  which  secures  to   the   Americans   the  best  and 

largest  cod,  and  otherwise  injures  the  cod-fishery  for  the  Canadians.    The 


THI-.    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


9«3 


trawl  or  Iniltow  fishing  is  carried  on  by  a  long  rope  Inioyed  and  anciiored,  to 
which  are  attached  from  seventy-five  to  a  iuindred  hues  baited.  I'iie  trawl 
being  taken  out  from  the  schooner,  and  set,  the  men  return  to  the  schooner, 
and  fish  with  hand-lines ;  while  the  trawl,  left  to  itself,  is  doing  its  special  work 
besides.  Sometimes,  when  the  trawl  is  hauled  in,  it  is  found  to  have  fish  on 
every  line.  This  practice,  the  Nova-Scoliaiis  «  hum,  gives  the  best  and  largest 
fish  to  the  Americans,  because  of  the  large  extent  to  which  they  employ  it ;  it 
kills  a  large  nunil)er  of  small  and  useless  fish  ;  and  it  keejjs  the  fish  offshore  by 
reason  of  the  large  quantity  of  bait  used,  and  prevents  them  from  coming 
inshore. 

There  is  nothi;ig  in  these  drawbacks  to  .he  C'anailian  industry,  however, 
which  enterprise  and  i)atience  will  not  overcome,  especially  if  the  government 
takes  judicious  action  in  regard  to  them. 

The  salmon-fishery  is  second  in  interest  among  the  different  branches  of 
this  industry.     The  catch  is  less  in  amount  than  some  of  the  others ;  but  the 
fishery  excites  greater  enthusiasm  l)otii   among   pleasure-hunters  saimon- 
and  fishermen,  and  is  more  eagerly  pursued.     Before  the  confed-   fi»hing. 
eration  of  tin.'  I'rovinces,  the  salmon  were  almost  extinguished  in  Canada,  owing 
to  reckless  modes  of  fishing.     The  iish  were  netted  at  the  mouths  of  the 
rivers  as  liiey  ran  in  during  the  spring  to  spawn,  and  as  they  ran  o>it  in  the 
fall.    They  were  taken  in  the  rivers  with  nets,  si)ears,  and  line  ;  an<l,  on  Sunday, 
poaching  was  carrietl  on  as  actively  as  during  the  week.     Many  of  the  coast 
comities  had  fishery  acts  ;  but  tiiey  were  almost  a  dead  letter.     After  the  con- 
federation, laws  to  protect  the  salmon  were  enacted,  and  the  means  created 
for  carrying  them  out.     It  was  difficult  to  enforce  the  law.     Respectable  fisher- 
men were  hard  to  convince  that  the  laws  which  interfered  with   p^^^^^n  of 
them  were  really  in   their  interest,  and  poachers  would  not   be  the  govern- 
restrained  anyway.     The  government  finally  won  the  day,  however ;   ""'"*" 
and  the  rivers  are  now  being  allowed  to  restock  themselves.     Artificial  breed- 
ing is  also  going  on  at  several  important  establishments.     Good  results  are 
already  apparent  at  the  streams  emptying   into   the   gulf;    and.   Artificial 
though  there  is  yet  over-fishing  on  the  other  coasts,  there  is  little  breeding, 
doubt  but  that  the  public  policy  will  ere  long  prevail  there  also.     Says  Mr. 
Lavoie,  the   fishery-officer,  "  Had  not  the  government  taken  the   matter  in 
hand,  what  would  at  the  present  time  be  our  humiliation  in    seeing  these  fine 
and  numerous  streams  which  strangers  so  much  admire  left  to  the  discretion 
and  caprice  of  net-fishermen,  who  have  no  other  notion  but  to  desUov-,  without 
calculating  the  consequences!     To  what  irretrievable  loss  and   deprivation 
would  we  now  be  subjected,  had  not  the  gover/miint  spent  time  and  money 
to  protect  and  increase  salmon  in  these  streams  !  "     An  iUnstration  of  the  good 
results  of  protection  of  the  salmon  is  presented  by  t!ie  record  of  tly-fishing  on 
the  Ste.  Anne  des  Monts  River  for  the  last  seven  years.     The  catch  by  angling 
was  as  follows  :  — 


ll 


111 

w 


914 


THE    INDUiilrcIES    OF   CANADA. 


1871 

1872 

1874 

1875 
1876 
1877 


NUMBER  OP 

AVERAGS 

SALMON. 

WEIGHT,  FOUNDS. 

8 

>7 

12 

i8i 

87 

•7* 

140 

19* 

69 

21 

116 

•9* 

76 

i9i 

Mackerel. 


The  measures  for  the  increase  of  sahnon  inchide  action  in  regard  to  put- 
ting sawchist  and  niill-rubbisii  into  the  rivers  in  the  huiibering  districts.  'I'liis 
discharge  of  rubbish  is  very  large.  The  (luantity  of  sawdust  put  into  the  Ot- 
tawa River  alone  every  year  is  more  than  12,300,000  cubic  feet,  —  a  bulk 
which  is  considerably  increased  by  bark,  slabs,  buttings,  and  other  refuse  of  the 
mill.  This  stuff  greatly  injures  the  streams  into  which  it  is  put.  A  law  has 
been  enacted  against  it,  and  the  government  is  also  agitating  in  favor  of  tiie 
erection  of  furnaces  l)y  these  mills  for  burning  the  rubbish.  The  law  is 
little  observed  in  any  of  the  provinces ;  but  tiiat  it  will  ultimately  prevail  the 
officers  arj  confident. 

Mackerel  is  caught  chiefly  by  the  Nova-Scotians.  The  fish  is  plentiful  at 
times  in  the  gulf;  but  the  catch  there  is  not  so  great  as  on  the  other  coasts. 
The  fish  is  taken  by  hand-lines,  seines,  and  trap-nets.  The  catch 
of  1877  was  larger  than  that  of  the  year  before,  owing  to  the  larger 
use  of  trap-nets.  This  method  is  becoming  popular  with  Canadians,  and  there 
are  now  numerous  ai)plications  for  licenses  to  use  that  sort  of  net.  While  the 
mackerel-catch  is  large,  it  is,  on  the  whole,  smaller  than  it  used  to  be,  owing 
Decrease  in  in  large  part  to  the  seining  of  mackerel  on  a  large  scale  by  the 
quantity.  American  schooners  offshore.  The  fish  are  intercepted  before 
they  reach  the  shore,  and  often  do  not  reach  the  three-mile  limit  at  all.  The 
Canadian  audiorities  have  given  nnich  attention  to  the  mackerel-fishery  of  late, 
owing  to  the  falling-off  in  the  catch.  It  has  been  claimed  by  the  .Americans 
that  mackerel  and  herring  come  from  the  waters  of  the  American  coasts,  and 
that  their  visit  to  the  Canadian  coasts  is  a  migration  or  accidental  fact.  This 
the  Canadian  commissioner  of  fisheries  combated  before  the  Halifax  com- 
mission. His  observations  convinced  him  that  the  fish  frequenting  the  shores 
of  the  maritime  provinces  merely  retired  to  deep  water  v/hen  the  cold  weather 
set  in,  still  remaining  in  the  vicinity  of  the  places  where  they  were  born.  He 
maintained  this  view  of  the  case  with  great  animation,  and  accounted  for  the 
decrease  of  fish  through  ex<  essive  seining  by  means  of  it.  It  is  upon  this 
theory  also  that  Professor  Hind  and  others  believe  that  the  fishery  can  1)0 
fully  restored  in  time  to  its  former  prosperity  by  proper  regulations  and  enter- 
prise on  the  part  of  the  authorities. 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


9«S 


OP                 AVERAGE 

,.           WEIGHT,  POUNDS 

>7 

i8i 

17* 

194 

21 

)                               194 

)                               194 

in  regard  to  put- 
ig  districts.  This 
put  into  the  (^t- 
l)ic  feet,  — a  bulk 
other  refuse  of  the 
is  put.  A  law  has 
iig  in  favor  of  the 
,bish.  The  law  is 
;inia^ely  prevail  the 

fish  is  plentiful  at 
[1  the  other  coasts. 
[)-nets.     The  catch 
owing  to  the  larger 
anadians,  and  there 
of  net.     NVh.ile  UK- 
used  to  be,  owing 
large  scale  by  the 
intercepted  before 
limit  at  all.    The 
[kerel-fishery  of  late, 
by  the  .Americans 
Inerican  coasts,  and 
Icidental  fact.    This 
the  Halifax  com- 
liuenting  the  shores 
n  the  cold  weather 
|ey  were  born.     He 
accounted  for  the 
,t.     It  is  upon  this 
the  fishery  can  bo 
'ulations  and  enter- 


How  caught. 


The  whale,  herring,  trout,  hake,  haddock,  and  other  general  fisheries,  need 
not  be  mentioned  in  detail ;  but  perhaps  the  sea'  and  the  lobster  business  may 
be  referred  to,  owing  to  the  interest  which  attaches  to  them. 

Sealing  is  practised  in  the  spring  and  fall.  The  points  from  which  it  is 
carried  on  are  Newfoundland,  Anticosti,  Magdalen  Islands,  Labrador,  ard, 
though    on   a  small   scale,  on   the   southern   coast  of  the  gulf. 

Sealr 

Sealing  has  enriched  hundreds  of  outfitters ;  and  the  industry, 
though  not  unattended  with  uncertainties,  appears  to  be  inexhaustible.  Between 
four  hundred  thousand  and  five  hundred  thousand  are  caught  annually,  the 
number  exceeding  five  hundred  thousand  in  good  years.  In  addition  to  these, 
about  six  thousand  seals  are  taken  annually  in  Ikitish  Columbia  on  the  Pacific 
coast.  The  migrations  of  seals  formerly  took  place  in  such  dense  herds,  that 
the  spectacle  lias  been  described  as  resembling  that  of  the  heads  of  cattle 
crowiled  into  a  narrow  lane.  This  used  to  last  for  weeks  in  old  times,  and  tlie 
shores  of  the  islands  of  the  gulf  and  the  mainland  surrounding  it  were  fairly 
alive  with  liarking  swarms  of  animals.  The  migration  lasts  for  only  two  or 
thric  days  now  ;  and,  when  the  spectacle  is  over,  the  season's  fishing  is  at  an 
enil.  Seals  sometimes  go  very  liigh  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  having  where 
been  seen  as  far  up  as  the  Saguenay.  In  the  gulf  the  seal  are  'o""^- 
caught  in  several  ways.  They  are  taken  off  the  coast  of  Labrador  with 
nets,  which  are  set  in  the  water  to  take  them  as  tiiey  are  hugging 
the  shore  in  their  migrations.  They  are  also  even  caught  with 
hook  and  line.  The  Newfoundlanders  go  out  anil  hunt  them  with  guns  and 
spears  on  the  ice-fields.  The  enthusiasm  with  which  the  Newfoundlanders 
go  into  the  business  has  been  already  exhil)ited  in  the  figures  for  1873.  In 
1 87 7  they  fitted  out  twenty-four  steamers  manned  by  4,000  men,  and  thirty- 
six  sailing  vessels  with  2,658  men,  antl  despatched  them  all  to  the  ice-fields, 
'i'hey  had  great  success,  taking  412,000  seals,  whose  pelts  sold  fi-im  a 
dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  to  a  dollar  and  fifty  cents,  and  whose  oil  sold  for 
forty-five  cents  a  gallon.  They  were  taken  chieUy  in  tlie  neighborhood  of 
Newfoundland,  where  the  captains  said  they  saw  thirty  seals  to  one  in  Green- 
lanil.  The  outfit  for  these  sealing-voyages  is  very  expensive.  It  includes 
houses,  stores,  trying  apjiaratus,  (Src-.,  on  the  land  ;  craft  with  nets,  harness,  lead, 
anchors,  guns,  boats,  &c.,  and  provisions  for  the  men.  The  cost  of  steamers 
is  greater  than  that  of  sailing-vessels  ;  but  there  is  a  greater  certainty  of  success, 
because  the  vessel  can  poke  its  way  around  among  the  ice-floes,  regardless  of 
wind  and  tide.  Half  the  cargo  goes  to  the  owners,  the  other  half  to  die  ship's 
crew ;  the  captain  taking  half  of  that  half,  or  a  ([uarter  of  the  whole.  One  of 
the  steamers  sent  out  in  1877  got  a  cargo  worth  ^120,000.  The  Newfound- 
laiid  Government  does  not  permit  steamers  to  sail  for  the  ice-fields  before  the 
loth  of  March,  this  regulation  being  designed  to  prevent  too  great  a  slaugh- 
ter of  the  seal.  From  the  islands  of  the  gulf  sealing  is  carried  on  from  shore 
by  nets,  by  a  few  schooners  from  forty  to  eighty  tons'  burden  which  seek 


i 


I  ' 


% 


|. 


gi6 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OE    CANADA. 


the  floating  ice  in  the  gulf,  and  by  killing  the  game  on  tlie  ice  grounded  near 
shore.  Great  danger  attends  the  latter  practice.  The  sight  of  a  field  of  ice 
covered  with  these  valuable  animals,  whose  slaughter  is  so  easily  effected  by  a 
blow  on  the  nose,  and  whose  furs  are  so  precious,  throws  tiie  fisliermen  on 
shore  into  a  fever  of  reckless  excitement ;  and  they  rush  at  the  chance  of  gain, 
forgetful  of  the  fragility  of  the  links  which  hokl  the  field  of  ice  to  the  shore. 
A  change  of  tide  or  wind  is  apt  to  loosen  the  field,  and  carry  it  off  to  dee|) 
water ;  and  the  death  of  the  iiunter,  who  is  too  far  away  to  regain  the  shore,  is 
almost  an  absolute  certainty.  A  great  many  lives  have  been  lost  by  impru- 
dence in  this  direction.  Five  seals  are  taken  on  the  ice,  however,  to  one 
caught  in  the  nets  ;  and  the  temptation  to  go  out  ui)on  tlic  floating  fields  is 
one  which  no  true  Canadian  ever  neglects. 

Very  little  attention  was  paid  to  the  lobster- fishery  in  Canada  until  the 
j^rounds  where  that  crustacean  is  cauglit  on  the  American  coast  began  to  be 
Lobster-  exhausted.  The  great  fisheries  took  up  all  the  time  of  the  Cana- 
fishing.  (lians  ;  and  this  rare  and  delicate  shell-fish,  so  highly  prized  in  tlie 

States,  was  caugiil  by  them  only  to  a  small  extent.  When  the  Maine  and 
Massachusetts  coasts  had  become  almost  dei)opulated  of  the  lobster,  the  firms 
engnged  in  canning  repaired  to  the  adjoining  coast  of  Nova  Scotia,  unwilling 
to  give  up  a  business  whicii  was  exceedingly  profitable,  and  for  whose  products 
there  was  a  lively  demand  in  American  families.  V>y  11X76  there  had  been 
Canning-  forty-scven  canning-factories  brought  into  operation  in  Nova 
factories.  Scotia  (.American  and  Canadian)  between  (^ai)e  Sable  and  Sambro 
alone ;  and  others  were  in  jjrofitable  operation  on  Prince  Edward  Island, 
along  the  IJay  of  I'undy,  and  on  other  tishing-coasts.  Excessive  fishing  soon 
reduced  the  number  and  size  of  the  lolisters,  imtil  it  rccjuircd,  on  an  average, 
two  lobsters  and  a  half  to  produce  meat  enough  to  fill  i  pound  can,  the 
crude  fish  weighing  onl)  from  two  to  four  pounds.  About  six  or  seven  years 
ago  the  jjackers  thought  of  taking  a  look  at  the  gulf  coasts,  and,  to  their 
delight,  found  ceri.iin  portions  of  them  swarming  with  shell-fish.  No  Cana- 
dian had  yet  taken  advantage  of  this  mine  of  wealth,  which  would  yieM  such 
large  profits  to  the  first  comjKHiies  which  should  undertake  the  business. 
There  was  a  clear  field  for  enterprise  ;  and  an  American  firm  opened  a  canning- 
establishment  in  1874  at  Carleton  on  the  Bay  des  Chaleurs,  while  a  Halifax 
concern  started  another  at  the  Magdalen  Islands.  Other  firms  soon  followed, 
anrl  there  wa.s  a  fiiipre  in  the  business  The  profits  made  for  the  first  two  or 
ilvree  years  were  dazzling.  The  fish  were  Inrge,  often  weighing  from  ten  In 
fourteen  poimds,  —a  noble  size  comjjared  with  those  of  the  puny  lobsters  on 
the  American  and  Nova-Scotia  coasts.  Inconsiderate  fishing,  however,  com 
pletely  riuned  the  grounds  at  Carleton,  Maria,  Bonaventure,  New  Richmon<l. 
and  other  placer, ;  ,ind  the  same  thing  followed  which  had  previously  taken 
place  in  Nova  Scotia,  —  caiming-establishments  had  to  be  abandoned,  and  the 
firms  had  to  move  to  new  waters. 


m 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


917 


Tounded  near 
a  field  of  ice 
^  effected  by  a 

fishermen  on 
chance  of  gain, 
:  to  the  shore. 

it  off  to  deep 
lin  the  shore,  is 

lost  by  inipni- 
lowever,  to  one 
lloating  fields  is 

:anada  until  the 
)ast  began  to  be 
ne  of  the  (^ma- 
^hly  prized  in  the 
the  Maine    and 
lobster,  the  firms 
Scotia,  imwillin.^ 
3r  whose  products 
3  there  had  been 
oration    in    Nova 
Sable  and  Sambro 
l-',d\vard    Island, 
^sive  fishing  soon 
tl,  on  an  average, 
I  pound  can, the 
six  or  seven  yeav^ 
asis,  and,  to  their 
1-fish.     No  ( 'ana- 
would  yield  such 
akc  the   business. 
)pcned  a  canning- 
Is,  wliile  a  Halifax 
ms  soon  followed, 
nr  the  first  two  or 
riling  from  ten  to 
|C  puny  lobsters  on 
Ing,  however,  com 
,  New  Richmond, 
d  previously  taken 
landoned,  and  th<' 


In  1874  no  less  than  216,432  pounds  of  lobsters  were  canned  at  Carleton 
and  Maria;  but  only  9,315  pounds  at  the  latter  place  in  1875,  and  in  1877 
none  at  Carleton.  The  factory  at  the  latter  place  was  completely  given  up. 
At  the  Magdalen  Islands  the  Halifax  concern  opened  establishments  which 
rivalled  in  size  the  largest  anywhere  on  the  North-Atlantic  coasts.  It  caught 
very  large  lobsters  at  first,  and  made  enormous  profits.  The  fish  were  too 
eagerly  pursued,  however ;  and  the  catch  of  240,000  lobsters  in  Decrease  in 
1876  yielded  only  124,000  pounds  of  meat.  In  1877  the  firm's  <i"«nt'ty- 
three  establishments  caught  692,760  lobsters ;  but  the  smaller  size  of  the  fish 
resulted  in  a  product  of  only  227,104  pounds  of  canned  meat;  the  large  catch 
and  the  reduced  size  of  the  lobsters  indicating  a  probable  extinction  of  the 
fishery  at  an  early  day,  unless  measures  are  taken  to  give  the  grounds  a  rest, 
or  protect  the  species  from  inconsiderate  fishing.  The  eagerness  with  which 
tlie  lobster  has  been  and  is  fished  in  Canada  is  shown  by  the  yearly  increase 
of  the  catch  after  the  Americans  first  resorted  to  the  Nova-Scotian  coast,  by 
the  decrease  caused  by  excessive  fishing,  and  by  the  revival  of  the  business  after 
the  catch  began  in  the  Gulf  of  St.  I^wrence.     The  figures  are  as  follows  :  — 


1869 

1870 
1S71 

1872 

1X73 

1874 

187s 
1 87  6 
1877 


POUNDS 

(in  cans). 


61,000 

591,500 

1,130,000 

3.565.863 
4,864,998 

8.047.957 
6,514,380 
S.373.088 
8,090,569 


$15,275 
92.575- 

282,500 

882,633 
1,214,749 
2,011,989 
'.638,659 

795.052 
i.-:i3.cSs 


There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  development  of  the  business  of  iohster- 
canring  in  Canada  has  been  due  to  the  ruin  of  the  New-England   Decline  of 
grounds  bv  the  Americans  ;  but  it  is  easy  to  foresee  a  rapid  decline    ""'"stry, 

'  .  .  ^      .         .       unless  the 

in  the  industry  in  the  early  future,  unless  inconsiderate  fishing  is  government 
restraiuc'd  by  the  action  of  the  government.  interferes. 

It  was  formerly  the  custom  to  chronicle  a  yearly  decline  of  the  fisheries 
of  the  various    British  provinces  in    America.     Since    1869  the  increase  in 
annals  of  the  business  shosv  a  yearly  increase  conseciuent  upon  the   fisherie 
opening  of  new  markets  on  shore  vid  the  Intercolonial  Railway, 
and  the  ready  market  which  has  been  found  for  (\anadian  fish  abroad.     The 
yearly  product  has  nearly  trebled  since  1 869,  as  will  be  seen  by  examining  the 
following  very  interesting  figures  :  — 


ies 
since  i86g. 


:l|.ii| 


'■n 


I    1  '■ 

jii 


MX 


9l8  THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 

1869 ]f4i,376,£^-6 

1870 6,577,391 

1871 7.S73.«99 

1872 9,570,116 

1873 10,547,402 

1874 11,681,886 

1875 io,3S'5.385 

1876 11,012,302 

1877 i2>034,9S2 

The  yearly  export  has  grown  very  large.  It  amounted  to  $7,000,402  from 
Canada,  and  about  the  same  from  Newfoundland.  The  purchasers  were  the 
United  States,  South  America,  the  West  Indies,  and  Europe. 

The  Government  of  the  Dominion  is  taking  intelligent  and  energetic  action 
for  the  imurovement  of  the  fresh-water  fisher-e  of  Canada,  some  of  which  have 
Action  of  liecome  nearly  extinct  by  the  u.:r.,,tsing  spoliation  of  many  gen- 
Dominion  erations  of  men.  It  hai  "lowsc-tn  public  establishments  for  the 
overnment.  ^(.jiyg  reproduction  of  fiph  ;  namely,  at  Newcastle  and  Sandwich 
(Ontario),  Tadousac,  Gaspd  Hasin,  i  n(i  Restigouche'  (Quebec),  Bedford  in 
Nova  Scotia,  and  Miramichi  in  Nen  L'r  5wick.  These  hatching-houses  are 
the  means  of  pianing  about  fcjurlrr-n  n(i..ion  young  salmon,  white-fish,  and 
sea-trout  in  the  rivers  and  lakes  a.  nuall} .  'i  .le  system,  though  well  organized, 
is  in  it  'nfancy.  The  rcFulrs  of  its  »vork  i  re  already  gratifying :  what  will  they 
not  b;  i'^  the  future,  when  the  work  o»'  the  present  produces  its  full  effect,  and 
the  sysien^  \-    .n,  rded  and  developel? 

THE    LUMI3ER-TKALE. 


^J^WM^^-^y 


WW 


^#' 


The  magnificent  forests  of  Canada  have  long  been  the  admiration  of  trav- 
ellers and  the  pride  of  the  people  of  the  Provinces.  They  originally  clothed 
B  t  t  nd  "c^r'y  the  whole  surface  of  the  country  ;  and  though  now  cleared 
magnificence  away  to  a  great  extent  along  the  Great  Lakes  and  in  the  more 
of  Canadian  thickly-settled  regions  of  the  country,  yet  they  rear  their  heads  i  \ 
unbroken  majesty  in  the  valleys  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Ottawa 
and  in  the  northern  portion  of  the  Province  of  Ontario,  and  cover  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  square  miles  of  territory.  Prior  to  1759,  when  (Canada,  with 
its  little  population  of  sixty  five  thousand  souls,  was  transferred  from  tiie  flag 
of  France  to  that  of  England,  the  primeval  forests  of  this  region  had  hardly 
felt  the  settler's  axe.  Fishing,  and  the  pursuit  of  forest-animals  for  their  furs, 
were  about  the  only  occupations  of  the  inhabitants.  Occasionally  a  few  shi]).s 
were  built ;  but  the  idea  of  felling  the  trees  of  the  forests  so  as  to  clear  up 
the  land,  or  to  transport  it  to  distant  lands  where  timber  was  scarce,  never 
entered  the  heads  of  the  people.  The  entire  exportation  of  the  country  at 
that  time  amounted  only  to  ;^i  15,415  a  year,  chiefly  in  furs  and  fish.  Af'  r 
the  I'jiglish  flag  was  unfurled  over  the  Provinces,  the  influx  of  population 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


919 


.  $4..376,5"6 

.  6,577.391 

.  7.S73.>99 

.  9.570."6 

.  10,547.402 

.  11,681,886 

.  10,350,385 

.  11,012,302 

.  12,034,952 

to  $7,000,402  from 
purchasers  were  the 

pe. 

and  energetic  action 
I,  some  of  which  have 
)liation  of  many  gen- 
establishments  for  the 
vcastle  and  Sandwich 
Quebec),  Bedford  in 
,•  hatching-houses  are 
dmon,  white-fish,  and 
:hough  well  organized, 
tifying  :  what  will  they 

ces  its  full  effect,  and 


le  admiration  of  trav- 
rhey  originally  clotheil 
though  now  cleared 
ikes  and  in  the  more 
hey  rear  their  heads  i  i 
..awrence  and  Ottawa 
io,  and  cover  hundreds 
59,  when  Canada,  with 
^nsferred  from  the  flag 
this  region  had  hardly 
;t-animals  for  their  furs, 
icrasionally  a  few  shii)^ 
•ests  so  as  to  clear  up 
iber  was  scarce,  never 
ition  of  the  country  ai 
furs  and  fish.     Af'  r 
influx  of  population 


caused  some  attention  to  be  paid  to  timber-cutting;  and  after  1800  the 
scarcity  of  timber  in  England  and  in  the  West  Indies  led  to  the  loading  of 
ships  with  the  products  of  the  forests,  and  the  transportation  Exportation 
of  them  in  considerable  quantities  to  those  parts  of  the  earth,  of  timber. 
The  trade  became  active  in  1809,  1810,  and  181 1,  owing  to  the  duties  levied 
by  England  upon  timber  from  the  countries  of  the  Baltic.  Those  duties  were 
imposed  for  the  benefit  of  the  British  provinces  in  America ;  and  the  people 
of  the  latter  took  advantage  of  them,  building  a  great  many  ships  for  the 
purpose,  and  freighting  timber  to  the  mother-country  actively.  The  war  of 
181 2  checked  the  business  temporarily  The  ships  of  the  Provinces  were  in 
danger  of  capture  by  American  privateers  if  ever  they  put  out  to  sea ;  Imt, 
after  the  war,  Canada  was  rewarded  for  her  loyalty  to  England  by  regulations 
which  permitted  her  timber,  grain,  ar<l  provisions  to  enjoy  certain  advantages 
in  the  trade  to  the  British  West  Indies  and  the  mother-country  which  were  not 


STEAMSHIP.  —  A I 


accorded  to  those  of  the  United  States.  lie  trade  became  active  again,  and 
has  remained  so  ever  since,  the  mark  it  for  Canadian  lumber  widening  year 
by  year,  extending  to  South  Americ.  !  elsewhere,  until  the  forests  of  the 
Prov'nces  became  one  of  their  princijj  1  s  urces  of  wealth.  In  184;'  the  duties 
on  timber  in  England  were  changed.  Baltic  timber  had  been  taxed  a  duty  of 
fifty-five  shillings  a  load,  and  Canadian  timber  ten  shillings.  In  1842,  at  the 
time  England  was  remodelling  her  whole  commercial  system,  the  duty  on 
Baltic  timber  was  reduced  to  thirty  shillings,  and  that  on  Canadian  to  one 
shilling.  The  change  alarmed  the  lumbermen  of  Canada,  who  Effector 
feared  the  ruin  of  their  business.  It  tun  ^  out  to  be  a  great  help  'ower  duties, 
to  them,  however ;  and,  in  place  of  ruining  the  market  for  Canadian  Inmber, 
it  stimulated  the  market  instead.  The  lowering  of  the  duties  cheapened  the 
selling-price  of  lumber,  and  caused  a  greatly-increased  consumption  ;  and 
the  difference  of  duty  in  favor  of  Canada  gave  the  timber  from  that  region 


A 


m 


920 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


the  preference  in  the  market.  In  1872-73  the  exportation  had  reached  the 
enormous  figures  of  $28,586,816  in  one  year.  Within  the  last  five  years  the 
sales  of  Canadian  lumber  have  fallen  off  considerably.  This  is  due  chiefly  to 
the  general  stagnation  of  business  the  world  over,  but  partly  to  the  abroga- 
tion of  the  reciprocity  treaty.  The  depression  in  the  business  can  be  consid- 
ered only  as  temporary.  The  exportation  still  remains  at  the  very  high  figure 
of  $20,000,000  a  year. 

There  is  no  means  for  stating  accurately  the  present  production  of  forestry- 
statiitics  of  products  in  Canada ;  but  the  timber  cut  and  sawed  into  h'.mbcr 
production,  cannot  be  less  than  320,000,000  cubic  feet  in  quantity.  In  1870, 
according  to  the  census,  the  production  was  as  follows  :  — 


CtlBIC  FEET 

OF  SQUARE 

PINE. 

CUBIC  FEET 

OF  SQUAKK 

OAK. 

CUBIC  FEET 

OF 
TAMARACK. 

ni;mber  of 
pine  logs. 

NUMBER  OF 
OTHER 
LOGS. 

CUBIC  FEET  OF 

MISCEI.I.ANKOUS 

TIMBER. 

Ontario    . 
Quebec    . 
New  Brunswici' 
Nova  Scotia    . 

16,315,901 

9,223,575 
391.059 
260,658 

3.144.554 

53.635 

7.360 

96,494 

1,223,444 

3,994,878 

360,825 

116,816 

5.713.204 

5.011,532 

1,214,485 

477,187 

1,255,090 

3,628,720 

3,533.' 52 

897,595 

10,590,943 

10,414,710 

2,192,608 

3,088,003 

Total 

26,191,193 

3.302,043 

5,695.963 

12,416,408 

9.314,557 

26,290,264 

To  which  are  to  be  added  1,939,000  cubic  feet  of  maple,  and  1,832,000  of 
elm.  The  standard  log  is  twelve  feet  long  and  twenty-one  inches  in  diameter. 
The  above  figures  would  make  the  product  for  1870  about  412,945,903  feet. 
The  production  was  one-third  larger  in  1873;  but  it  has  since  fallen  slightly 
below  the  figures  for  1870. 

The  principal  trees  are  the  magnificent  white-pine  (which  often  grows  to  a 
height  of  two  hundred  feet,  and  affords  a  square  log  sixty  feet  long  and  twenty 
Varieties  of  inches  in  diameter),  the  red-pine,  the  white-oak,  tamarack,  elm, 
timber.  beach,  walnut,  cedar,  maple,  bird's-eye  and  curled  maple,  and  ash. 

The  sugar-maple  is  a  prominent  feature  of  Canadian  woodlands ;  but  it  is  too 
valuable  a  tree  for  its  sugar  to  be  felled  for  its  timber.  A  cluster  of  sugar- 
maples  is  a  valuable  addition  to  a  farm ;  and  so  much  is  this  tree  prized  and 
utilized  in  Canada,  that  the  product  of  sugar  from  it  in  Canada  in  187 1 
amounted  to  17,267,000  pounds.  A  single  tree  yields  two  or  three  pounds  in 
a  spring ;  and  a  single  farmer  will  often  make  2,000  pounds  of  it.  wordi  ten  t  > 
thirteen  cent*;  a  pound.  The  timber-districts  are  al!  owned  bv  the  government. 
How  richt  n  The  manufacturers  obtain  the  righc  to  cut  timber  by  p-aroaasing  a 
cut  timber  1.  "  berth,"  or  "  limit,"  at  public  auction,  getting  possession  in  this 
manner  of  a  tra.  t  of  land  at  a  cost  '^f  a  dollar  to  a  dollar  and  fifty 
cents  per  square  mike.  He  be<  omes  the  tenant  o»  the  government  at  a  fixed 
rate,  and,  in  addition,  pays  a  slight  duty  per  cubic  feiot  of  squared  timber  cut, 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF    CANADA. 


931 


ad  reached  the 
t  five  years  the 
s  due  chiefly  to 
to  the  abroga- 
can  be  consid- 
very  high  figure 

ction  of  forestry- 
ived  into  U'.mber 
intity.     In  1870, 


BER  OF 
■HER 

DCS. 


CUBIC  FEET  OF 

MlSCEI.I.ANKOfS 

TIMBER. 


55,090  10,590,943 

28,720  j  T0,4I4.7'0 

33,152,  2,192,608 

97.S95 !  3.088,003 


I4.SS7 


26,290,264 


and  1,832,000  of 
iches  in  diameter. 
12,945.903  feet, 
ace  fallen  slightly 

often  grows  to  a 
It  long  and  twenty 
k,  tamarack,  elm, 
(1  maple,  and  ash. 
lids  ;  but  it  is  too 
cluster  of  sugar- 
is  tree  prized  and 
anada  in    1871 
)r  three  pounds  in 
of  it.  wurrh  ten  to 
V  tlie  government. 
;r  by  ]iurcnasing  .1 
possession  in  this 
I  a  dollar  and  fifty 
•nment  at  a  fixcil 
4uared  timber  cut, 


and  on  each  standard  log.  About  twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  timber  cut  is 
square ;  about  forty  per  cent  is  in  logs ;  and  thirty-five  per  cent  is  under- 
brush, or  useless  or  damaged  wood. 

Lumbering  is  carried  on  at  present  chiefly  in  the  valleys  of  the  Ottawa  and 
St.  Lawrence,  the  operations  being  on  the  largest  scale  in  the  former.     The 
large  lumber-factories  of  the  Ottawa,  especially  those  of  the  Chau-   Lumber- 
difere,  severally  get  out  from  25,000,000  to   40,000,000   feet  of  '»<=»<"!«»• 
lumber  in  a  year,  and  employ  800  men  and  300  teams  throughout  the  year. 
The  (latineau  Mills  at  Chelsea  have  "  limits"  covering  1,700  scjuare  miles,  and 
employ  1,000  men  in  winter  and  500  in  summer,  producing  35,-   catineau 
000,000  feet  of  lumber  annually.     The  business  is  carried  on  at  Miiii. 
great  expense.     Men,  horses,  and  oxen  have  to  be  transported  into  the  forest 
to  the  proper  point  for  operations,  and  camps  built  for  them,  and  material 
accumulated  for  tlieir  support  during  the  long  season  of  felling  and  hauling. 
Hay  is  purchased  as  near  to  the  camps  as  possible  ;  but,  as  it  has  to  be  hauled 
a  tong  distance  into  the  forest  to  reach  the  camps,  it  is  never  obtained  except 
at  a  very  costly  rale.     The  su  j  i'*.  .  for  the  men  consist  of  salt  pork  and  beef, 
peas  for  soup,  tea,  flour,  potatoes,  beans,  and  onions.     The  fare  is  simple ;  but 
it  is  of  the  best  (juality,  because  the  men  are  fastidious,  and  will  p^^j  g„j 
take  nothing  that  is  inferior.     Spirits  are  seldom  if  ever  introduced  camps  of 
to  the  camps.     The  camps  consist  of  log  and  board  shanties  capa-    ""^  *''"""• 
hie  of  containing  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  men  apiece.     The  only  opening 
through  the  walls  is  the  doorway.    There  are  no  windows,  and  no  chimney. 
To  compt;nsate  for  the  lack  of  these.architectural  features,  a  large  opening  is 
left  in  tlie  roof,  which  is  chimney,  window,  and  ventilator  all  in  one.     Three 
sides  of  the  shanty  are  occupied  by  sleeping-berths,  and  the  fourth  by  that 
miportant  and  ni>)ch-respected  personage  the  cook,  with  his  tables  and  appa- 
ratus.    The  fire  is  built  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  h  la  moik  Alaskan ;  and  the 
kettles  are  suspended  over  it  from  the  iron  crane  in  the  opening  in  the  roof. 
In  this  airy  and  healthy  style  of  house  tlie  hardy  wood-choppers  pass  their 
leisure  hours  between  the  intervals  of  work.     They  smoke,  read,  play  cards, 
spin  long  yarns,  and  comport  themselves  in  the  most  rational,  law-abiding,  and 
(k)(l-fearing  manner  possible.     When  the  camps  have  been  prepared,  the  stores 
accumulated,  the  roads  cut  down  to  tlie  river  or  some  stream  emptying  there- 
into, afflti  all  made  ready  for  work,  the  regiments  of  wood-choppers  are  brouglit 
up  frt'nn  the  settlements,  and  work  begins. 

The  land  is  not  cleared  entirely  of  timber,  as  is  popularly  sup-   oniythebest 
j)ost;d.     Tiiere  is  no  object  in  doing  that.     It  is  only  the  farmer, 
\wiiK)  wants  a  field  devoid  of  shade  and  of  roots,  who  completely 
( lears  the  soil.    The  choppers  selec  t  only  the  best  trees.    The  small  ones  are  as 
worthless  to  them  for  timber  as  freshly-hati  hed  goslings  for  feath-    Renewal  of 
ers.     They  pass  the  small  trees  by  ;  and  the  corscfiuence  is.  that  forests, 
the  forests  renew  themselves  ever}'  fifteen  years.     The  danger  of  an  exhaus- 


trees  are 
selected. 


fi'i 


% 


%\ 


933 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


Rafts. 


tion  of  the  timber-supply  is  not,  therefore,  so  great  as  is  supposed.  The  de- 
structive fires  \vhii:h  sweep  through  these  primeval  groves  in  dry  seasons 
threaten  the  timber-sui)])ly  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  does  wood-chopping. 

When  the  trees  are  felled,  the  logs  are  marked  with  a  brand,  or  slash, 
peculiar  to  the  manufacturer  who  is  working  the  "  limit."  They  are  then 
hauled  down  to  tiie  river,  and  set  afloat.  They  float  down  stream 
(if  in  the  Ottawa)  to  the  (Ihauili^re,  where  they  are  caught  by  a 
boom  strctrlied  across  the  river,  and  guided  into  ways  leading  to  the  saw-rnills 
of  their  respective  owners.  A  common  sight  in  the  lumber-regions  is  to  see 
a  huge  raft  of  logs  securely  bound  together,  sometimes  containing  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  cubic  feet  of  timber,  coming  down  stream  in  compact  array. 
It  is  organized  like  a  brigade  of  troops,  the  logs  being  joined  together  in 
"  draws,"  or  sections,  each  one  in  charge  of  its  special  gang  of  men,  and  these 
sections,  in  turn,  united  into' a  great  raft.  At  every  considerable  rapid  the  raft 
is  dispersed  into  its  component  draws,  which  are  taken  down  the  rapids  singly. 
At  the  foot  of  the  fall  they  are  again  joined,  and  the  raft  glides  on  gracefully 
down  stream,  fluttering  with  banners  and  covered  witli  shanties,  and  with 
camp-fires  burning  brigiitly  on  eartiien  heartlis.  Sometimes  tlie  logs  are  sent 
down  in  confused  rafts,  or  drives,  being  carried  down  from  tlu'  licart  of  the 
woods  by  the  spring  freshet,  which  follows  the  melting  of  the  snow.  In  these 
instances  the  logs  come  down  stream  in  terrific  fasliion,  thousands  upon  tlion- 
sands  at  a  time,  tumbling  and  turning  upon  one  another  at  the  rapids,  getting 
jammed  here  and  there  into  tremendous  masses,  reiiuiring  the  desi)erate 
efforts  of  the  men  to  liberate  them  again-with  their  iron-shod  jjoles,  and  then 
shooting  down  stream  again  witii  the  roar  and  rush  of  a  cavalry  charge,  until 
they  reach  some  broad,  calm  sheet  of  water,  where  they  slacken  their  pace, 
and  submit  to  be  caught  by  a  boom,  and  directed  peacefully  here  and  there  to 
the  respective  saw-mills  to  which  they  belong. 

These  great  forests,  which  were  formerly  esteemed  only  as  the  haunts  of 
game  which  were  prized  for  their  fur,  and  were  threaded  only  by  daring  adven- 
Canadian  turers  in  pursuit  of  these  anitnals,  are  now  justly  regarded  as  a 
forests  a  mine  of  wealth  to  the  peoi)le  of  Canada.  They  exercise  a  great 
influence  on  the  general  prosjicrity  cf  the  coimtry.  They  emjjloy 
11,000  men  evtMy  year  in  wooil-choi)ping,  and  the  saw-mills 
employ  40,000  more.  They  yield  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of 
produce  annually  in  the  form  of  ashes  and  bark,  the  gathering  of  which  em- 
])loys  another  large  body  of  men  in  profitable  industry.  The  distribution  of 
the  enormous  tjuantity  of  ^20,000,000  to  i52S,ooo,ooo  worth  of  timber  to 
foreign  lands  annually  engages  the  services  of  hundreds  of  ships  with  their 
A  source  of  crews  of  mariners,  and  contributes  largely  to  traffic  of  imjjortant 
revenue  to  lines  of  railroad.  The  government  derives  a  revenue  from  the 
government  ij^gi^ess,  and  farmers  adjacent  to  the  lumber-districts  find  a  most 
profitable  market  for  their  j^roduce  in  supplying  the  camps  and  villages  with 


mine  of 
■wealth. 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


98) 


wsed.    The  de- 

in  dry  seasons 
)od-chopping. 
brand,  or  slash, 

They  are  then 
jat  down  stream 
are  caught  by  a 

to  the  saw-rnills 
regions  is  to  see 
ining  a  hundred 
in  compact  array, 
lined  together  in 
if  men,  and  tliese 
ible  rapid  the  raft 
the  rai)ids  singly, 
des  on  gracefully 
lianties,  and  with 
tlie  logs  are  sent 

the  liearl  of  the 
:  snow.  In  these 
sands  upon  tli()\i- 
:he  rapids,  getting 
ng    the    despcnito 

1  poles,  and  then 
valry  cliarge,  mitil 

;i(.kcn  their  pace, 

lere  and  there  to 

as  the  haunts  of 
by  daring  adven- 
itly  regarded  as  a 
,'  exercise  a  great 
ry.     'I'hey  employ 
nil    the    saw-mills 
dollars'  worth  of 
ng  of  which  em- 
le  distribution  of 
irlh  of  timber  to 
f  ships  with  their 
affic  of  imjiortant 
revenue  from  the 
istricts  find  a  most 
and  villages  with 


needed  stores.  The  business  quickens  twenty  other  trades,  and,  like  the  sun, 
gilds  every  interest  which  comes  within  the  reach  of  its  rays.  With  regard  to 
the  future,  nothing  can  be  said  on  the  subject  which  would  be  better  than  the 
following  words  from  a  statement  by  the  Mercantile  Agency  of  putureof 
Dun,  Wiman,  &  Company,  printed  in  January,  1877,  summing  thisindut- 
up  the  business-outlook  in  Canada:  "This  particular  asset  in  the  *'*'' 
nation's  wealth  "  [the  timber-region]  "  is  gaining  in  value  with  a  rapidity  hardly 
dreamed  of,  and  the  realization  of  which  is  only  a  question  of  time.  So  scarce 
has  accessible  and  marketable  lumber  become,  that  it  is  alleged  that  plots  of 
land,  now  cleared  farms,  with  all  appliances,  are  really  less  valuable  than  if  the 
trees  stood  in  undisturbed  majesty  thereon.  F.ven  certain  towns  in  former 
lumbering-districts  would  bring  less  than  if  the  land  they  occupy  were  covered 
with  pine-forests.  Over-production  has  cheapened  this  great  staple,  and  the 
waste  of  years  may  well  be  atoned  for  by  a  few  years  of  cessation  and  depres- 
sion. Nothing  will  eventually  be  lost  by  this  delay  in  realization  :  indeed,  the 
yearly  gain  in  value  of  this  valuable  jiroduct  will  more  than  compensate  for 
what  appears  to  be  loss  and  disaster  at  the  present  moment." 

MININO. 

A  large  part  of  the  territory  of  Canada  is  valuable  only  for  its  mineral 
resources,  this  being  more  especially  the  case  with  the  region  lying  along  the 
shores  of  Lake  Superior.     The  Ottawa  Valley  is  also  rich  in  min-   _.  . 

'  '  Richness  of 

orals.     New  Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia  have   iron   and  coal  in   country  in 
immense  (luantities,  in  close  proximity  to  each  other  and  to  the   '"'"='"' 

'  '  ■'  wealth. 

limestone  recpiired  m  the  process  of  iron-smelting  for  flux.  The 
Rocky  Mountains  are  full  of  the  most  important  commercial  ores,  and  British 
Columbia  has  an  endowment  in  this  direction  which  would  make  the  ever- 
lasting fortune  of  any  country  with  plenty  of  population  and  capital.  Never- 
theless, the  mining-industry  in  Canada  is  more  a  matter  of  the  future  than  of 
the  present.  Scarce  any  thing  has  been  done  toward  utilizing  the  vast  stores 
of  mineral  wealth  wiiich  lie  burictl  in  the  rocks  and  mountains  of  the  country. 
It  is  not  even  yet  accurately  known  what  that  mineral  wealth  is  in  its  character 
iind  full  extent,  except  in  a  general  way.  It  is  only  known  that  the  endow- 
ments of  the  country  by  nature  are  such,  that  at  a  'future  day  Canada  will 
bring  to  l)ear  a  heavy  comiK'tition  against  the  United  States  and  England  for 
tiie  supply  of  the  world's  market  with  iron  and  the  other  commercial  metals. 

Quebec  and  (Ontario  have  no  coal ;  but  there  are  rich  deposits  of  this  fuel 
in  the  maritime  provinces,  in  Manitoba,  the  North-west  Territory,  and  British 
Columbia.     'I'he  principal  mining  of  coal  takes  place  at  present   coai-mines 
in  Nova  Scotia.     The  mines  there  have  been  worked  for  a  long  of  Nova 
period  ;  and  the  production  is  now  very  large,  amounting  in  1875 
to  781,165  tons,  and  in  1877  to  757,496  tons.    About  one-third  of  the  product 


9«4 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF    CANADA. 


Iron. 


is  exported  to  foreign  countries.  In  British  Columbia,  154,052  tons  of  coal 
Export  of  were  mined  in  1877.  The  mines  are  on  Vancouver's  Island; 
product.  m^^i  {i^g  niineral  is  in  very  high  esteem  on  the  Pacific  coast  for 
gas,  factory,  and  household  purposes.  Its  principal  market  of  sale  is  the  city 
of  San  P'rancisco. 

Iron  is  mined  chiefly  in  the  Ottawa  Valley,  in  Nova  Scotia,  and  in  the 
vicinity  of  Lake  Superior.  In  the  first-mentioned  region,  magnetic  ore  of  the 
best  quality  is  found  in  all  the  mountains  on  the  north  side  of 
the  river.  The  proportion  of  magnetic  oxiile  in  the  ore  is  about 
ninety-three  per  cent,  and  the  yield  averages  sixty-nine  per  cent  of  metallic 
iron.  It  is  said  that  this  valley  produces  a  car  wheel  iron  which  has  wi 
superior  in  America.  The  metal  has  been  used  for  that  purpose  at  Toronto, 
and  Cleveland,  O.,  and  is  valued  for  its  tenacity  and  durability.  The  region 
Extent  and  '^  ^°  overgrown  with  forests,  that  the  full  extent  of  the  mints 
tuperiority  is  not  knowu  ;  but  that  the  quantity  of  iron  which  can  be  taken 
out  is  enormous  is  apparent  from  the  prodigal  abimdance  in 
which  it  has  been  found  wherever  sought  for.  In  places  it  lies  upon  the 
ground  in  blocks  large  and  small,  and  the  strata  of  the  mountains  wherever 
opened  are  seen  to  be  full  of  valuable  veins.  A  fire  which  burned  otf 
the  woods  in  1871  disclosed  the  existence  of  a  hundred  million  tons  of  iron 
ore  in  one  hill.  The  only  mines  which  are  being  worked  at  i)resent  are 
in  the  township  of  Hull,  at  the  village  Ironsides.  The  situation  is  somewhat 
remote  from  the  principal  markets  ;  but  it  is  very  favorable  for  manufacturing. 
Labor  is  cheap,  water-power  is  abundant,  and  fuel  costs  scarce  a  song.  This 
region  is  known  to  contain  plumbago,  kaoline,  lead,  and  pyrites,  as  well  as  iron  ; 
but  these  minerals  remain  undisturbed  in  the  beds  where  they  were  deposited 
by  the  volcanic  forces  of  the  early  ages  of  the  world.  In  Nova  Scotia  the 
Production  production  of  iron  ore  is  from  fifteen  thousand  to  twenty  thousand 
of  iron  ore  in  tons  yearly,  it  being  consumed  almost  entirely  in  the  blast-furnaces 
ova   cotia.   ^j-  ^j^^  -^^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^^  company  at  Londonderry.     Notwithstanding 

the  great  resources  of  Canada  in  respect  to  iron,  the  manufacturers  still  con- 
tinue to  import  a  large  part  of  their  pig-iron,  rather  than  make  it  at  home. 
The  whole  iron- industry,  in  fact,  is  only  in  the  very  first  stages  of  development. 
About  twenty  blast-furnaces,  a  few  forges,  two  rolling-mills,  and  two  steel-works, 
substantially  comprise  the  iron-enterprises  of  Canada;  and  in  1877  only  hall 
of  these  establishments  were  in  operation.  Recently  mining-operations  have 
Tiie  Snow-  been  begun  energetically  at  the  Snowdon  mine,  in  Ontario ;  the 
don  mine.  intention  of  the  proprietor,  Mr.  Myles  of  Ontario,  being  to  take 
out  thirty  thousand  tons  in  1878,  and  smelt  the  ore  at  Port  Hope.  He  has  a 
contract  with  an  American  firm  for  the  purpose. 

Silver  ores  are  found  in  the  Province  of  Quebec,  and  have  been 
worked  for  many  years.     Recently,  still  richer  ores  have  been  found 
in   the   Lake-Superior  region.     They  have  yielded  wonderfiil  results.      The 


Silver. 


THE   INDUSTRIES    OE    CANADA. 


925 


052  tons  of  coal 

icouver's  Island  ; 

Pacific  coast  for 

of  sale  is  the  city 

cotia,  and  in  tlie 
ignetic  ore  of  the 
tiie  north  side  of 
tlie  ore  is  about 
r  cent  of  nietalhc 
on  which  has   no 
irpose  at  Toronto, 
lility.     The  region 
jnt   of   the    mines 
lich  can  l)e  taken 
gal   abuntlance   in 
s  it  lies  upon  the 
mountains  wherever 
which  burned  off 
lillion  tons  of  iron 
ed   at   present  are 
ation  is  somewhat 
for  manufixcturing. 
irce  a  song.     This 
tes,  as  well  as  iron  ; 
ley  were  deposited 
Nova  Scotia  the 
to  twenty  thousand 
the  blast-furnaces 
Notwithstanding 
facturers  still  con- 
make  it  at  home. 
s  of  development. 
,d  two  steel-works, 
in  1877  only  half 
iig-operations  have 
e,  in  Ontario  ;  the 
irio,  being  to  take 
Hope.     He  has  a 

jec,  and  have  been 
;s  have  been  found 
•rfnl  results.      The 


Gold. 


region  is  now  bcin,^  carefully  surveyed  by  the  officers  of  the  government, 
with  a  view  to  ascertain  more  fully  its  capabilities.  Cold,  which,  up  to  1870, 
was  found  almost  exclusively  in  Nova  Scotia  (the  few  ounces  gath- 
ered yearly  in  Ontario  and  (Quebec  hardly  deserving  mention),  is 
now  known  to  exist  in  large  ([uantities  in  this  same  region  north  of  Lake  Supe- 
rior, which  is  so  rich  in  all  the  metals,  that  it  would  almost  seem  as  if,  in  some 
great  war  of  the  Titans  against  heaven,  the  gods  had  rained  mountains  of  iron 
and  gold  and  silver  and  copper  u])on  this  region  in  the  effort  to  exterminate 
the  rebellious  giants  who  inhabited  it.  Extensive  tracts  of  gold-bearing  (|uartz 
are    reported.     Within    the    basin   of  the    N'ipigon,  a   hundred    and    seventy 


COHKITIATKI)  GDLU-I.UAHT/',   WAVKKl  KV. 


miles  long  and  eighty  miles  broad,  the  upper  copper-bearing  series  obtains 

its  greatest  development.     Distinct  belts  of  the  rock  extend  along 

the  line  of  the  lake  to  Thunder  Hay  and  Fond  du  Lac  ;  and  in  one 

of  tiiese,  called  tiie  Lakc-Shebandowan  band,  the  gold-bearing  rock  is  found. 

Oold-bearing  veins  are  reported  at  Cross  Lake,  on  the  Red-River  route.     Rich 

copper-regions  are  reported  still  farther  to  the  west.     These  mines  nearly,  all 

await  the  pick  and  gunpowder. 

.Among  the  other  mineral  resources  of  Canada  are  zinc,  cobalt,   zinc  and 
manganese,  gypsimi,  granite,  sandstone,  marbles  of  every  imagi-   othermetai*. 
nable  color,  slate,  and  petroleum.      A  magnificent  display  of  specimens  of 


i\ 


h; 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


/. 


^>. 


4^ 


1.0 


I.I 


1.25 


■50     ■^™       !■■ 

■u  lii   12.2 


^  its, 

m 


■  2.0 

-    1. 
Utau 


It 


Photographic 

Sciences 
Corporation 


23  WIST  MAIN  STMIT 

WIBSTII,N.Y.  MStO 

(71*)«7a-4S03 


^ 


^ 


<> 


^ 


926 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


these  and  all  other  metals  and  minerals  of  Canada  was  made  at  the  Philadel- 
sutiiticiof  phia  Exhibition  in  1876.  The  following  is  a  statement,  from  the 
production,  census  of  1871,  of  the  raw  mineral  product  of  Canada  for  the  year, 
the  principal  items  alone  being  given :  — 


IRON 
ORE, 
TONS. 

COPPER 
ORE, 
TONS. 

COAL, 
TONS. 

PEAT, 
TONS. 

GOLD, 
01. 

SILVER, 
OZ. 

PYRITES, 
TONS. 

MAN- 
GANESE, 
TONS. 

GYPSUM, 
TONS. 

PETRO- 
LEUM, 
GALLS. 

STONE  FOlf 
DRESSING, 
CUBIC  FT. 

Ontario    . 
Quebec     . 
N.  Rruns- 
wick  .  . 
N.  ScoUa, 

30.7»6 
92,001 

3,070 
3.566 

'.934 
11,326 

50 

13,302 
657.506 

M,597 

160 
»5 

199 
34« 

«9.33» 

69.«97 

SOO 
2,300 

475 

160 

4.«30 

"3.659 
96,544 

".969.435 
".969,435 

».093.7>i 

•.674.362 

810,552 
628,1;! 

Total   . 

129.J63 

i3.3«o 

671,008 

«4.77» 

22,941 

69,197 

2,800 

63s 

•M.433 

5,206,796 

What  a  pity  that  by  the  side  of  this  modest  statement  cannot  be  placed 

the  figures  of  the  mineral  product  of  Canada  a  hundred  years  hence,  when  the 

mining-industry  of  the  region  will  have  grown  from  the  squads  of 

Future  de-  ,  ...  ,  ... 

veiopments     the  scattered  recruitmg-sergeants  to  a  grand   army  planting  its 
of  mineral       banners  on  all  the  fortresses  of  trade,  and  by  its  achievements  wiii- 

wealth 

ning  the  applause  and  respect  of  the  whole  world  !  Of  course,  t!ie 
figures  for  1877  are  somewhat  better  for  all  the  classes  of  product  mentioned, 
except  petroleum ;  but  they  do  not  change  the  embryonic  character  of  the 
industry,  and  would  not  make  p.  comparison  with  the  product  of  a  hundred 
years  hence  any  less  interesting.  With  reference  to  petroleum,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  product  is  falling  off,  owing  to  the  exhaustion  of  the  wells.  Tlie 
manufacture  in  the  fiscal  year  of  1872-73  was  still  12,168,406  gallons:  but  iiv 
1874-75  it  was  only  4,009,663  ;  and  in  1875-76,  4,838,215. 


FARMING. 

The  vast  territories  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  stretching  northward  from 
the  United  States,  and  comprising  an  area  larger  than  that  of  the  United 
Extent  of  States  leaving  out  Alaska,  and  not  much  smaller  than  that  of 
territory.  Europe,  is  popularly  regarded,  by  most  people  who  reside  beyond 
their  borders,  as  delivered  over  to  the  austerities  of  a  barren  soil  and  an 
inhospitable  climate.  The  old  stories  that  used  to  circulate  in  Europe  and 
elsewhere  about  the  Canadian  winters  have  turned  millions  of  people,  seeking 
a  home  in  the  New  World,  away  from  the  regions  north  of  the  lakes  to  the 
broad  and  fertile  States  lying  south  of  them.  The  Canadians,  it  was  supposed, 
would  have  to  dress  in  furs,  and  live  by  timber-cutting,  trapping,  and  fishing. 
There  never  was  a  more  idle  fiction.  No  doubt  a  large  part  of  the  territories 
of  the  Dominion  in  the  extreme  north  are  characterized  by  long  and  dread- 
ful winters,  short  summers,  and  unfruitful  soils :  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the 


THE  INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


927 


fact  has  been  repeatedly  recognized  in  debates  in  the  American  Congress, 
that  Canada  is,  in  that  respect,  no  worse  off  than  the  United  States,  whose  dry 
and  burning  plains  in  the  Far  West  appear  almost  beyond  the  power  of  man  to 
reclaim  j  whereas  these  same  plains,  upon  passing  into  Canada,  change  their 
character.  The  Rocky  Mountains,  being  less  elevated,  and  having  a  narrower 
base,  admit  the  passage  of  clouds  from  the  Pacific  Ocean ;  and  the  fertilizing 
showers  descend  upon  that  happy  region  which  are  withheld  from  the  plains 
in  America.  At  the  same  time,  the  isothermal  line  of  60°  for  summer  — 
which,  in  the  eastern  provinces,  is  no  farther  north  than  about  the  forty- 
eighth  parallel  —  rises  on  the  Canadian  plains  to  the  sixty-first  parallel.    The 


w 


^  \\ 


CANADIAN  HORSB. 


soil  is  rich ;  and  thus,  for  a  distance  of  twelve  hundred  miles  northward  from 
the  boundary  of  the  United  States,  there  stretch  vast  plains,  upon  which  wheat, 
barley,  the  grasses,  and  many  root-crops,  will  thrive  bounteously.     In  Ontario, 
Quebec,  and  the  maritime  provinces,  the  land  and  climate  are  well  y^gj  „g, 
suited  to  agriculture  ;  and  farms  are  seen  in  every  part  of  the  in-  capable  of 
habited  portions  of  the  Provinces,  as  fertile,  thrifty,  and  well  kept  "="'*'^""°"- 
as  anywhere  on  the  continent.    With  the  exception  of  I^brador  and  the 
extreme  north,  the  whole  territory  of  Canada  is  equipped  with  rich  lands  and  a 
pleasant  climate.     Its  agricultural  capacity  "s  simply  enormous,  and  the  value 
of  the  unoccupied  regions  is  incalculable. 

Agriculture  began  to  be  practised  in  Canada  on  a  liberal  scale  about  the 


! 


938 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


time  of  the  war  for  American  independence.  That  war  caused  an  influx  of 
Becinnins  of  population  from  the  States  which  had  formed  the  American  Union  ; 
ap-icuiture.  and,  as  has  been  already  stated,  the  population  of  Canada  were 
rewarded  for  their  loyalty  to  the  king,  both  during  that  war  and  the  one  of 
immicration  i8i2,  by  special  privileges  in  supplying  the  West  Indies  and  Eng- 
iniSTs.  land  with  grain,  provisions,  and  lumber.     This  was  a  great  en- 

couragement to  farming  both  in  the  maritime  and  upper  provinces.     After 


CANADIAN    MOWING-MACHINE. 

i8i2,  considerable  immigration  to  Canada  took  place.  The  whole  population 
Population  '^^  *^^  region  had  been,  in  1790,  only  about  200,000  ;  but  in  1825 
of  country  what  are  now  the  Provinces  of  Ontario  and  Quebec  alone  had 
in '790.  637,000.     The  country  after  that  filled  up  very  fast.     In  1871 

the  population  of  Canada  was  3,602.321,  it  being  distributed  as  follows  :  — 

Ontario 1,620,851 

Quebec 1,191,516 

Nova  Scotia 387,800 

New  Brunswick 285,594 

Manitoba ".593 

British  Columbia 10,586 

Prince  Edward  Island 94>02i 

Total 3.602,321 

tncreate  of  A  very  large  proportion  of  the  incomers  to  Ontario  and  Que- 

farmert.  \^^^  ^gnj  immediately  into  farming,  and  agriculture  was  inspired 

with  fresh  life  in  all  of  the  Provinces.     In  1854  occurred  an  event  which  was 

Reciprocity  *  S"*^^*  Stimulus  to  this  interest.      A  treaty  of  reciprocity  with 

treaty  of  America  was  entered  into,  being  signed  by  the  Earl  of  Elgin  for 

'***■  Canada,  on  the  5th  of  June  of  that  year.     This  opened  to  Canadian 

farmers  a  market  for  their  produce  such  as  they  had  never  known.    A  de- 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


929 


mand  for  barley  suddenly  sprang  up,  and  the  cultivation  of  that  grain  spread 
rapidly  throughout  the  grain-growing  counties.     Barley  almost  excluded  wheat 
from  among  the  list  of  Canadian  crops.    The  wheat-crop  of  1856  The  barley- 
had  been  a  failure,  and  farmers  were  discouraged  with  the  idea  *='**?■ 
of  planting  it.     They  raised  barley  instead,  buying  wheat  and  flour  from  the 
United  States.     The  war  of  1861  in  the  United  States  then  broke  out,  and  the 
era  of  high  prices  began.     The  treaty  was  abrogated  in  1866,  but  Abrogation 
the  high  prices  continued;   and  until  1873,  when  the  financial  of  treaty  in 
crash  took  place,  or,  in  other  words,  for  a  period  of  nearly  twenty  '     ' 
years,  Canadian  farmers  had  the  benefit  of  the  most  lucrative  market  in  the 
world  for  the  sale  of  their  barley,  wheat,  dairy-produce,  and  other 
goods.     During  that  period  agricultural   exhibitions  were  insti-  farmersfor" 
tuted.     Dairy-farming,  with  its  concomitants  of  butter  and  cheese  twenty  year* 
factories,  was  developed.      Ontario  went  largely  into  the  pork-  |'J!f"'""* 
packing  business.     So  profitable  did  farming  become,  that  farms 
rose  to  the  value  of  a  hundred  dollars  an  acre.     Since   1873  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  seek  a  larger  market  for  the  surplus  produce  of  Canada  in 
South  America,  Europe,  and  the  Indies.     The  market  has  been  t.,,^,, 
found,  however ;  and  Canada  has  no  more  difficulty  in  disposing  progresa 
of  her  grain  and  provisions  than  before,  though  the  prevalent  "'""'"^a- 
depression  of  prices  prevents  her  from  obtaining  the  bounteous  profits  of  the 
era  of  war  and  reciprocity.     One  of  her  best  customers  is  England. 

It  is  regretted  that  there  are  no  later  returns  than  those  of  187 1  in  regard 
to  the  total  product  of  this  interest.     The  figures  for  that  year,  statistics 
however,  serve  to  give  a  fair  idea  of  what  the  farmers  of  Canada  ^*"'  ''7«. 
are  doing.    They  are  as  follows  :  — 


Ontario       .        . 

Quebec 

New  Brunswick . 

Hova  Scotia 

Total    . 


*2 


M.233.389 

3,058,076 

304,911 

337,497 

i6.7»3.87» 


si 


9.461  ,»33 
1,668,308 

»o.547 
396,050 


11,406,038 


I-  5 
<  5 
o  « 


33,138,958 
15,116,363 

3.°44.'34 
3,190,099 


u  u 

>  I 


"3 

Z  Ul 

f  X 


S47.6ooj    585.158 

458,970  1,676,078 

»3.79»  «.23'.09« 

33.987I    234.i'57 


c  = 


3,148,467 17,138,534 1,804,476 
603,356 18,068,333 1,235,646 


37,658 
'-3.349 


4».48o,453  '.064,358  3. 72<'.484  3.803,830 


6,56a,355| 
5.560,975! 


344.793 
443.73a 


47.330.187  3.8>8,64i 


^2- 


6.»47.44» 

to,497.4iS 

380,004 

I5«.»9<» 


17,376,054 


A  few  later  figures  are  the  following :  In  1875  the  splendid  wheat-crop  of 
that  year  made   the   production  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  wheat-crop 
30,  1876,  as  much   as   26,834,680  bushels,  of  which  8,600,000  'o^'^ts- 
bushels  were  exported  in  flour  and  grain.    The  pork-packing  of  1876  was 
244,742  head,  making  about  38,000  barrels  of  pork. 

In  regard  to  dairy-produce,  Canada  now  fully  supplies  her  own  market. 


930 


THE  INDUSTRIES   OF   CANADA. 


Townships  on  the  border  of  the  United  States  buy  a  small  quantity  of  Ameri. 
Oairy-prod-  can  butter  and  cheese ;  but  the  whole  quantity  of  both  will  not 
*>ce.  exceed  250,000  pounds,  and  is  too  insignificant  almost  for  men- 

tion. On  the  other  hand,  '.he  export  of  both  of  these  articles  is  now  very 
large,  showing  how  admirably  the  interest  has  been  developed,  and  what  a 


FARM-SCBNI. 


large  surplus  Canada  produces  beyond  the  demands  of  her  own  consumption. 
The  increase  of  the  export  of  cheese  has  been  due  to  the  attention  paid  to 
the  factory-system.    The  exportation  has  been  as  follows  :  — 


1869 
1870 
1871 
3872 

•873 
1874 
187s 
1876 


BUTTER 
(rOUNDSh 


10,853,268 
12,259,887 
15,439,266 
19,068,348 
15,208,633 
12,233,046 
9,268,044 
12,392,367 


CHBBSB 

(pounds). 


4.503.370 
5,827,782 

8.271,439 
16,424,025 
19,483,211 
24,050,982 
32,342,030 
35,024.090 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


93 » 


The  export  price  of  butter  has  remained  at  an  average  from  nineteen  to 
twenty-one  cents  and  a  half;  and  that  of  cheese,  from  eleven  to  twelve 
cents  and  a  quarter. 

The  principal  development  of  the  factory  system  in  Canada  dates  from 
1871.  The  success  of  a  few  factories  which  had  been  tried  led  to  the  rapid 
building  of  a  large  number  of  oliiers.  The  system  everywhere  introduction 
met  with  the  support  and  encouragement  of  farmers,  who  soon  of  the  fac- 
came  to  discover,  that  by  clubbing  togetlier,  and  building  a  factory  *"'''  »y»tem. 
to  which  the  milk  could  be  sent  for  conversion  into  cheese,  they  could  save 
themselves  the  expenditure  of  much  time  and  labor,  and  get  in  return,  perhaps, 
a  better  quality  of  cheese  than  if  they  had  made  it  themselves.  The  Province 
of  Ontario  has  been  the  most  active  in  the  building  of  factories  ;  and  its  yearly 
conventions  of  factory-men,  farmers,  and  scientists,  interested  in  cheese  and 
butter  making,  are  among  the  most  valuable  and  interesting  of  the  meetings 
which  take  place  in  the  province.  Canadian  cheese  has,  by  means  of  the 
attention  paid  to  its  manufacture,  now  attained  a  reputation  in  the  commerce 
of  the  world  which  is  unsurpassed.  At  the  Philadelphia  Exhibition  it  made  a 
decided  sensation,  and  the  demand  for  it  in  Europe  is  increasing  every  year. 

The  total  exi)ortation  of  farm-products  from  Canada  now,  in-  Farm- 
eluding  live  cattle  and  horses,  meats,  and  wool,  amounts  to  the  P'o<Juctt. 
very  large  sum  of  ;?30,ooo,ooo  to  $35,000,000  annually. 


MANUFACTURING. 

Willi  reference  to  general  manufacturing,  it  may  be  said  that  the  Canadian 
provinces  have  had  essentially  the  same  experience  as  all  agricultural  and 
maritime  states  since  the  world  began.  The  people  have  followed  the  pursuits 
which  required  the  least  expenditure  of  toil,  and  those  which  the  natural  re- 
sources of  the  country  suggested  the  most  directly ;  and  these  were,  in  Canada, 
fishing,  lumbering,  and  forming.  Some  parts  of  the  Dominion  are  still  only 
one  step  removed  from  this  original  and  natural  condition  of  things,  in  which 
the  large  body  of  the  population  are  sustained  by  open-air  pursuits.  The 
most  extreme  instance  is  the  case  of  Newfoundland,  which  has  no  manufac- 
tures except  those  simple  and  necessary  arts  of  carpentry,  blacksmithing,  &c., 
without  which  the  fishery-business  could  not  be  carried  on.  It  has  no  general 
manufacturing  whatever.  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Bmnswick  occupy  the  first 
terrace  above  the  position  of  exclusively  agricultural,  fishing,  mining,  and 
timber-cutting  provinces.  They  are  supplied  with  nearly  all  the  ordinary 
shops  for  the  manufacture  of  carriages,  boots  and  shoes,  clothing,  machinery, 
iron-work,  furniture,  and  other  articles  of  general  consumption,  which  the 
Provinces  require  ;  and  they  have,  besides,  a  cotton-factory  or  two,  iron  and 
steel  rolling-mills,  large  ship-yards,  and  other  establishments,  the  operation  of 
which  requires  large  capital,  and  great  manual  skill  on  the  part  of  the  working- 


933 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


men.  The  two  more  densely-settled  Provinces  of  Ontario  and  Q"ebec  ar« 
Pr  vincei  *'*°  *^"  Supplied  with  the  shops  needed  for  the  production  of 
Ontario  and  articles  of  common  use.  They  have  in  addition  made  a  consider- 
Quebec  able  advance  into  the  field  of  general  manufacturing,  and  have 

advanced  in  "ow  fully  laid  the  foundations  of  that  which  will  become,  following 
manufactur.  the  growth  of  the  country,  a  great  and  thriving  national  industry. 
"*■  They  have  cotton  and  woollen  factories,  chemical-works,  distil- 

leries, machine-shops,  locomotive-works,  great  carriage  and  agricultural-imple- 
ment factories,  and  many  other  of  the  higher 
and  more  important   classes  of  establish- 
ments.    They  have  not  factories  enough 
yet  fully  to  supply  their  own  market  with 
cloth,  manufactured  iron  and  steel,  cutlery, 
fancy-goods,  glassware,  railway-material,  and 
many  other  things  which  their  high  civiliza- 
tion demands ;  but  neither  has  their  neigh- 
bor the  United  States,  which  is  far  more 
populous,  and  has  far  more  capital.     The 
Canadians  are  ambitious,  and  are  not  con- 
Annuai  im-     tent  with  the  situation,  when  they 
portation.       reflect  that  they  are  obliged  to 
import  about  $70,000,000  of  manufactured 
goods  every  year  to  supply  the  deficiencies  of  their  own  production.    They 
are  anxious  for  a  policy  which  shall  bring  about  a  more  rapid 
building-up  of  their  own  factory-interests.    Their  spirit  in  regard 
to  the  matter  is  that  which  always  moves  a  free,  intelligent,  pro- 
gressive race ;  yet  it  must  be  said  that  the  development  thus  far 
is  commendable,  and  will  compare  favorably  with  that  of  any 
other  agricultural  people. 

The  following  table  shows  the  degree  of  development  which  the  industries 
of  Canada  had  obtained  in  1871,  the  year  of  the  census :  — 


TURBINB-WHSBL. 


Desire  of 
people  to 
promote  dO' 
mestic  man' 
ufacturea. 


CAHTAL. 

EMrLOYEES. 

WAGES. 

RAW  MATERIAL. 

PRODUCT. 

Ontario .        .        • 
Quebec  . 
New  Brunswick 
Nova  Scotia  . 

$37,874,010 

28,071,868 

5,976,1     '> 

6,041,906 

87,281 
66,714 

»'5.352 
•S.59S 

$21,415,710 

'2.389.673 
3,869,360 
3,176,266 

$65,114,804 

44.555.025 
9.431.760 
5,806,257 

$1  14,706,799 
77,205,182 

17.367.687 
12,338,105 

Total      . 

$77,964,020 

187,942 

$40,851,009 

$124,907,846 

$221,617,773 

The  product  increased  considerably  during  the  three  years  following  the 
census. 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


933 


Among  the  largest  items  in  the  list  of  manufactures  in  1871  were  the 
following :  — 


Boots  and  shoes      .... 

Furniture 

Carriages 

Flour       

Machinery  and  castings  . 

Leather 

Ships 

-Spirits 

Ale  and  beer 

Woollen  cloth 

Woollen  cloth  (home-made),  about 

Sawed  lumber 

Chemicals 

Engines 

Paper       .        ... 

Ropes  and  cordage .        .        .        . 

Musical  instruments 

Carding  and  fulling 


NUMBER  OP 
PACTOKIES. 

EMPLOYEES. 

VALUE  OV 
PKUDUCT. 

4,191 

18,719 

*i6,i33,638 

854 

4.366 

3,580,978 

2,636 

7.798 

4,849.234 

2.295 

4.992 

39.i'35.9'9 

430 

7,653 

7.325.53" 

1,142 

4,207 

9.>84.932 

252 

0,046 

4,432,262 

20 

467 

4.092,537 

'37 

918 

2, 1 4 1, =29 

270 

4.453 

5.507.549 

•  •  ■  • 

7,ooo,coo 

S.2S4 

35.681 

30,256,247 

.... 

8i^?S- 

.... 

1,044,000 

.... 

•  •  •  •  • 

1,071,651 

.... 

769,000 

.... 

622,162 

650 

1,224 

2,253,794 

idustries 


|i4,706,799 
^7,205,182 

^7,367,687 

^2,338.»oS 

81,617.773 


iring  the 


The  period  of  active  development  of  general  manufacturing  began  in  1855 
with  the  reciprocity  treaty ;  but  was  not  due  to  that  treaty,  however,  except  in 
part.    The  years  of  1855  and  1856  were  those  in  which  the  Grand  0  _i    , 
Trunk  Railway  was  building,  —  a  road  which  it  cost  a  hundred  and  period  of  ac- 
five  million  dollars  to  get  into  complete  operation.    The  enormous  «>ve  develop- 
sums  spent  by  the  Grj^rd  Trunk  Company  among  the  people,  the 
employment  it  gave  to  all  the  spare  labor  of  Canada,  the  heavy  importation  of 
working-people  from  the  Old  World  to  assist  in  constructing  the  road,  and  the 
shops  built  to  supply  the  road  with  material,  gave  a  tremendous  stimulus  to 
every  business-interest  in  Canada.     In  1859  the  protection  princi-  Tariff  of 
pie  was  infused  into  the  tariff  of  Canada  by  Mr.  Gait ;  and  after  ''m- 
1 86 1  the  farmers  of  Canada  became  extremely  prosperous  bv  reason  of  the 
large  prices  they  were  obtaining  for  their  produce  in  America  under  the  reci- 
procity treaty,  thns  enabling  them  to  become  good  customers  in  the  purchase 
of  manufactured  wares.    These  things  all  assisted  Canadian  industry.     Facto- 
ries sprang  up  .hroughout  the  Provinces  like  magic  ;  and  the  period  was  one 
of  universal  activity,  bustle,  and  prosperity.     In  1866  the  reciprocity  treaty  was 
abrogated.    This,  in  its  nature,  was  a  blc  \v  at  Canadian  interests.     It  certainly 
was  so  regarded  north  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  lakes.    It  cut  oflF  the  ready 
and  profitable  market  the  fanners  had  for  so  long  enjoyed,  and  placed  them 


934 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


CORLISS  ENGINE. 


Vigor  dii- 
played  in 
building  up 
manufaC' 
turet. 


under  great  disadvantages  for  the  sale  of  their  produce.      It  is  well  known 

that  whatever   seriously  afTects  the 
farming  community  quickly  re-acts 
upon  every  other  occupation  in  the 
country.    The  ill  effect  of  tht  abro- 
gation of  the  treaty  was,   however, 
averted   by   prompt   action   on   the 
part  of  the  people  of  the  Dominion. 
With  true  northern  vigor  they  set  on 
foot  compensatory  measures,  and  in- 
dustry and  agriculture  continued  to 
thrive  side  by  side.     What  was  done  is  referred  to  by  Sir  Edward  Thornton, 
in  his  "  Memorandum  of  C^ommercial  Relations  "  submitted  to  the  govern- 
ment at  Washington  in  April,  1874,  as  follows  :  — 

"The  industry  of  Canada  had  been  largely  attracted  to  the  supply  of  the 
American  market  with  commodities  for  home  consumption  as  well  as  for 
foreign  exportation;  and  the  repeal  in  1866  of  the  reciprocity 
treaty,  under  which  so  vast  a  trade  had  grown  up,  rendered  im- 
peratively necessary  prompt  measures  to  open  new  markets  for  the 
sale  of  Canadian  produce.  These  measures  were  at  once  taken. 
Under  the  influence  of  the  formal  notice  given  by  the  United 
States,  in  1865,  of  their  intention  to  terminate  the  treaty,  confederation  of  the 
Provinces,  then  under  discussion,  was  hurried  up,  and  became  a  fait  accompli 
within  fifteen  months  after  the  repeal.  The  Intercolonial  Railway  was  at  once 
undertaken,  at  a  cost  of  over  twenty  million  dollars,  at  the  national  expense, 
to  secure  direct  communication  to  and  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  at  Halifax  and 
St.  John  on  Canadian  soil.  Commissioners  were  despatched  to  the  British 
and  other  West-India  islands,  and  to  the  South-American  States,  to  promote 
the  extension  of  direct  trade  between  them  and  the  Dominion.  The  enlarge- 
ment of  the  canals,  and  the  improvement  of  the  navigation  of  the  lakes  and 
the  River  St.  Lawrence,  the  construction  of  the  Ba_,-Verte  Canal  to  connect 
the  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Fundy  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  subsidizing  of 
ocean  and  river  steamship  lines,  ?nd  the  promotion  of  the  great  ship-building 
and  fishery  interests,  all  received  a  new  and  vigorous  impulse." 

The  building  of  the  Intercolonial  Railroad  was  alone,  for  a  time,  a  great 
compensation  for  the  repeal  of  the  reciprocity  treaty.  At  one  time,  in  1871, 
Conitruc.  there  were  employed  in  the  construction  of  it  133,694  men  and 
Hon  of  11,960    boys,   29,426  horses,  and   324   oxen.     The   huge  sums 

disbursed  in  Canada  for  the  labor  of  creating  this  road  and  its 
plant  did  much  to  atone  for  the  loss  of  free  markets  in  America. 
Another  cause  operated  concurrently  with  those  above  mentioned  to  sustain 
Canadian  industry  during  this  period.  The  state  of  affairs  in  America,  under 
the  influence  of  a  heavy  internal  taxation,  a  protective  tariff,  and  the  specula- 


Intcrcolonial 
Railroad. 


THE    INDUSTRIES    OF   CANADA. 


935 


i'. 


\). 


live  prices  which  grew  out  of  the  war,  gave  to  Canada  what  Mr.  Thomas  White, 
jun.,  colls  "  an  absolute,  entire,  and  complete  protection  of  all  the  industries 
of  the  country."  In  order  to  induce  the  maritime  provinces  to  unite  in  the 
confederation,  thii  protective  duties  introduced  by  Mr.  Gait  were  lowered 
almost  to  a  free-trade  basis,  —  to  a  low-tariff  basis,  at  any  rate.  But  the  high 
cost  of  labor  and  materials  in  the  United  States  saved  Canada  from  American 
competition ;  and  so  her  industries  went  on  expanding  and  thriving  in  spite 
of  the  repeal  of  1866,  which  seemed  so  much  against  her. 

Since  1873,  manufacturing  in  Canada  has  encountered  the  same  re-action 
as  it  has  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  The  collapse  of  speculation  and  unset- 
thng  of  the  markets  have,  however,  been  met  with  the  same  pluck  M«nuf«ctur. 
and  energy  which  characterized  the  Canadians  in  previous  crises.  »«>«  intereatt 
Manufacturers  have  reduced  expenses  and  production  to  give  the  ••'"«=•  "73- 
markets  a  chance  to  recuperate,  and  they  have  been  exceedingly  wide-awake 
in  the  matter  J.  opening  up  new  fields  for  the  sale  of  their  wares.  They  were 
present  at  the  Philadelphia  Exhibition  in  force,  and  made  a  display  of  goods 
which  attracted  marked  attention.  Their  whole  exhibit  of  agricultural  tools 
was  bought  by  the  Australian  commissioners  for  transportation  to  Australia. 
This  was  followed  up  by  the  Canadians  sending  a  ship  or  two  to  Sydney 
Sydney  direct,  loaded  with  goods  for  the  great  Exhibition  there,  Exhibition, 
and  for  sale.  They  made  a  better  show  in  that  Exhibition  than  the  Americans 
did,  and  they  have  been  active  ever  since  in  working  up  that  market.  They 
have  also  paid  fresh  attention  to  South-American  and  Indian  markets,  and  are 
leaving  no  stone  unturned  to  find  a  place  where  Canadian  goods  can  be  intro- 
duced, and  their  sale  made  to  yield  a  profit.  When  business  revives,  they  will 
be  in  a  most  admirable  position  to  catch  its  first  and  best  fruits. 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  of  Canadian  industries  is  ship-building. 
The  practice  of  the  art  by  that  people  is  historic,  it  having  come  down  from 
the  earliest  times.  The  bulk  of  the  building  is  done  in  the  mari-  ship- 
time  provinces  and  on  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence,  where  the  facili-  •»»"<"»«• 
ties  for  it  are  better  than  in  any  other  port  of  the  country,  and  where  the 
fisheries  make  constant  demands  upon  the  yards.  In  187 1  the  distribution  of 
the  yards  was  as  follows :  — 


I 


Ontario    . 
•Quebec    . 
New  Brunswick 
iNova  Scotia    . 

Total 


numbkr  op 
8hif-vaiids. 


19 

43 

78 

112 


252 


WORKMBN. 


450 
2,164 

1.364 
2,058 


6,046 


VALUE  OP 
PRODUCT. 


$3S9.2I2 

i.3S».4«6 
1,086,714 
1,634,920 


$4,432,262 


936 


THB   INDUSTRIES   OF   CANADA. 


In  1877  the  number  of  vessels  built  in  Canada  was  508,  of  which  365  were 
launched  in  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia,  and  Prince  Edward  Island.  This 
Ship*  built  refers  simply  to  vessels  large  enough  to  be  registered.  There  were 
In  '*n>  built  in  addition  a  large  number  of  small  boats  for  fishing-purposes 

alongshore,  the  production  of  which  may  have  been  as  many  as  a, 000,  there 
being  built  four  of  these  independent  small  boats  on  an  average  to  one  of  the 
registered  craft.  The  figures  for  Newfoundland  are  not  at  hand.  Of  the 
508  vessels  built  in  1877,  no  were  sold  to  foreigners.  The  Canadian  ships 
are  generally  built  of  soft  wood,  —  that  is,  spruce,  hackmatack,  and  pine,  —  in 
distinction  from  oak,  the  latter  wood  being  the  more  common  wood  in  Ameri- 
can ships.  They  are  good  sailers,  and  last  for  from  twelve  to  fifteen  years. 
The  Canadian  merchant-marine  in  1871  included  5,67a  vessels,  399  of  thenk 
being  steamboats,  and  3,019  barges. 

w 


Bltttretyptd  and  PrinUd  hf  Rand,  Aviry,  A*  C».,  BmU*- 


'i 


